Learning from errors in mathematics classrooms: Development over 2 years in dependence of perceived error climate.

BACKGROUND: Errors can provide informative feedback and exhibit a high potential for learning gains. Affective-motivational and action-related reactions to errors are two forms of error adaptivity that have been shown to enhance learning outcomes from errors. However, little is known regarding the development and contextual conditions of students' error reactions. A theoretically plausible facilitator to this end is the perceived error climate in the classroom. AIM: We investigated how students' dealing with errors develops over time and which role the classroom context in general, and the perceived error climate in particular, has for this development. SAMPLE: A total of 1641 students participated in 69 mathematics classrooms in academic secondary schools. METHODS: Perceived error climate alongside students' self-reported individual reactions to errors were assessed in a 2-year longitudinal study with five measurement points over the fifth and sixth grade. RESULTS: Growth-curve modelling indicated an, on average, negative development of students' individual reactions to errors. This development varied substantially between classrooms and systematically depended on perceived error climate. A more positive error climate was associated with a less negative development of error adaptivity. CONCLUSION: Taken together, our findings imply a strong need and considerable room for the teachers' support in developing and maintaining adaptive reactions to errors. They also allow for the conclusion that teachers can succeed here by means of realizing a positive error climate in class.

Merits and limitations of latent profile approaches to teachers' achievement goals: A multi-study analysis.

Research on teacher goals has primarily followed a variable-centered approach, although person-centered approaches have inspired achievement goal research in other domains. The multiple goal perspective posits that individuals pursue different combinations of goals-goal profiles-that might be differentially adaptive or maladaptive. We investigate how beneficial goal profiles may be for research on teacher motivation, using data from three study sets (total N = 3,681) from different countries (Israel, Germany) and institution types (schools, universities). We analyzed whether psychologically meaningful, coherent, and generalizable goal profiles could be identified and compared the explanatory power of profiles and individual goals as predictors of teachers' self-efficacy and work-related distress. Results showed six psychologically meaningful and largely generalizable goal profiles. Compared to individual goals, profiles only explained little differences in self-efficacy and work-related distress. Given these findings, we critically evaluate achievement goal profiles as a means to study effects of teacher goals.

Call me maybe: Risk factors of impaired social contact during the COVID-19 pandemic and associations with well-being.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused major societal changes worldwide, with the most notable being lockdowns and restrictions on social contact. We conducted a longitudinal study (total n = 1907) in Germany with two time points to (1) identify demographic risk factors of impaired social contact during the pandemic, as well as investigate potential consequences of (2) impaired social contact and (3) different modes of communication on individuals' well-being during the first lockdown in spring 2020. Results indicate that particularly individuals living alone and being unable to work reported a lower frequency of (face-to-face) contact in comparison with participants living with others or working. Impaired social contact was indirectly associated with a negative development in well-being (life satisfaction, anxiety and depression) over time, and this relation was mediated via relatedness. Moreover, the frequency of face-to-face and phone communication during lockdown was positively associated with relatedness and well-being; however, digital communication was not. The findings stress the importance of maintaining social contact in times of social distancing and of fostering reconnection between individuals once the pandemic is over.

"I'm tired of black boxes!": A systematic comparison of faculty well-being and need satisfaction before and during the COVID-19 crisis.

As of today, surprisingly little is known about the subjective well-being of faculty in general, but especially when teaching online and during a time of pandemic during lockdowns in particular. To narrow this research gap, the present study systematically compared the subjective well-being of faculty teaching face-to-face before to those teaching online during the COVID-19 pandemic, adopting a self-determination theory framework. The data reported here stem from a study conducted before the pandemic (Sample 1, n = 101) and which repeated-measures survey design we replicated to collect corresponding data during the pandemic (Sample 2, n = 71). Results showed that faculty teaching online during the pandemic reported impaired satisfaction of all three basic needs, that is reduced autonomy, competence, and especially relatedness, as well as impaired subjective well-being (clearly reduced enjoyment and reduced teaching satisfaction; increased anger and a tendency towards more shame) compared to faculty teaching face-to-face before the pandemic. Yet pride, anxiety, and boredom were experienced to a similar extent across both samples. The effects of the teaching format on the different aspects of subjective well-being were overall mediated in self-determination-theory-congruent ways by the satisfaction of the basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We conclude for a post-pandemic future that online teaching will supplement rather than replace face-to-face teaching in higher education institutions, as their importance for building relationships and satisfying social interactions not only for students but also for faculty seem to have been underestimated so far.

Motivational development in times of campus closure: Longitudinal trends in undergraduate students' need satisfaction and intrinsic learning motivation.

AIMS: Higher education systems around the world have enforced campus closures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Such measures may threaten students' basic psychological needs for relatedness, competence and autonomy, and the development of intrinsic learning motivation. Little is known about whether the implementation of campus closures yielded negative developmental patterns for these motivational variables. We aim to close this research gap. SAMPLE: We investigated developmental patterns in longitudinal data spanning the first four semesters of undergraduate students in two cohorts at one German university starting in 2013 and 2019 (cohort 1: normal study conditions; cohort 2: affected by campus closure). We used propensity score modelling to ensure comparability between both cohorts resulting in a sample of 435 students each (total n = 870 students). METHOD: We estimated conditional latent growth curve models (LGCM) to investigate developmental trends in need satisfaction and intrinsic learning motivation across the students' first four semesters and how these trends differed between the two cohorts. RESULTS: The results indicated a more maladaptive development of motivational variables for students of cohort 2 compared to students of cohort 1. More specifically, we found negative developmental trends following the implementation of campus closures for competence, relatedness and intrinsic learning motivation. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the importance of considering side effects for students' psychological functioning when discussing the implementation or renewal of campus closures. It seems important to find ways to carefully reopen higher education institutions while also minimizing further risks for students and faculty.

Encapsulation and Outdoor Testing of Perovskite Solar Cells: Comparing Industrially Relevant Process with a Simplified Lab Procedure.

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have shown great potential for next-generation photovoltaics. One of the main barriers to their commercial use is their poor long-term stability under ambient conditions and, in particular, their sensitivity to moisture and oxygen. Therefore, several encapsulation strategies are being developed in an attempt to improve the stability of PSCs in a humid environment. The lack of common testing procedures makes the comparison of encapsulation strategies challenging. In this paper, we optimized and investigated two common encapsulation strategies: lamination-based glass-glass encapsulation for outdoor operation and commercial use (COM) and a simple glue-based encapsulation mostly utilized for laboratory research purposes (LAB). We compare both approaches and evaluate their effectiveness to impede humidity ingress under three different testing conditions: on-shelf storage at 21 °C and 30% relative humidity (RH) (ISOS-D1), damp heat exposure at 85 °C and 85% RH (ISOS-D3), and outdoor operational stability continuously monitoring device performance for 10 months under maximum power point tracking on a roof-top test site in Berlin, Germany (ISOS-O3). LAB encapsulation of perovskite devices consists of glue and a cover glass and can be performed at ambient temperature, in an inert environment without the need for complex equipment. This glue-based encapsulation procedure allowed PSCs to retain more than 93% of their conversion efficiency after 1566 h of storage in ambient atmosphere and, therefore, is sufficient and suitable as an interim encapsulation for cell transport or short-term experiments outside an inert atmosphere. However, this simple encapsulation does not pass the IEC 61215 damp heat test and hence results in a high probability of fast degradation of the cells under outdoor conditions. The COM encapsulation procedure requires the use of a vacuum laminator and the cells to be able to withstand a short period of air exposure and at least 20 min at elevated temperatures (in our case, 150 °C). This encapsulation method enabled the cells to pass the IEC 61215 damp heat test and even to retain over 95% of their initial efficiency after 1566 h in a damp heat chamber. Above all, passing the damp heat test for COM-encapsulated devices translates to devices fully retaining their initial efficiency for the full duration of the outdoor test (>10 months). To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the longest outdoor stability demonstrations for PSCs published to date. We stress that both encapsulation approaches described in this work are useful for the scientific community as they fulfill different purposes: the COM for the realization of prototypes for long-term real-condition validation and, ultimately, commercialization of perovskite solar cells and the LAB procedure to enable testing and carrying out experiments on perovskite solar cells under noninert conditions.

Higher Education Instructors' Usage of and Learning From Student Evaluations of Teaching - Do Achievement Goals Matter?

Identifying what motivates and hinders higher education instructors in their self-regulated learning from student evaluations of teaching (SETs) is important for improving future teaching and facilitating student learning. According to models of self-regulated learning, we propose a model for the usage of SETs as a learning situation. In a longitudinal study, we investigate the associations between achievement goals and the usage of and learning from SETs in the context of higher education. In total, 407 higher education instructors (46.4% female; 38.60 years on average) with teaching commitments in Germany or Austria reported their achievement goals in an online survey. Out of these participants, 152 instructors voluntarily conducted SET(s) and subsequently reported their intentions to act on the feedback and improve future teaching in a short survey. Using structural equation modeling, we found, in line with our hypotheses, that learning avoidance, appearance approach, and appearance avoidance goals predicted whether instructors voluntarily conducted SET(s). As expected, learning approach and (avoidance) goals were positively associated with intentions to act on received SET-results and improve future teaching. These findings support our hypotheses, are in line with assumptions of self-regulated learning models, and highlight the importance of achievement goals for instructors' voluntary usage of and intended learning from SET(s). To facilitate instructors' learning from SET-results, our study constitutes a first step for future intervention studies to build on. Future researchers and practitioners might support instructors' professional learning by encouraging them to reflect on their SET-results.

Motivational school climate and teachers' achievement goal orientations: A hierarchical approach.

BACKGROUND: Teachers' achievement goal orientations are known to affect teachers' beliefs and behaviour. In contrast, we know relatively little on how school climate is associated with teachers' achievement goals, even though theoretical ideas can be derived from self-determination theory and empirical research on the impact of goal structures. The few studies that exist on the issue are limited as analyses were only conducted at the individual level and subsequent findings can, thus, not be interpreted as climate effects. AIM: We aimed to overcome this shortcoming by analysing associations between teachers' perception of school motivational climate and their achievement goal orientations at individual and at school level. We postulated that at school level a school's learning goal structure, autonomy-supportive leadership, positive feedback culture, and a collaborative climate would be associated with teachers' learning goal orientation, whereas a school's performance goal structure was supposed to align with teachers' performance (approach and avoidance) goal orientation. SAMPLE: A total of 532 teachers from 40 different schools filled out questionnaires on their achievement goal orientations and aspects of their work context. METHODS: We used hierarchical linear modelling to analyse effects at individual and at school level. RESULTS: Teachers' learning goal orientations and their performance avoidance goal orientations varied significantly across schools. Positive perceptions of schools' feedback culture at school level corresponded positively with learning goal orientations, and collaborative climate was negatively associated with performance (approach and avoidance) goal orientations. CONCLUSIONS: The results underline the importance of schools' motivational climate for teacher motivation and provide a starting point for developing strategies of workplace development.

Shifting from face-to-face to online teaching during COVID-19: The role of university faculty achievement goals for attitudes towards this sudden change, and their relevance for burnout/engagement and student evaluations of teaching quality.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many faculty members were required to abruptly shift from face-to-face to online teaching. Within this, some instructors managed well, while others struggled. To elucidate interindividual differences in online teaching and learning during this unexpected circumstance, we focus on faculty members' attitudes towards this shift and examine their associations with underlying motivations as well as burnout/engagement and student learning. We analyzed longitudinal data of 80 faculty members' achievement goals during the semester prior to shifting to online teaching, as well as their attitudes and burnout/engagement during the first semester with enforced online teaching. We additionally included 703 student ratings of these faculty members' teaching quality. Results indicated that learning approach goals of faculty were positively associated with perceiving the shift to online teaching as a positive challenge and as useful for their own competence development. Conversely, performance (appearance) avoidance and work avoidance goals went along with perceiving this change as threatening, which was in turn positively related to burnout levels and negatively related to student ratings of teaching quality. Taken together, these findings point to the relevance of faculty goals and attitudes for successful online teaching and learning.

Exploring University Instructors' Achievement Goals and Discrete Emotions.

Emerging empirical evidence indicates that discrete emotions are associated with teaching practices and professional experiences of university instructors. However, further investigations are necessary given that university instructors often face high job demands and compromised well-being. Achievement goals, which frame achievement-related thoughts and actions, have been found to describe motivational differences in university instructors and are hypothesized to be associated with their discrete emotions. Moreover, as variation exists in how university instructors respond to job demands regarding their emotional experiences, certain goals may moderate this relationship on the basis of framing different interpretations and reactions to stressors. To investigate these links, 439 instructors (46.7% female) from German and Austrian universities completed a survey assessing their achievement goals, discrete emotions (enjoyment, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, and boredom), and job demands. As hypothesized, multiple regression analyses revealed that achievement goals were differentially and meaningfully associated with discrete emotions. Specifically, learning approach goals were positively related to enjoyment and negatively related to anger and boredom, while learning avoidance goals were positively related to anger. Performance (appearance) approach goals were positively related to pride, and performance (appearance) avoidance goals were positively related to anxiety and shame. Lastly, relational goals were positively related to shame and boredom, and work avoidance goals were negatively related to enjoyment and positively related to shame and boredom. Conclusive moderation effects on the relations between job demands and emotions were not found. Future research avenues aimed at further understanding the supportive role that achievement goals can have for university instructors' emotional experiences and well-being are discussed.

The experience of ostracism over the adult life span.

Ostracism, that is, being excluded and ignored by others, is a highly painful and threatening experience for individuals. Most empirical research on ostracism has been carried out in the lab or focused on samples in specific contexts. Here, we investigate the effects of age on how individuals experience ostracism within a broad, representative sample of the adult German population (the Socio-Economic Panel). We find a generally negative relation between ostracism and age, such that older adults report experiencing ostracism less frequently. Further analyses show that a particular dip in the ostracism frequency curve around the age of 65 might be at least partly due to leaving the workforce. We further investigate cross-sectional as well as longitudinal effects of age on relations between ostracism frequency and psychological well-being, showing relatively stable associations between ostracism and negative emotions, reduced life satisfaction, as well as dysfunctional social behavior across the adult life span. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of performance goals and social norms on academic dishonesty in a test.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has shown that achievement goals affect the frequency of academic dishonesty. However, mixed findings suggest that especially the effect of performance goals might depend on contextual factors. AIMS: We wanted to investigate whether crucial aspects of the achievement situation influence the magnitude of the effect of performance goals (here: focused on appearance) on dishonesty. Specifically, we propose that social norms regarding the acceptance of dishonesty moderate the positive effect of performance goals on academic dishonesty. SAMPLE: We sampled 105 German university students. They were teacher trainees, mostly in their first year at university and on average 20.6 (SD = 3.6) years old (72.4% female). METHOD: We conducted a 2 (induced appearance goals vs. no goal induction) × 2 (cheating confederate vs. no observable cheating behaviour by this person) experiment. A manipulation check confirmed that the manipulation of appearance goals was successful. Cheating behaviour was observed by a confederate student and subsequently classified by two raters. Additionally, participants' dishonesty in self-presentation questions was measured using deviations from baseline measures. RESULTS: The induction of appearance goals only led to increased cheating when the social norm suggested that cheating behaviour was an acceptable way to increase performance (i.e., cheating confederate condition). For deceiving, we found a positive main effect of appearance goals. Appearance goals mediated these effects from goal manipulation on academic dishonesty. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our results highlight that the mixed findings on the effect of performance goals on academic dishonesty might be due to uninvestigated moderators such as social norms. Future research should build on these findings to identify additional moderators.

Effects of a brief psychological intervention on students' sense of belonging and educational outcomes: The role of students' migration and educational background.

Disadvantaged students who or whose parents immigrated (i.e., migration background) and first-generation students (i.e., non-academic background) have a higher risk of dropping out of school or university, earning poor grades, and facing mental health problems. This is likely in part a result of their impaired sense of belonging (e.g., feeling accepted and valued by peers and others) at educational institutions. In the current study, we tested the effectiveness of a belonging intervention that aims to reduce social disparities in sense of belonging-for the first time outside North America. Past research has demonstrated that the intervention supports disadvantaged students during the transition to middle school as well as to university. The intervention, at its core, is a brief reading-writing-exercise, which teaches that worries about belonging are common among freshmen and diminish over time. We conducted a pre-post-follow-up randomized control study with 86 freshmen (34.9% academic background, 44.2% non-academic background, 20.9% migration background). The intervention had differential effects on sense of belonging and self-reported grades after the first semester: For students without a migration background, the intervention had lasting positive effects on belonging; for students with a migration background, the positive effect diminished over time. Further, compared to students without a migration background, students with a migration background reported worse grades in the control condition and similar grades in the intervention condition. In addition, the intervention had positive-but no differential-effects on depression symptoms: students in the intervention group experienced less fluctuation and lower levels of depression symptoms than in the control group. The intervention had no significant effects on intentions to persist and emotional burden after six months. In sum, we found that the presented brief psychological intervention, adapted for the students with migration background, is effective but needs further customization to achieve positive and lasting outcomes.

Knowing One's Place: Parental Educational Background Influences Social Identification with Academia, Test Anxiety, and Satisfaction with Studying at University.

First-generation students (i.e., students whose parents did not attend university) often experience difficulties fitting in with the social environment at universities. This experience of personal misfit is supposedly associated with an impaired social identification with their aspired in-group of academics compared to continuing-generation students (i.e., students with at least one parent with an academic degree. In this article, we investigate how the postulated differences in social identification with the group of academics affect first-generation students' satisfaction with studying and test anxiety over time. We assume that first-generation students' impaired social identification with the group of academics leads to decreased satisfaction with studying and aggravated test anxiety over the course of the first academic year. In a longitudinal study covering students' first year at a German university, we found that continuing-generation students consistently identified more strongly with their new in-group of academics than first-generation students. The influence of social identification on test anxiety and satisfaction with studying differed between groups. For continuing-generation students, social identification with the group of academics buffered test anxiety and helped them maintain satisfaction with studying over time. We could not find these direct effects within the group of first-generation students. Instead, first-generation students were more sensitive to effects of test anxiety on satisfaction with studying and vice versa over time. The results suggest that first-generation students might be more sensitive to the anticipation of academic failure. Furthermore, continuing-generation students' social identification with the group of academics might have buffered them against the impact of negative experiences during the entry phase at university. Taken together, our findings underscore that deficit-driven approaches focusing solely on first-generation status may not be sufficient to fully understand the importance of parental educational background for students' well-being. More specifically, continuing-generation students might reap benefits from their parental educational background. These benefits widen the social gap in academia in addition to the disadvantages of students with first-generation status. In sum, understanding the benefits of continuing-generation status has important implications for interventions aiming to reduce social class gaps in academia.

Correction: Under threat by popular vote: German-speaking immigrants' affect and cognitions following the Swiss vote against mass immigration.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0175896.].

Under threat by popular vote: German-speaking immigrants' affect and cognitions following the Swiss vote against mass immigration.

A popular initiative in support of regulating future immigration to Switzerland was accepted by the electorate in 2014. Assuming that the initiative acted as an exclusionary threat for current immigrants of Switzerland, we conducted an online survey among a sample of highly-skilled German-speaking immigrants ("expats"). Participants reported having experienced negative affect following the vote. Moreover, having a more left-wing orientation, living in a political constituency that had voted pro-regulation and having proportionally few Swiss friends positively predicted negative affect following the vote. Negative affect was associated with a reported negative change in one's attitudes towards Switzerland, increased considerations to leave the country, and impaired satisfaction with life. In sum, the results suggest that a powerful exclusionary threat such as a national vote may be experienced as distressful by highly-skilled immigrants currently living in the country.