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Research shows that trained mentors achieve better results than untrained ones. Their training should particularly address their expectations for their future mentoring. Our study involved 190 preservice teachers, potential mentors of ongoing school mentoring for primary and secondary school students of all grades. They were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2-x-2 between-subjects design of mentoring type (traditional mentoring versus e-mentoring) and mentoring context (non-pandemic versus COVID-19 pandemic). Participants assessed mentoring conducted under these four conditions in terms of its appropriateness for achieving four mentoring program targets: learning, key skills, social targets, and problem coping. Participants were also asked to assess the resources available to achieve each program target. Overall, the potential mentors considered the various conditions to be suitable for achieving the four program targets. They were particularly favorable in their assessment of the possibility for the realization of learning targets. Likewise, they assumed that sufficient resources were available to achieve the targets. However, a repeated-measures MANOVA showed that the potential mentors considered more ambitious targets to be possible in traditional mentoring than in e-mentoring and normal (i.e., pre-pandemic) contextual conditions than during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, they estimated the resources available to achieve the targets to be about the same in the four conditions. This indicates a decoupling of mentoring targets from the consideration of the resources needed to achieve them. This assumption was confirmed in correlation analyses and has implications for mentor training., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Mader, Stoeger, Veas and Ziegler.)

Although studies show relations between implicit theories about ability (ITs) and cognitive as well as metacognitive learning strategy use, existing studies suffer from an overreliance on broad-brush self-report measures of strategy use and limited ecological validity. Moreover, studies rarely examine younger students, and research on ITs and how much students benefit from interventions on learning strategies is lacking. Therefore, we investigated in ecologically valid settings (regular classroom instruction) whether primary school students' ITs are related to their use of cognitive strategies (text reduction strategies based on identifying a text's main ideas) and metacognitive strategies, assessed with (a) typical self-report scales and (b) more behavior-proximal measures. We also investigated whether students' ITs predict how much they benefit from a previously evaluated 4-week intervention on cognitive and metacognitive strategies during regular classroom instruction (i.e., how much self-report scales and behavior-proximal measures for strategy use increase over the course of the intervention). Participants were 436 German primary school students (third and fourth graders). The data were analyzed using mixed linear regression analyses. Strength of students' incremental theory was positively related to metacognitive strategy use, but not cognitive strategy use, when measured with self-report scales. For behavior-proximal measures, strength of incremental theory was positively related to the effectiveness of students' cognitive strategy use and their extent of strategy monitoring (one of the two metacognitive strategies examined), but not to the quality of their goal setting (the second metacognitive strategy). Unexpectedly, students with a stronger incremental theory did not benefit more from the intervention., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Matthes and Stoeger.)

Children's fine motor skills (FMS) link to cognitive development, however, research on their involvement in language processing, also with adults, is scarce. Lexical items are processed differently depending on the degree of sensorimotor information inherent in the words' meanings, such as whether these imply a body-object interaction (BOI) or a body-part association (i.e., hand, arm, mouth, foot). Accordingly, three studies examined whether lexical processing was affected by FMS, BOIness, and body-part associations in children (study 1, n = 77) and adults (study 2, n = 80; study 3, n = 71). Analyses showed a differential link between FMS and lexical processing as a function of age. Whereas response latencies indicated that children's FMS were associated with "hand" words, adults' FMS linked to the broader concept of BOI. Findings have implications for shared activation theories positing that FMS support lexical processing., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Winter, Stoeger and Suggate.)

The Education and Learning Capital Approach (ELCA) has been widely used to investigate talent development. A research gap is the implicit consideration of the domain specificity of educational and learning capital. In an empirical study with 365 school students we investigated the domain specificity of the approach for the domains of school learning and learning to play a musical instrument. At the beginning of the school year, students filled out a version of the Questionnaire for Educational and Learning Capital (QELC) for both domains and also responded to other domain-related measures (self-efficacy, grades). Six weeks later, students filled out a learning diary for 1 week in which they reported their activities on an hourly basis and responded to questions concerning these activities. Based on the Sociotope Approach this procedure helped to identify times in which students actually practiced their musical instrument, times that students could potentially practice their musical instrument (objective action space), and times that students would be expected to practice their musical instrument (normative action space). Three hypotheses were tested and could be supported. First, the availability of educational and learning capital for school learning and learning an instrument differed. Second, a confirmatory factor analysis supported the factorial validity of the domain-specific capital measurements. Third, domain-congruent correlations were mostly higher than domain-incongruent correlations, i.e., the availability of educational and learning capital for school learning correlated more closely with variables related to school learning than with variables related to learning a musical instrument. Similarly, the availability of the capitals for learning a musical instrument correlated more closely with variables related to learning a musical instrument., (Copyright © 2020 Reutlinger, Pfeiffer, Stoeger, Vialle and Ziegler.)

Studies show that online mentoring is an effective measure to support girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), especially if it also allows for networking with other participants on the mentoring platform. However, research is missing on peer influence. This topic seems especially crucial in programs for adolescents as peer influence plays an important role at this age. In our study, we investigated peer influence on mentoring outcomes - confidence in own STEM abilities and STEM-related activities - in an online mentoring program in STEM for secondary school girls ( N = 124, M = 14.3 years, SD = 2.2 years, age range: 11-19 years). The program provides girls with at least 1 year of one-on-one interaction with a personal female mentor who has a college degree in a STEM subject. Participants can also interact with other participants on the platform. We used a longitudinal social network analysis approach to examine peer influence on mentoring outcomes. Our results indicate that both mentoring outcomes - mentees' confidence in own STEM abilities and STEM-related activities - are influenced by peers moderated by the mentees' own age. Younger mentees tended to become more similar to their peers regarding confidence in own STEM abilities and STEM-related activities, whereas older mentees tended to become more dissimilar over time. In addition, peer group size had a positive effect on confidence in own STEM abilities, but not on STEM-related activities. This effect was moderated by the mentee's age. Overall, peers have a positive influence on the measured mentoring outcomes, especially for young mentees., (Copyright © 2020 Hopp, Stoeger and Ziegler.)

Understanding number magnitude is an important prerequisite for children's mathematical development. One early experience that contributes to this understanding is the common practice of finger counting. Recent research suggested that through repeated finger counting, children internalize their fingers as representations of number magnitude. Furthermore, finger counting habits have been proposed to predict concurrent and future mathematical performance. However, little is known about how finger-based number representations are formed and by which processes they could influence mathematical development. Regarding the emergence of finger-based number representations, it is likely that they result from repeated practice of finger counting. Accordingly, children need sufficient fine motor skills (FMS) to successfully count on their fingers. However, the role that different types of FMS (such as dexterity and graphomotor skills) might play in the development of finger-based number representations is still unknown. In the current study, we investigated (a) whether children's FMS (dexterity and graphomotor skills) are associated with their emerging finger-based number representations (ordinal and cardinal), (b) whether FMS explain variance in children's finger-based number representations beyond the influence of general cognitive skills, and (c) whether the association between FMS and numerical skills is mediated by finger-based representations. We tested associations between preschool children's ( N = 80) FMS (dexterity and graphomotor skills), finger-based number representations, and numerical skills. Furthermore, visuo-spatial working memory and nonverbal intelligence were controlled for. Dexterity was related to children's finger-based number representations as well as numerical skills after controlling for chronological age, but not after also controlling for cognitive skills. Moreover, the relationship between dexterity and numerical skills was mediated by finger-based number representations. No such associations were observed for graphomotor skills. These results suggest that dexterity plays a role in children's development of finger-based number representations, which in turn contribute to their numerical skills. Possible explanations are discussed., (Copyright © 2020 Fischer, Suggate and Stoeger.)