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Career education in secondary schools plays a pivotal role in supporting students as they navigate the complex decision-making process involved in the transition to higher education. However, the evidence base regarding the effectiveness of career education is limited and fragmented, with a distinct lack of clarity regarding the underlying mechanisms. This study aimed to identify the best practices and underlying mechanisms of career education within Dutch secondary education. Based on focus group interviews with stakeholders with diverse interests and positions (N = 25), we identified five categories of best practice activities alongside a framework consisting of ten mediators, eight moderators, a meta-moderator, and four contextual factors. This framework, while reinforcing some previous identified mechanisms, brings new elements into focus, distinguishing additional mechanisms and their categorisation as mediators, moderators, and contextual factors. These findings may serve as a foundational framework for future research and can support schools in enhancing their career education curricula. It is crucial that career education activities align with the students’ current capacities and potential for growth, ensuring that these programs are responsive to students’ developmental stages and their zone of proximal development.

IntroductionCOVID-19 had a major impact on education, resulting in learning losses among students. The Dutch ministry set-up a subsidy for schools to implement catch-up programs in tackling learning losses. In this study, we examine (a) which students participated in the programs, and (b) effectiveness of these programs in remediating learning losses in secondary school students.MethodsSixteen program in eight secondary schools were analyzed using data of 16,675 students (9,784 individual students; 1,336 participating in a catch-up program). Schools implemented three program types: tutoring, homework support, and general skills. Per school, a difference-in-difference design was used, computing two effect sizes: comparing grades of participating and non-participating students; and grades in tutoring-specific subjects to non-tutored subject (specifically for tutoring programs). Effect sizes were combined using meta-analytic regressions in JASP.ResultsAt program onset, students selected for participation had significantly lower overall grades than non-participants, or – for subject-specific tutoring – lower grades specifically in the tutored subject. Tutoring programs significantly increased students’ grades: with higher grades for participants than non-participants, and – for students receiving subject-specific tutoring - higher grades in tutored subjects compared to those in non-tutored subjects. No significant effects were found for homework support and general study skill programs.ConclusionSchools selected students most in need for catch-up programs. Tutoring interventions seemed to remediate part of secondary school students’ learning losses, whereas general skills programs and homework support programs did not. Large between-school heterogeneity was found, implying that program implementation was at least as important as program type and content.

Research into reading has benefitted from the emergence of powerful computational models that account for reading behavior at different levels. Such models become more powerful when the underlying anatomy, architecture or ‘physiology’ can be linked to the behavior of interest. OB1-reader is a reading model that simulates the processes underlying reading in the human brain. Previous studies showed that OB1-reader can account for various phenomena in the word recognition and text reading literatures. Here we aim to extend OB1’s scope, by simulating behavioral performance and evoked EEG activity for two experimental word-recognition tasks: a flanker task in which unrelated flankers generated less accurate responses combined with a larger N400, and a sentence reading task in which words were recognized more accurately at central positions and within intact sentences, than at peripheral positions and in scrambled sentences. OB1 simulated several behavioral findings in both paradigms, including the so-called sentence superiority effect. Moreover, virtual event-related potentials (ERPs) generated from node activity in OB1 were compared to human ERPs. More lexical activity in OB1 predicted the size of the N400 component of human readers in both experiments, but not the N250.

In this longitudinal, observational study, following 883 adolescents (aged 11–15 years, grades 6th - 8th) we tracked changes in perceived school motivation and effort across four time points during the two years of remote education in Perú as a consequence of COVID-19 (retrospective reports before the pandemic, May 2020, July 2021, and November 2021). Compared to before the pandemic, levels of perceived school motivation and effort dropped sharply in May 2020 and continued to decrease across 2 years. Perceived school motivation was positively associated with perceived school effort at almost all time points. Furthermore, students with lower levels of perceived school motivation had a steeper decline in perceived school effort. In a subsample of 380 students in 8th grade, perceived school effort in July 2021 predicted objective math performance in November 2021. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 has further compounded decreases in subjective and objective indices of school engagement and performance that are typically observed in early adolescence. Our results from a large sample of low- to middle-class Peruvian adolescents highlight the experiences of youth in a country that had particularly long school closures, and that is under-represented in the literature.

Experiencing school burnout symptoms can have negative consequences for learning. A growth mindset, the belief that human qualities such as intelligence are malleable, has previously been correlated with fewer school burnout symptoms in late adolescents. This might be because adolescents with a stronger growth mindset show more adaptive self-regulation strategies and thereby increasing resilience against academic setbacks. Here we confirmed in a sample of 426 Dutch young adolescents (11–14 years old; 48% female) that this relationship between growth mindset and school burnout symptoms holds after controlling for other potential predictors of school burnout symptoms such as academic achievement, school track, gender, and socio-economic status. Our second aim was to increase our understanding of the mechanism underlying the relation between mindset and school burnout, by measuring physiological resilience (vagal activity, a measure of parasympathetic activity, also known as heart rate variability or HRV) in a subsample (n = 50). We did not find any relation between vagal activity and growth mindset or school burnout symptoms, nor could we establish a mediating effect of vagal activity in their relation. In conclusion, we found evidence for a potential protective effect of a growth mindset on school burnout symptoms in young adolescents, but not for physiological resilience (vagal activity) as an underlying mechanism. The protective effect of growth mindset as confirmed in our younger sample can be leveraged in interventions to prevent increasing school burnout symptoms.

IntroductionMachine learning algorithms use data to identify at-risk students early on such that dropout can be prevented. Teachers, on the other hand, may have a perspective on a student’s chance, derived from their observations and previous experience. Are such subjective perspectives of teachers indeed predictive for identifying at-risk students, and can these perspectives help increase the prediction performance of machine learning algorithms? This study puts 9 teachers in an upper secondary vocational education program to the test.MethodsFor each of the 95 freshmen students enrolled in the program, these teachers were asked whether a student would drop out by the end of their freshman year. Teachers answered this question at the beginning of the program and again after the first 10 weeks of the program.ResultsTeachers predicted dropout better than the machine learning algorithms at the start of the program, in particular, because they were able to identify students with a very high likelihood of dropout that could not be identified by the algorithms. However, after the first period, even though prediction accuracy increased over time for both algorithms and teachers, algorithms outperformed the teachers. A ranking, combining the teachers composite and the random forest algorithm, had better sensitivity than each separately, though not better precision.

Many theories of motivation suggest that motivation and academic achievement reinforce each other over time, yet few longitudinal studies have examined behavioral pathways that may mediate interplay from motivation to achievement. Moreover, empirical studies so far have mostly focused on Western countries. In this study, we first examined whether students’ value of education, as a measure of motivation, is reciprocally related to achievement (class rank and self-rated performance) in a sample of junior high schoolers in an East-Asian country (N = 3445, Korean Youth Panel Study). We tested this reciprocity using different statistical models. Second, we investigated whether the relation between motivation and achievement was mediated by time invested in learning. Reciprocal effects between value of education and academic achievement were found in classic cross-lagged panel models, but only unilateral effects (from achievement to value of education) were found when we used random-intercept and random-curve cross-lagged panel models. Adding the time investment variable, the reciprocal effect between value of education, time investment, and academic achievement was found with the random intercept model. In conclusion, the reciprocity between of motivation and achievement are more elusive than previous research suggested; further studies should be dedicated to scrutinizing its existence with various statistical models.

Over the past two decades, educational policymakers in many countries have favored evidence-based educational programs and interventions. However, evidence-based education (EBE) has met with growing resistance from educational researchers. This article analyzes the objections against EBE and its preference for randomized controlled trials (RCTs). We conclude that the objections call for adjustments but do not justify abandoning EBE. Three future directions could make education more evidence-based whilst taking the objections against EBE into account: (1) study local factors, mechanisms, and implementation fidelity in RCTs, (2) utilize and improve the available longitudinal performance data, and (3) use integrated interventions and outcome measures.

Abstract Background Teamwork is essential in healthcare, but team performance tends to deteriorate in stressful situations. Further development of training and education for healthcare teams requires a more complete understanding of team performance in stressful situations. We wanted to learn from others, by looking beyond the field of medicine, aiming to learn about a) sources of stress, b) effects of stress on team performance and c) concepts on dealing with stress. Methods A scoping literature review was undertaken. The three largest interdisciplinary databases outside of healthcare, Scopus, Web of Science and PsycINFO, were searched for articles published in English between 2008 and 2020. Eligible articles focused on team performance in stressful situations with outcome measures at a team level. Studies were selected, and data were extracted and analysed by at least two researchers. Results In total, 15 articles were included in the review (4 non-comparative, 6 multi- or mixed methods, 5 experimental studies). Three sources of stress were identified: performance pressure, role pressure and time pressure. Potential effects of stress on the team were: a narrow focus on task execution, unclear responsibilities within the team and diminished understanding of the situation. Communication, shared knowledge and situational awareness were identified as potentially helpful team processes. Cross training was suggested as a promising intervention to develop a shared mental model within a team. Conclusion Stress can have a significant impact on team performance. Developing strategies to prevent and manage stress and its impact has the potential to significantly increase performance of teams in stressful situations. Further research into the development and use of team cognition in stress in healthcare teams is needed, in order to be able to integrate this ‘team brain’ in training and education with the specific goal of preparing professionals for team performance in stressful situations.

Abstract Unrealistic expectations with regard to one’s study program has been linked to negative consequences for future academic success. Previous studies that have shown this are often retrospective, however, and focus on performance-related expectations (e.g. expected grades), while unrealistic expectations about the required effort and the content of the program (content-related expectations) may be more relevant for explaining dropout in tertiary education. This study prospectively investigates whether the content-related expectations of 208 Dutch Sport Academy students elicited before the start of their vocational program are associated with subsequent dropout and academic performance. Our results show that dropped-out students did not differ in expected grades (even though they did differ in prevocational GPA). Moreover, their content-related expectations at the start of the program did not from successful students, nor were they any less realistic. Still, when retrospectively asked, 50% of the students answered that the concerning program did not fit. This suggests that retrospective reports of inadequate expectations may not reflect deficient expectations before starting the program. Instead, tertiary educational programs may defy expectations in both successful students and later unsuccessful students, with surprises being pleasant for successful students and unpleasant for unsuccessful ones.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused lockdowns and sudden school closures around the world in spring 2020, significantly impacting the education of students. Here, we investigate how the switch to distance learning affected study activity and performance in an online retrieval practice tool used for language learning in Dutch secondary education. We report insights from a rich data set consisting of over 115 million retrieval practice trials completed by more than 133 thousand students over the course of two consecutive school years. Our findings show that usage of the tool increased substantially at the start of lockdown, with the bulk of study activity occurring on weekday mornings. In general, students’ progress through the material was largely unaffected by lockdown, although students from the highest educational track were somewhat more likely to be on or ahead of schedule than students from lower tracks, compared to the previous year. Performance on individual study trials was generally stable, but accuracy and response time on open answer questions went up, perhaps as a result of students being more focused at home. These encouraging findings contribute to a growing literature on the educational ramifications of distance learning during lockdown.

Body ownership reflects our ability to recognise our body at a certain location, enabling us to interact with the world. Emotion has a strong impact on memory and body ownership; interestingly, skin temperature may at least in part mediate this impact. Previous studies have found that out-of-body experiences (OBE) impair memory encoding and cause skin temperature to drop. In the present study a new method for inducing OBE was designed and their impact on a different stage and type of memory processing (emotional memory consolidation) and on skin temperature was investigated. In our experiment, we presented three types of emotional pictures (neutral, pleasant, unpleasant) before inducing OBE and testing our participants’ recognition memory in a retrieval session. Throughout the whole experiment, both neck and hand skin temperature were measured using iButtons. Participants’ performance was calculated using d-prime and statistical analyses included one-way ANOVA, probing the relationship between the score on the OBE questionnaire, performance and skin temperature; we also compared the differences between the experimental and a control group. Results showed that OBE favour emotional memory consolidation and cause a temperature increase, supporting the embodied cognition theory as proposed by Anderson (2003). Future studies should expand our findings, to rule out that participants experiencing OBE could have a better memory at baseline or that temperature could be increased due to other reasons.

Ability grouping has been argued to improve study success because it allows teachers to better tailor their instruction and guidance to the educational needs of students. However, teachers must then be able to assess what to tailor their instruction to. One test, based on the Life-Cycle Theory of Leadership, assesses cognitive skills and personality traits to generate advice on the optimal guidance style per student. This test was used in an upper secondary vocational education school to group students with the same advised guidance style. We investigated whether students actually prefer the advised guidance style and whether teachers can adapt their guidance to the styles advised for the group. The results indicate that students are somewhat more likely than chance to prefer the advised guidance style. Similarly, teachers are somewhat more likely than chance to correctly identify this guidance style of a class, but they do not adapt their guidance to the advised style even though they were motivated to do so. This suggests that assessment can be used to diagnose guidance styles, but not with sufficient fidelity so that it can be acted upon.

Abstract Designing effective educational programs to reduce dropout in higher and vocational education requires thorough understanding of the underlying mechanisms of study success. This study examines if first-year dropout is associated with cognitive ability and personality traits as measured by a formative entry test just before enrollment in Dutch vocational education. The results show that the formative entry test outcomes do not properly identify students at risk, the association between first-year dropout and, respectively, cognitive skills and personality traits is generally not significant. Consequently, and of importance for both students and vocational education institutes, students cannot be properly informed about whether their skills and personality traits match the required skills and personality traits of the program.

According to Vygotsky's cultural-historical activity theory, pretend play can be an important context for the development of children's social competence. The aim of this meta-analysis was to synthesize the current evidence about the relation between pretend play and social competence in early childhood (age 3-8 years). A systematic literature search of PsycINFO, ERIC, and Web of Science identified a total of 34 relevant empirical studies. The included studies were systematically coded and categorized for pretend play and social competence. Overall, the findings of this meta-analysis reveal a positive relation between pretend play and social competence, irrespective of how the latter was measured. The relation between pretend play and social competence was slightly negatively impacted by children's age, suggesting that the relation weakens as children get older. Studies measuring the amount of pretend play found lower correlations between pretend play and social competence than studies measuring the quality of pretend play. Most included studies adopted a cross-sectional design, so claims about causal effects could not be supported. Future research is required to determine the direction of causality and potential mechanisms that may explain the relation between pretend play and social competence.

The current multilevel meta-analyses and systematic review encompass 47 longitudinal studies of motivation and academic achievement in primary and secondary education. Our inclusion criteria extended beyond studies centred on self-belief type of motivation constructs, as we also selected studies using other motivation constructs (e.g. achievement goals). The findings offered mixed support for the reciprocity. The pooled effect of achievement on motivation was nearly twice as strong ([beta] = 0.176) as that of motivation on achievement ([beta] = 0.096). The effect of achievement on motivation held across different motivation constructs, albeit exhibiting more robust reciprocity for self-belief constructs ([beta] = 0.227) than for other constructs ([beta] = 0.091). The effect of motivation on achievement was exclusively found for self-belief ([beta] = 0.157) and not for non-self-belief motivation. Overall, the medium-to-high heterogeneity between studies and within studies suggests that pivotal factors in the motivation-achievement dynamics may not have been captured yet.

The aim of this study to create a comprehensive overview of factors that may influence motivation of ethnic minority students from their own perspective. A systematic review was conducted in PubMed, ERIC, and PsycINFO to find studies in which the motivation of ethnic minority students was studied. The articles reviewed were qualitatively synthesized by means of meta-ethnography, and were subjected to a quantitative meta-analysis where appropriate. Forty-five articles were included. Several factors were found to have either a positive or a negative influence on academic motivation, which can be classified into individual, family-related, school-related, and social factors. These factors should be taken into account when developing interventions aimed at enhancing motivation, which is expected to improve. However, evidence for the influence of most identified factors is weak, given that almost every factor was investigated in a single study only. Based on the outcomes of the current overview an integrative model, that provides a structure of the identified factors in relation to motivation which can be used for interventions, cannot be generated; thus, further research is needed.

Our visual brain makes use of recent experience to interact with the visual world, and efficiently select relevant information. This is exemplified by speeded search when target- and distractor features repeat across trials versus when they switch, a phenomenon referred to as intertrial priming. Here, we present fAIM, a computational model that demonstrates how priming can be explained by a simple feature-weighting mechanism integrated into an established model of bottom-up vision. In fAIM, such modulations in feature gains are widespread and not just restricted to one or a few features. Consequentially, priming effects result from the overall tuning of visual features to the task at hand. Such tuning allows the model to reproduce priming for different types of stimuli, including for typical stimulus dimensions such as 'color' and for less obvious dimensions such as 'spikiness' of shapes. Moreover, the model explains some puzzling findings from the literature: it shows how priming can be found for target-distractor stimulus relations rather than for their absolute stimulus values per se, without an explicit representation of relations. Similarly, it simulates effects that have been taken to reflect a modulation of priming by an observers' goals-without any representation of goals in the model. We conclude that priming is best considered as a consequence of a general adaptation of the brain to visual input, and not as a peculiarity of visual search.

A hotly debated issue in reading research concerns the extent to which readers process parafoveal words, and how parafoveal information might influence foveal word recognition. We investigated syntactic word processing both in sentence reading and in reading isolated foveal words when these were flanked by parafoveal words. In Experiment 1 we found a syntactic parafoveal preview benefit in sentence reading, meaning that fixation durations on target words were decreased when there was a syntactically congruent preview word at the target location (n) during the fixation on the pre-target (n-1). In Experiment 2 we used a flanker paradigm in which participants had to classify foveal target words as either noun or verb, when those targets were flanked by syntactically congruent or incongruent words (stimulus on-time 170 ms). Lower response times and error rates in the congruent condition suggested that higher-order (syntactic) information can be integrated across foveal and parafoveal words. Although higher-order parafoveal-on-foveal effects have been elusive in sentence reading, results from our flanker paradigm show that the reading system can extract higher-order information from multiple words in a single glance. We propose a model of reading to account for the present findings.

Adaptive behavior in a changing world requires flexibly adapting one's rate of learning to the rate of environmental change. Recent studies have examined the computational mechanisms by which various environmental factors determine the impact of new outcomes on existing beliefs (i.e., the 'learning rate'). However, the brain mechanisms, and in particular the neuromodulators, involved in this process are still largely unknown. The brain-wide neurophysiological effects of the catecholamines norepinephrine and dopamine on stimulus-evoked cortical responses suggest that the catecholamine systems are well positioned to regulate learning about environmental change, but more direct evidence for a role of this system is scant. Here, we report evidence from a study employing pharmacology, scalp electrophysiology and computational modeling (N = 32) that suggests an important role for catecholamines in learning rate regulation. We found that the P3 component of the EEG-an electrophysiological index of outcome-evoked phasic catecholamine release in the cortex-predicted learning rate, and formally mediated the effect of prediction-error magnitude on learning rate. P3 amplitude also mediated the effects of two computational variables-capturing the unexpectedness of an outcome and the uncertainty of a preexisting belief-on learning rate. Furthermore, a pharmacological manipulation of catecholamine activity affected learning rate following unanticipated task changes, in a way that depended on participants' baseline learning rate. Our findings provide converging evidence for a causal role of the human catecholamine systems in learning-rate regulation as a function of environmental change.

Despite much research, it remains unclear if dopamine is directly involved in novelty detection or plays a role in orchestrating the subsequent cognitive response. This ambiguity stems in part from a reliance on experimental designs where novelty is manipulated and dopaminergic activity is subsequently observed. Here we adopt the alternative approach: we manipulate dopamine activity using apomorphine (D1/D2 agonist) and measure the change in neurological indices of novelty processing. In separate drug and placebo sessions, participants completed a von Restorff task. Apomorphine speeded and potentiated the novelty-elicited N2, an Event-Related Potential (ERP) component thought to index early aspects of novelty detection, and caused novel-font words to be better recalled. Apomorphine also decreased the amplitude of the novelty-P3a. An increase in D1/D2 receptor activation thus appears to potentiate neural sensitivity to novel stimuli, causing this content to be better encoded.

The effects of novelty on low-level visual perception were investigated in two experiments using a two-alternative forced-choice tilt detection task. A target, consisting of a Gabor patch, was preceded by a cue that was either a novel or a familiar fractal image. Participants had to indicate whether the Gabor stimulus was vertically oriented or slightly tilted. In the first experiment tilt angle was manipulated; in the second contrast of the Gabor patch was varied. In the first, we found that sensitivity was enhanced after a novel compared to a familiar cue, and in the second we found sensitivity to be enhanced for novel cues in later experimental blocks when participants became more and more familiarized with the familiar cue. These effects were not caused by a shift in the response criterion. This shows for the first time that novel stimuli affect low-level characteristics of perception. We suggest that novelty can elicit a transient attentional response, thereby enhancing perception.

BACKGROUND: A recent modeling study by the authors predicted that contextual information is poorly integrated into episodic representations in schizophrenia, and that this is a main cause of the retrieval deficits seen in schizophrenia. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We have tested this prediction in patients with first-episode schizophrenia and matched controls. The benefit from contextual cues in retrieval was strongly reduced in patients. On the other hand, retrieval based on item cues was spared. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These results suggest that reduced integration of context information into episodic representations is a core deficit in schizophrenia and one of the main causes of episodic memory impairment.

BACKGROUND:A large body of evidence suggests impaired context processing in schizophrenia. Here we propose that this impairment arises from defective integration of mediotemporal 'what' and 'where' routes, carrying object and spatial information to the hippocampus. METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS:We have previously shown, in a mediotemporal lobe (MTL) model, that the abnormal connectivity between MTL regions observed in schizophrenia can explain the episodic memory deficits associated with the disorder. Here we show that the same neuropathology leads to several context processing deficits observed in patients with schizophrenia: 1) failure to choose subordinate stimuli over dominant ones when the former fit the context, 2) decreased contextual constraints in memory retrieval, as reflected in increased false alarm rates and 3) impaired retrieval of contextual information in source monitoring. Model analyses show that these deficits occur because the 'schizophrenic MTL' forms fragmented episodic representations, in which objects are overrepresented at the expense of spatial contextual information. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE:These findings highlight the importance of MTL neuropathology in schizophrenia, demonstrating that it may underlie a broad spectrum of deficits, including context processing and memory impairments. It is argued that these processing deficits may contribute to central schizophrenia symptoms such as contextually inappropriate behavior, associative abnormalities, conversational drift, concreteness and delusions.

Well-structured knowledge allows us to quickly understand the world around us and make informed decisions to adequately control behavior. Knowledge structures, or schemas, are presumed to aid memory encoding and consolidation of new experiences so we cannot only remember the past, but also guide behavior in the present and predict the future. However, very strong schemas can also lead to unwanted side effects such as false memories and misconceptions. To overcome this overreliance on a schema, we should aim to create robust schemas that are on the one hand strong enough to help to remember and predict, but also malleable enough to avoid such undesirable side effects. This raises the question as to whether there are ways to deliberately influence knowledge construction processes, with the goal to reach such optimally balanced schemas. Here, we will discuss how the mnemonic processes in our brains build long-term knowledge and, more specifically, how different phases of memory formation (encoding, consolidation, retrieval, and reconsolidation) contribute to this schema build-up. We finally provide ways how to best keep a balance between generalized semantic and detailed episodic memories, which can prove very useful in, e.g., educational settings.

In everyday life and in education, we continuously build and structure our knowledge. Successful knowledge construction is suggested to happen through reactivation of previously learned information during new learning. This reactivation is presumed to lead to integration of old and new memories and strengthen long-term retention. Additionally, congruency with prior knowledge is shown to enhance subsequent memory. However, it is unknown how subjective reactivation and congruency jointly influence learning in an educational context. In two experiments, we investigated this question using an AB-AC inference paradigm where students were asked to first study an AB (word-picture) and then an AC-association (word-description). BC-associations were either congruent or incongruent and were linked by a common, unknown word (A). During AC-learning, participants were instructed to actively reactivate B (the picture) and report their subjective reactivation strength. Participants were first-year university students studying either psychology or family studies and the stimuli consisted of new information from their curricula. We expected that both reactivation and congruency would enhance subsequent associative memory for the inferred BC-association. This was assessed by cueing participants with C (the description) and asking to freely describe the associated picture. Results show a significant enhancement of both B-reactivation and congruency on associative memory scores in both experiments. Additionally, subjective meta-memory measures exhibited the same effect. These outcomes, showing beneficial effects of both reactivation and congruency on memory formation, can be of interest to educational practice, where effectively building knowledge through reactivation is imperative for success.