Invited talk - Übergangsentscheidungen in Luxemburg

Conference given outside the academic context (2016)

Accuracy of teachers’ tracking decisions: Short- and long-term effects of accountability

in European Journal of Psychology of Education (2016), 31(2), 225-243

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10212-015-0259-4

Primacy effects in attention, recall and judgment patterns of simultaneously presented student information: Evidence from an eye-tracking study

in Hughes, Gary (Ed.) Student Achievement: Perspectives, Assessment and Improvement Strategies (2016)

Social cognition research has demonstrated that processes of memory and judgment formation are not only affected by information type but also by the sequence in which this information is received. These ... [more ▼]

Social cognition research has demonstrated that processes of memory and judgment formation are not only affected by information type but also by the sequence in which this information is received. These sequence (i.e. primacy and recency) effects are of special interest if the first or last information activates a social category, as this may increase the risk of stereotypical biases in decision making. This may be especially pertinent to the educational domain as studies have shown teachers´ judgments are influenced not only by students´ academic achievement but also their social background. Therefore, this study investigated primacy effects in the assessment of student performance. This study not only assessed the impact of sequence on memory and judgment, but also measured attention via eye-tracking techniques, hence offering a more detailed test of the assumption of the primacy effect (i.e. increased attention to the first piece of information). Forty participants were presented four student descriptions, containing information on the student’s grades, standardized test results, working behavior and social background. For half of the participants, social background information was presented in the top left position on the screen and grade information in the top right position. For the other half these positions were switched. The sequence of information was therefore not predefined by the experimenter, but left to the participant, however, given the left-to-right and top-to-bottom orientation common in Western European languages, the information in the top-left position was expected to draw initial attention of participants. After reading each student description, participants recommended a fitting secondary school track and later recalled student information. The design of the study is a 2×2 factorial design, with the position order (social background vs. grades in top-left position) as a between-subject factor and type of information (social background vs. grades) as a within-subject factor. According our expectations, eye-movements (i.e. fixations during the first second of presentation), showed a significant effect of the position order. Information in the top-left position received not only more initial attention, but also more attention throughout, than the same information positioned in the top-right position, thus indicating a primacy effect in attention. This result was only partially reflected in the recall data, and no differences resulted in the accuracy of judgments. The results confirmed that the positioning of simultaneously presented information leads to a primacy effect in attention, but does not produce primacy effects in subsequent memory and judgments. In regard to the common structure of various dossiers and records, which first list a student’s name and personal information, these findings imply that such structure may maximize teachers’ attention to social background information, stating a potential source of social disparities in educational systems. [less ▲]

Inklusive Bildung in Luxemburg: Unterstützung der Lehrerpersonen im Umgang mit Heterogenität.

Presentation (2015, November)

Forschungsprojekt INCLUS: Lehrereinstellungen und -kompetenzen als Rahmenbedingen der Inklusion

Speeches/Talks (2015)

Der Übergang vom Primar- zum Sekundarschulbereich: Übergangsentscheidungen von Lehrkräften

in Lenz, Thomas; Bertemes, Jos (Eds.) Bildungsbericht Luxembourg 2015 Band 2:Analysen und Befunde (2015)

The transition from primary school to secondary school is an important event both for pupils and their parents and is a major determinant of further educational and professional progress. The transition ... [more ▼]

The transition from primary school to secondary school is an important event both for pupils and their parents and is a major determinant of further educational and professional progress. The transition decision by primary school teachers in Luxembourg is largely based on a pupil‘s marks, but is also (unconsciously) influenced by information that is not performance-related, such as social background, a pupil‘s immigration background and the educational attainment of their parents. Luxembourg school grades and test results in the three core subjects have the strongest influence on the binding transition decision. Most pupils remain with the school type to which they were assigned at the end of fundamental school. Throughout the observation period, only 6% of the pupils changed to a different kind of school. However, both the parents‘ socio-economic status and the pupil‘s immigrant background exerted an influence on the transition decision. It must therefore be assumed that not only the pupil‘s individual performance will determine to which type of school they will go, but also their family background. This raises the question of how a performance-related, less socially selective transition decision can be promoted. In a school system in which the transition decisions are binding and the freedom of choice is very low, the accuracy of the assessment is particularly important. Therefore teachers should: (1) be explicitly reminded of their responsibility for the decision in the period in which transition decisions are being made. (2) have the opportunity to learn about decision models and factors that reduce the quality of decisions and actively question them during the period in which the transition decisions are taken. (3) be taught about optimum decision-making models, which include adequate weighting of the student‘s characteristics and incorporate them appropriately. [less ▲]

Final report to the FNR for the CORE project "School transitions from primary to secondary school: Development of intervention strategies to improve the quality of teachers' transition decisions"

Report (2015)

Prenatal maternal stress and child developmental outcome: Implications for health care provision?

in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology (2014), 56(3), 204-205

Noten oder sozialer Hintergrund? Der erste Eindrück beeinflusst das gedächtnis für Schülerinformationen und die Genauigkeit des Urteils

Scientific Conference (2014)

Smoking, implicit attitudes, and context-sensitivity: An Overview

in Jin, Z (Ed.) Exploring implicit cognition: Learning, memory, and social-cognitive processes (2014)

The focus on implicit attitudes toward smoking is relatively novel and this chapter provides the first systematic review of research in this domain. The review summarizes empirical studies focusing on ... [more ▼]

The focus on implicit attitudes toward smoking is relatively novel and this chapter provides the first systematic review of research in this domain. The review summarizes empirical studies focusing on implicit attitudes toward smoking. Implicit attitudes are suggested to guide automatic behavior, thereby playing a pivotal role for automatic processes inherent in addictive behaviors. The chapter further explores the extent to which implicit attitudes are sensitive to context. More specifically it reviews studies that have focused on the differential effects of external cues such as warning labels as well as internal cues such as deprivation. Overall 32 studies were analyzed, including studies focusing on implicit attitudes toward smoking compared to positive, negative or neutral categories; implicit attitudes in relation to situational context such as TV advertisement, warning labels and (non)smoking settings; and implicit attitudes in relation to nicotine dependence and nicotine deprivation. Results of these studies show that although smokers generally have more positive implicit attitudes than non-smokers, the valence of the implicit attitude depends on the contrasting category and hence varies as a result of the applied method or stimuli. Studies considering situational contexts revealed that implicit attitudes toward smoking are partly dependent on external cues, especially outcome expectancies. Similarly, internal cues are shown to affect implicit attitudes whereby not so much the level of nicotine dependency but more the level of nicotine deprivation seems vital. Only one study investigated the combined effect of external and internal cues on implicit attitudes toward smoking, not only highlighting the complexity of the relationships, but also the importance of considering implicit attitudes when developing and evaluating intervention. Implications for intervention and future research are indicated in the discussion. [less ▲]