Fani Lauermann

In this meta-analysis, we examine the association between teacher well-being and ill-being with student motivation and achievement. Based on 186 articles, 811 effect sizes, and data from 355,637 teachers, we investigate these relationships through the lens of the Job Demands–Resources Model, Transactional Stress Model, Self-Determination Theory, and the PERMA model. Using three-level meta-analytic models, we found small to moderate associations between student outcomes and teacher well-being ( r = .18) and ill-being ( r = –.13). These associations were similarly patterned across student motivation and student achievement, with no significant differences by outcome type. Associations were also comparable across domains of teacher functioning with no significant differences by domain. Moderator analyses indicated stronger associations in secondary school settings. Associations were also larger when teacher and student variables were reported by the same informant, although this difference reached conventional significance only for teacher ill-being and approached significance for teacher well-being. These findings suggest that teacher well-being and ill-being show reliable but modest associations with student motivation and achievement across a diverse body of research, though the evidence remains largely correlational. Given this correlational nature and the influence of measurement source, future longitudinal and intervention research is needed to clarify causal mechanisms and the direction of effects.

Motivational and emotional processes are presumed to play a key role in shaping who engages in retrieval practice. Furthermore, students' success or struggle with retrieval practice may shape their subsequent motivations and emotions, yielding “feedback loops” in which these processes are mutually linked. Building upon situated expectancy-value theory and control-value theory, the present study examined a) concurrent intraindividual associations between control and value beliefs, anxiety, and engagement and achievement during retrieval practice, b) their reciprocal intraindividual associations over time, and c) whether students' aggregated motivational and emotional experiences predicted their end-of-term achievement and anxiety. In addition to an begin- and end-of-term questionnaire, students (N=636) participated and reported their motivational experiences weekly during retrieval practice sessions across a semester. Dynamic structural equation models revealed that control, intrinsic value, and utility value were negatively related to anxiety, while cost was positively related to students' anxiety during retrieval practice. Anxiety was negatively associated with engagement and achievement. Additionally, reciprocal within-person associations indicative of feedback loops emerged, with engagement and partly achievement relating positively to subsequent control and value. Students' aggregated achievement during retrieval practice positively predicted their end-of-semester achievement, whereas trait- and aggregated state motivational and emotional experiences showed no incremental predictive effects. However, higher aggregated state anxiety was associated with higher end-of-semester test anxiety. Overall, these findings suggest that retrieval practice exercises can contribute to self-reinforcing motivational-emotional cycles across the semester, pointing to a pathway through which momentary experiences during retrieval practice may accumulate into end-of-term differences in test anxiety and academic achievement.

Many students in STEM programs experience motivational declines early in their studies, which predict later academic difficulties and dropout. The psychological processes that make some students more susceptible to motivational declines in achievement situations are still not well understood. Drawing on situated expectancy-value theory, this study examined the motivational beliefs of beginning STEM students in Germany (N = 3,213) who completed a low-stakes, statewide test of math prerequisites. Students rated their test-specific motivation four times during the test as they worked on different math content (e.g., basic arithmetic, geometry, calculus). Cross-classified variance decomposition analyses indicated that variation in students’ test-specific motivation and performance was primarily due to differences between individuals (person-level variance) and, to a lesser extent, differences between tested math content (content-level variance) and residual situation-specific variance. Cross-classified random effects models further showed that test performance and the difficulty of different content areas predicted students’ motivational beliefs after working on each test section. Importantly, even after controlling for differences in actual test performance, students with higher prior math achievement and higher-quality learning opportunities in high school reported higher test-specific motivation. Cross-level interactions indicated that positive prior experiences boosted students’ test-specific motivation independent of their test performance. Students’ test performance predicted their later performance in math-intensive STEM courses. These findings suggest that efforts to support STEM students’ motivation should consider the lasting impact of previous experiences with math, as these experiences shape students’ perceptions and engagement with new achievement situations within STEM—even in the absence of situation-specific performance differences.

Retrieval practice is a well-established strategy for enhancing memory retention. However, its effectiveness in authentic educational settings—particularly in mathematics and with respect to content transfer—remains understudied. We estimated the causal impact of retrieval practice on student performance in higher education, focusing on task-specific learning gains and content transfer (near vs. far). Participants were three cohorts of first-year business administration students in a gateway mathematics course (n1 = 636 in 2022/2023; n2 = 584 in 2023/2024; n3 = 571 in 2024/2025). Students completed weekly online retrieval practice exercises, with randomized assignments to different problem sets. Performance was assessed through three quizzes and a final exam. We estimated the local average treatment effect (LATE) using an instrumental variable approach combined with individual fixed effects. Retrieval practice improved quiz performance by 4–5 percentage points. Effects were strongest for isomorphic problems, then near-transfer problems, and only limited for far-transfer problems. On the final exam, retrieval practice yielded an 8-percentage-point LATE in one cohort, with smaller, nonsignificant gains in the others. The temporal distance between retrieval practice and quizzes did not systematically moderate outcomes. Our findings provide causal evidence that retrieval practice enhances mathematical learning in higher education by promoting a deeper conceptual understanding and facilitating near, and, in some cases, far content transfer.