More Effective Consolidation of Episodic Long‐Term Memory in Children Than Adults—Unrelated to Sleep

Abilities to encode and remember events in their spatiotemporal context (episodic memory) rely on brain regions that mature late during childhood and are supported by sleep. We compared the temporal dynamics of episodic memory formation and the role of sleep in this process between 62 children (8–12 years) and 57 adults (18–37 years). Subjects recalled “what–where–when” memories after a short 1‐hr retention interval or after a long 10.5‐hr interval containing either nocturnal sleep or daytime wakefulness. Although children showed diminished recall of episodes after 1 hr, possibly resulting from inferior encoding, unlike adults, they showed no further decrease in recall after 10.5 hr. In both age groups, episodic memory benefitted from sleep. However, children's more effective offline retention was unrelated to sleep.     

Experiencing churches as spiritual and religious places: a study on children’s emotions in church buildings during scholastic field trips

Going on a field trip to the church, pupils can experience lived religion. But how do they feel during such a church visit? In this paper, we analyse statements of 516 German third graders (about 8 years old) made after they had visited their local church on a field trip. Using affective schema theory, we develop a conceptual model of emotions in churches that serves as theoretical framework for our quantitative content analysis. All in all, the vast majority of the participants report about positive feelings during their church visit. Moreover, it is one-third of the children who show spiritual or religious references in their statements. They talk about personal peace and comfort during the visit, or describe the church as a place to pray and experience the presence of God. Regression analysis identifies that it is the religiously educated children who express such references. Furthermore, children with high centrality of religiosity tend to choose traditional religious concepts, symbols and practices to express reference. These results are mostly in line with relevant theory from sociology of religion and primarily support the concept of subjective turn in religion.     

Narratives boost entrepreneurial attitudes: Making an entrepreneurial career attractive?

This article analyses the impact of narratives on entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions. To this end, a quasi-experiment was conducted to evaluate web-based entrepreneurial narratives. The paired-sample tests and regression analysis use a sample of 466 people from Austria, Finland, and Greece and indicate that individuals’ perceptions of the desirability of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intention are significantly different before and after exposure to entrepreneurial narratives. Furthermore, the findings indicate that perceptions of the feasibility of entrepreneurship are more strongly affected by videos than by cases. From a policy perspective, this study raises awareness that entrepreneurship is an attractive career path.     

Testing Measurement Equivalence of Eudaimonic and Hedonic Entertainment Motivations in a Cross-cultural Comparison

Within Hofstede’s framework of individualistic and collectivistic cultures, this contribution examines measurement equivalence of hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment motivations in two different cultures, namely Germany representing a more individualistic culture (N = 180) and Turkey representing a more collectivistic culture (N = 97). By means of a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, we could secure configural invariance for both hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment motivations across the German and Turkish sample. Metric invariance, however, could only be obtained for hedonic, but not for eudaimonic motivations. Scalar invariance was obtained for neither of the two entertainment motivations. The study points to the importance of equivalence testing when conducting cross-cultural research.     

Veränderungen in der gruppenspezifischen Nutzung von ganztägigen Schulangeboten - Längsschnittanalysen für den Primarbereich

Since the launch of the public investment program ‘Future Education and Care’ (IZBB) in 2003 the share of primary school aged children participating in all-day schooling in Germany has more than quadrupled. Against this backdrop, this study analyzes, the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics which are possibly related to a higher probability of attendance. Moreover, it analyzes changes in the composition of students participating in all-day schooling. Has there been rather a convergence or a divergence in the characteristics of participants and non-participants over time? Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the additional survey “Families in Germany” (FiD), our results show that in West Germany all-day school participants have become more similar according to their socioeconomic characteristics (in particular income), hence supporting the convergence hypothesis. In East Germany our findings also provide evidence for convergence. In contrast to West Germany, however, convergence applies to characteristics related to the household structure. Overall, there is no indication for divergence over time.     

Exploring the lack of a disfluency effect: evidence from eye movements

An eye-tracking study with 60 native Swedish speakers (18–30 years) was conducted to investigate the positive effects on learning outcomes predicted by the disfluency effect. Subtle low-pass filtering was used as a disfluency manipulation and compared with a control condition using regular text. The text was presented on four separate text presentation screens (TPSs), and eye movements were recorded. A free recall task was given 25 min later, and working memory capacity (WMC) was assessed to test if it would moderate learning outcomes. The disfluency manipulation had no effect on learning outcomes, total reading times on words or lines, first- or second-pass reading on lines, or average fixation durations. Moreover, the disfluency effect was not moderated by students’ WMC or self-reported prior knowledge of the topic. However, an adaptation to the disfluency manipulation was found. Total reading times on both words and lines were shorter in TPS 1 and 2 in the disfluency condition compared with the control condition, whereas reading times were longer in TPS 3 and 4. It is discussed if failures to replicate the disfluency effect arise from material features, with positive adaptations to disfluency (i.e., higher effort investment) possibly requiring more comprehensive materials.     

Pädagogisch-psychologisches Wissen von Lehrkräften aus Schule und Erwachsenenbildung: Entwicklung und Erprobung eines Testinstruments

Teachers’ pedagogical/psychological knowledge (PPK) is an important aspect of teacher competence. All conceptualisations developed so far assume that PPK is general and not specific for subjects or educational contexts. The authors take up this assumption and examine empirically whether PPK of school teachers and adult education teachers is general, i.?e. generic for subjects and educational contexts. Based on a conceptualisation validated through an expert survey (N = 44) the development of a digital test instrument with text- and videobased items is described. The article reports on the results of the structure, reliability, and DIF analyses of two PPK-facets on a total of N = 212 school and adult education teachers; analyses showed that both facets can be measured reliably with only small DIF-effects. The results point to the fact that – largely in line with the results of a literature content analysis and the expert survey – PPK is general over educational contexts. Finally, results are discussed with regard to the potentials of videobased instruments to measure teachers’ professional competence.     

Contrasting executive function development among primary school children from Hong Kong and Germany

Previous research findings indicate that young children from East Asia outperform their counterparts from Europe and North America on executive function (EF) tasks. However, very few cross-national studies have focused on EF development during middle childhood. The current study assessed the EF performance of 170 children in grades 2 and 4 from Hong Kong (n = 80) and Germany (n = 90) in a cross-sectional design. Children completed tasks assessing the main components of EF, namely inhibition (child-friendly Stroop task), updating (Object Span task), and shifting (Contingency Naming task). Results of multilevel models showed that all three EF measures differentiated well between younger and older children across the full sample. However, contrary to our hypothesis and previous research, we did not find any significant differences in EF performance between children from Hong Kong and Germany at primary school age. Our findings highlight the possibility that issues related to the measurement of EF and features specific to Hong Kong and Germany underlie our results.