Franziska Baier-Mosch

An aging workforce is confronted with the accelerating changes brought about by digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI). This also affects the teaching profession, where the workforce is not only aging but also predominantly female. Some studies have shown that women tend to have a more negative attitude towards AI technology than men. Therefore, the question arises as to whether older teachers and female teachers are prepared to deal with AI-related changes, or whether age and female gender are associated with lower will and skill to engage with AI and teach it to students. We investigated how teachers’ age and gender relate to the cognitive and affective aspects of teachers’ attitudes towards teaching AI ( will ) as well as their knowledge about teaching AI ( skill ). In a sample of 177 teachers, we found that teacher age and female gender were positively related to cognitive beliefs about the importance of teaching AI to students, while age was negatively related to positive affect when engaging with AI. Furthermore, older and female teachers found it more difficult to learn about AI and had less AI content knowledge about basic concepts. Our findings suggest that the age and gender of teachers should be considered when designing teacher training programs on AI.

Instructional videos need to maintain learners’ attention to foster learning, therefore, a fine-grained measurement of attention is required. Existing gaze measures like inter-subject correlation (ISC) assume a singular focal point deemed meaningful for indicating attention. We argue that multiple meaningful foci can exist and propose an automatically generated gaze measure labeled gaze cluster membership (GCM). By applying the density-based clustering in spatial databases (DBSCAN) algorithm to gaze position data from over 100 participants, we categorize viewers as attentive when they are part of a cluster and as inattentive when they are not. Using two videos, we demonstrate that our settings of DBSCAN generate meaningful clusters. We show that low ISC values (neuronal and eye tracking data) during multiple meaningful foci do not necessarily indicate a lack of attention. Additionally, GCM predicts participants’ self-reported mental effort and their tested knowledge. Our innovative approach is of high value for assessing learner attention and designing instructional videos.

The common factors hypothesis as an explanation for the equivalent therapy outcome paradox has stimulated numerous empirical and theoretical studies. However, the existing common factors models (e.g., the contextual model) have hardly succeeded in convincingly linking the quite different common factors and at the same time considering their different conceptualization as technique (e.g., exposure) or process (e.g., expectations). We attempt to overcome these limitations by showing how common factors can be explained and linked against the background of the well-known self-determination theory (SDT). In particular, we will show how common factors can be integrated in the context of SDT concepts of basic psychological needs satisfaction (autonomy, relatedness and competence) and integration of experiences and extrinsic regulations into a unified sense of self. We will argue that repeatedly proposed common factors (e.g., awareness/insight, emotion/behavior regulation, positive expectations/hope, social belonging) can be understood as processes of either autonomy, competence or relatedness need satisfaction and autonomous regulation that lead to positive patient outcomes. Furthermore, we will show how common factors that are techniques rather than change processes (e.g., alliance building) can trigger the common change processes that reflect basic need satisfaction and autonomous regulation.

Utility value interventions are one approach to promote students’ interest experience and performance. It is unexplored how utility value interventions affect attention besides enjoyment and perceived value as important aspect of interest experience. The present research investigated the effects of a directly-communicated utility value intervention on students’ enjoyment, perceived value, performance and self-reported and neuronal attention (EEG alpha-band activity). In a first study, 139 psychology students watched a video-taped mathematics lecture online. The lecture emphasized the utility value of logarithms to psychology students by drawing on examples from psychology (n_EG = 70). Examples from natural sciences were used in the control group (n_CG = 69). In a second experiment with 52 psychology students (n_EG = 23, n_CG = 29) the same intervention was tested in a laboratory setting while the students’ electroencephalogram was recorded. The utility value intervention increased students’ perceived value in both settings. No main effect for any other outcome was found.

The present study aimed to investigate the relative predictive power of teachers’ beliefs about cooperative learning, their participation in professional development courses on cooperative learning, emotional exhaustion, and the frequency of cooperative learning implementation before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic for the frequency of cooperative learning implementation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two hundred and sixty-eight German teachers participated in an online survey in the spring of 2021 (retrospective self-reports, cross-sectional). The study revealed three key findings: first, teachers used cooperative learning significantly less often in face-to-face teaching during the pandemic than before the pandemic. Second, teachers’ positive beliefs about cooperative learning and their participation in professional development courses predicted the frequency of cooperative learning implementation before the pandemic. But, third, neither of these aspects of teachers’ expertise predicted the implementation of cooperative learning in face-to-face teaching during the pandemic. Only the frequency of implementation before the pandemic predicted implementation during the pandemic which may point to the value of routine in times of crisis. Our findings suggest that the predictive power of aspects of teacher expertise (such as their beliefs) varies with contextual conditions.

We investigated two sources of classroom management knowledge in 93 pre-service teachers. The first research question focused on knowledge from university studies, which is thought to be evidence-based knowledge, and whether its use for problem solving in the classroom can be fostered by means of knowledge activation. The experiment showed that knowledge activation did not lead to higher use of knowledge from university studies and better problem solving. The second research question focused on knowledge from own schooling experiences and its content as compared to knowledge from university studies. The pre-service teachers’ knowledge from own schooling was strongly focused on simple reactive strategies, only as compared to knowledge from university studies.

The study investigated the effectiveness of reverse mentoring as an innovative instructional method to promote pre- and in-service teachers’ digital competence. We conducted a quasi-experimental intervention study with 90 pre-service and 57 in-service teachers who took part in two-day online-workshops. The effectiveness of the reverse mentoring-intervention, where pre- and in-service teachers worked together in pairs to jointly develop ideas for the use of digital technology in the classroom, was compared to collaborative learning formats among peers in university seminars for pre-service teachers (control group 1) and professional development workshops for in-service teachers (control group 2). Technological-pedagogical knowledge (TPK), self-efficacy and positive beliefs about teaching with digital technology were investigated as outcomes. Pre- and in-service teachers in all groups gained in self-efficacy beliefs, whereby reverse mentoring was not more effective than the control conditions. TPK and positive beliefs about teaching with digital technology did not change over the course of the interventions. The results show that pre-service teachers can effectively act as mentors for in-service teachers to support their self-efficacy beliefs regarding the use of digital technology. However, we did not find evidence that reverse mentoring is more effective than peer learning among pre-service and in-service teachers to promote digital competence.

As knowledge derived from scientific theory can be helpful for teachers to reflect on their everyday teaching, universities have the challenging task of teaching this knowledge in such a way that pre-service teachers are able to apply it to their later teaching. Case-based learning has emerged as a promising method to foster pre-service teachers’ scientific knowledge application throughout university teacher education. However, surprisingly, empirical evidence for its effectiveness as compared to more traditional instructional interventions in teacher education is still inconclusive, partly being due to constraints concerning the employed comparison groups. The present quasi-experimental study (conducted in the field of classroom management) investigated the effect of studying exactly the same theoretical content with and without text-based cases on scientific knowledge application (as measured by a vignette test) in a sample of 101 pre-service teachers. Although the study found a small advantage for the case-based learning group, it demonstrated that scientific knowledge application may also be effectively fostered in a more traditional instructional course. The findings and their implications are discussed against the background of cognitive theories on inert knowledge and how to prevent it in teacher education.