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When learning about fractions, teaching usually follows certain topics -- e.g. part of the whole, fraction equivalence, and size comparison. Not yet answered is whether students' conceptual and procedural knowledge of fractions is coherent between those topics. To answer this question, we performed a latent profile analysis of data from N = 1005 six-grade students regarding their conceptual and procedural knowledge in the three above-mentioned topics. Our results confirmed that the level of conceptual and procedural fraction knowledge can vary within students between topics. Furthermore, the analysis of students' errors showed that conceptual knowledge of fractions within a specific topic is related to topic-specific error types -- with conceptual errors (compared to non-conceptual errors) being demonstrated relatively more often by students with low conceptual knowledge. This indicates that to derive adequate support strategies for individual students, differentiated consideration of their topic-specific conceptual and procedural knowledge should be considered.

When judging subject-specific aspects of students' texts, teachers should assess various characteristics, e.g., spelling and content, independently of one another since these characteristics are indicators of different skills. Independent judgments enable teachers to adapt their classroom instruction according to students' skills. It is still unclear how well teachers meet this challenge and which intervention could be helpful to them. In Study 1, N = 51 pre-service teachers assessed four authentic English as a Second Language (ESL) essays with different overall text qualities and different qualities of spelling using holistic and analytic rating scales. Results showed a negative influence of the experimentally manipulated spelling errors on the judgment of almost all textual characteristics. In Study 2, an experimental prompt was used to reduce this judgment error. Participants who were made aware of the judgment error caused by spelling errors formed their judgments in a less biased way, indicating a reduction of bias. The determinants of the observed effects and their practical implications are discussed.

Prior studies in the Computer Science education literature have illustrated that novices make many mistakes in composing SQL queries. Query formulation proves to be difficult for students. Only recently, some headway was made towards understanding why SQL leads to so many mistakes, by uncovering student misconceptions. In this article, we shed new light on SQL misconceptions by analyzing the hypotheses of SQL experts on the causes of student errors. By examining the experts' perceptions, we draw on their understanding of students' misconceptions and on their experiences with studying and teaching SQL. For our analysis, we chose the Policy Delphi, a questionnaire instrument specifically designed for gathering opinions and evidence. Through a two-round process, our nineteen participants proposed and voted on underlying causes for SQL errors which resulted in a set of hypotheses per error. Our main contribution to this article is this new set of possible misconceptions. With them, we can design more complete educational approaches to address misconceptions underlying SQL errors made by students, leading to more effective SQL education.

This research investigated how the bug tracker database of the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Moodle is developed as an application of crowd work. The bug tracker is used by software developers, who write and maintain Moodle's code, but also by a wider public world of ordinary Moodle users who can report bugs. Despite many studies of the phenomenon of open source bug fixing and software building, much remains to be answered. Specifically, we sought to analyse the implications of this massively distributed collaborative development process for education and educational technology. The research examined the ways educators interface and contribute to the development of the VLE Moodle at the granular level of bug fixing as an example of a global crowdsourced activity. In this study, twenty community participants were interviewed, from fringe members, to key actors, including lead developers from the Open University, Moodle HQ and Moodle founder Martin Dougiamas. We uncovered rich stories of practices of community members. We found that projects are complex interplays of many actors assuming different roles and identities, and that brokers, or "kindly souls", play a key role in activities such as filing reports on behalf of others, or inducting new members.

Student problems (preconceptions, errors, and learner-specific approaches) that arise when planning and conducting experiments are relevant for lesson planning and the further development of teaching practice overall. student problems are understood as a learning opportunity. So far, little attention has been paid to the relationships between different student problems when planning and conducting an experiment. A search of relevant literature revealed no work addressing this issue. So, this study investigates whether any relationships exist between various student problems. 53 students (age: 10-16) were filmed while planning and conducting experiments themselves (students worked individually, not in groups). The films were translated into observation protocols and analysed according to Mayring's qualitative content analysis technique. Students were given two tasks to solve using experiments: one on yeast and another on cone scales. The student problems identified were analysed using hierarchical cluster analysis to search for relationships. In the analyses of both tasks, only one, near-identical cluster was found. The cluster includes the student problem variables: 'hypothesis consists of a combination of variables', 'hypothesis is changed during the experiment without being checked', 'missing test trial', 'missing control trial', and 'experimental trials are altered'. No other student problems showed any relationship to each other.

Cognitive activation is one of the central quality characteristics of teaching. Studies which analyzed cognitive activation in science instruction and its influence on the achievement and the interest of students, took most of the times place in higher grades. Since scientific thinking can be taught at a very early stage and, in particular, experimental situations should be designed cognitively activating so that they can be optimally used as learning opportunities. Therefore, this study examined cognitive activation in experimental situations. For this purpose, we video recorded five lessons in primary schools as well as five lessons in kindergartens in Germany. The results showed that in the investigated experimental situations, only a few cognitively activating measures were implemented by the kindergarten educators and the primary school teachers. It is noticeable that the category Challenging questions was used most frequently while the category Instructional dialogue was by far the rarest in the videos.

This article investigates how students with mathematical difficulties (MD) differ from typically developing (TD) students in enumeration processes of small sets of objects (of 1 up to 9 dots). We present a study with 20 fifth-grade students of which ten were found to have MD in initial diagnostics. The students were supposed to exactly enumerate sets of dots, i.e., to say how many dots they saw. This took place in three conditions: (a) in random arrangements in the subitizing range (1-4 dots), (b) in random arrangements in the counting range (5-9 dots), and (c) in canonical (dice-like) arrangements (1-9 dots). We used eye tracking (ET) to analyze student enumeration processes derived from ET video data. Whereas we did not find significant group differences in students' error rates, we found differences in response times with longer response times for students in MD in the canonical arrangement condition. Further, we found significant group differences in students' enumeration processes in all three conditions (subitizing range, counting range, canonical): Students with MD tended to count all dots more often whereas TD students used more advantageous enumeration processes such as simultaneous enumeration or enumeration of groups of dots more often. Our results support the assumption of qualitatively different enumeration processes between students with and without MD.

Purpose: One of the central questions in speech production research is to what degree certain structures have an inherent difficulty and to what degree repeated encounter and practice make them easier to process. The goal of this article was to determine the extent to which frequency and sonority distance of consonant clusters predict production difficulties. Method: We used a tongue twister paradigm to elicit speech errors on syllable-initial German consonant clusters and investigated the relative influences of cluster frequency and sonority distance between the consonants of a cluster on production accuracy. Native speakers of German produced pairs of monosyllabic pseudowords beginning with consonant clusters at a high speech rate. Results: Error rates decreased with increasing frequency of the consonant clusters. A high sonority distance, on the other hand, did not facilitate a cluster's production, but speech errors led to optimized sonority structure for a subgroup of clusters. In addition, the combination of consonant clusters in a stimulus pair has a great impact on production accuracy. Conclusion: These results suggest that both frequency of use and sonority distance codetermine production ease, as well as syntagmatic competition between adjacent sound sequences.

Frequent forced switching between tasks has been shown to reduce switch costs and increase voluntary switch rates. So far, however, the boundary conditions of the influence of forced task switching on voluntary task switching are unknown. Thus, the present study was aimed to test different aspects of generalizability (across items, tasks, and time) of switching-induced flexibility established in forced-choice trials on voluntary switching in free-choice trials. To this end, stimuli and tasks were systematically varied between forced- and free-choice trials in a hybrid task-switching paradigm. In a series of three experiments, we manipulated forced-choice switch probability (25% vs. 75%) and found that switching-induced flexibility generalizes to new items, but arguably not to new tasks. This task-specific effect is rather short-lived, limited to the first free-choice trial following a forced-choice trial. Underlying mechanisms of switching-induced flexibility, the versatility of flexibility and implications for the trainability of cognitive flexibility are discussed.

Students' issues dealing with reflection tasks, especially with inclined mirror lines, are widely known. Previous research conducted with primary school students mainly focussed on task difficulty and students' outcomes, especially their errors of reflection. Little is known about which not obviously sustainable understanding of reflection leads to what kind of errors. To address this issue, the purpose of this study is to explore which approaches students use in their solution finding processes when dealing with reflection tasks. We also investigated whether there was a relationship between the students' approaches and correct or incorrect solution products. This article discusses a task-based interview study focussing on approaches used in the students' solution process of four reflection tasks. To gather data, 42 interviews with students at the end of primary school in Germany were conducted. For the analysis, a category system with the categories "properties of reflection," "holistic approaches," "gestures and actions illustrating the process of reflection," and "mental images illustrating the process of reflection," was developed and validated. We observed that there is a relation between the approaches used by the students during their process of solving reflection tasks and their solution products. The observed relationship between the approaches applied during the solution processes and the solutions themselves leads to the assumption that the approaches the students used reveal varying degrees of mathematical understanding of reflection. As emphasized in the discussion of the results, it is important to take a differentiated look on the students' solution products and the importance of adequate instruction methods.

The constrained action hypothesis states that focusing attention on action outcomes rather than body movement improves motor performance. Dexterity of motor control is key to successful music performance, making this a highly relevant topic to music education. We investigated effects of focus of attention (FOA) on motor skill performance and EMG muscle activity in a violin bowing task among experienced and novice upper strings players. Following a pedagogically informed exercise, participants attempted to produce single oscillations of the string at a time under three FOA: internal (on arm movement), external (on sound produced), and somatic (on string resistance). Experienced players' number of bow slips was significantly reduced under somatic focus relative to internal, although number of successful oscillations was not affected. Triceps electromyographic activity was also significantly lower in somatic compared to internal foci for both expertise groups, consistent with physiological understandings of FOA effects. Participants' reported thoughts during the experiment provided insight into whether aspects of constrained action may be evident in performers' conscious thinking. These results provide novel support for the constrained action hypothesis in violin bow control, suggesting a somatic FOA as a promising performance-enhancing strategy for bowed string technique.

Perfectionism is a multidimensional personality trait whose facets differentially relate to indicators of psychological functioning, such as global self-esteem. There has been some theoretical disagreement whether perfectionism affects global self-esteem, or vice versa. This question merits renewed attention due to increasing efforts to prevent the development of maladaptive perfectionism facets in adolescents. In addition, recent research has indicated a role of self-esteem for predicting personality development. This study aimed to clarify the longitudinal relations of multidimensional perfectionism and global self-esteem. A sample of 707 early adolescents participated in two measurement points two years apart. Global self-esteem positively predicted personal standards, negatively predicted doubts about actions, and did not predict concern over mistakes beyond baseline. Perfectionism facets did not longitudinally predict global self-esteem. These findings provide the first evidence for a role of global self-esteem in perfectionism development. Addressing early adolescents' self-esteem may aid in preventing the development of maladaptive perfectionism facets.

Quantity recognition in whole number representations is a fundamental skill children need to acquire in their mathematical development. Despite the observed correlation to mathematics achievement, however, the ability to recognize quantities in structured whole number representations has not been studied extensively. In this article, we investigate how students with mathematical difficulties (MD) differ from typically developing (TD) students in quantity recognition in structured whole number representations. We use eye tracking (ET), which can help to identify students' quantity recognition strategies. In contrast to methods that include collecting verbal answers and reports, ET avoids an additional verbalization step, which may be affected by poor language skills and by low meta-cognitive abilities or memory issues when monitoring, recalling, and explaining one's thoughts. We present an ET study with 20 students of which ten were found to have MD in initial tests (using qualitative and quantitative diagnostics). We used ET glasses, which allow seeing the students' view of the scene with an augmented visualization of the gaze point projected onto the scene. The obtained gaze-overlaid videos also include audio data and records of students' answers and utterances. In our study, we did not find significant differences between the error rates of MD and TD students. Response times, however, were longer for students with MD. The analysis of the ET data brought students' quantity recognition strategies to light, some of which were not found in previous research. Our analyses revealed differences in the use of these quantity recognition strategies between MD and TD students. Our study illustrates the power of ET for investigating students' quantity recognition strategies and the potential of ET to support MD students.

Designing and interpreting controlled experiments are important inquiry skills addressed in many current science curricula. The relevant skills associated with the design and interpretation of controlled experiments are summarised under the term control-of-variables strategy (CVS). Research on elementary school students' CVS skills shows that they have basic conceptions of CVS, as they can correctly identify controlled experiments to test given hypotheses and can interpret the results of controlled experiments. However, they perform poorly when they have to plan experiments and interpret confounded experiments. Furthermore, previous research has identified eight misleading preconceptions regarding CVS that cause invalid experimental designs, called design errors. The current study investigates the occurrence and change of design errors during elementary school and their consistency over different tasks. Via a latent class analysis (LCA), we identified three distinct patterns of design errors: (1) correct CVS understanding, (2) change of too many variables and (3) non-contrastive experiments. Our results show that many students as low as grade two have a basic understanding of CVS and that occurring design errors are associated with limited metaconceptual knowledge about when and why to apply CVS. We discuss possible implications of our findings for teaching CVS and further research.

Studies of switching between tasks and studies of error commission have both provided solid behavioral measures of executive control. Nonetheless, a gap remains between these strands of research. In three experiments we sought to reduce this gap by assessing the impact of task errors on N-2 repetition costs, an effect supposedly related to task-set inhibition. Based on previous literature reporting a task-switch benefit following task errors, due to incidental learning of the erroneously executed task-set, we predicted N-2 repetition costs to be decreased after task errors in Trial N-2, relative to correct responses. Furthermore, we predicted this effect to be present only when corrective control mechanisms would not have the time to build up on the post-error trial (i.e., following fast post-error trial only). This hypothesis was tested in a three-tasks paradigm using incongruent stimuli, under the assumption that errors on such trials are partly due to task confusions. Consistent with our predictions, N-2 repetition costs following N-2 errors were found to be reduced when responses in Trial N-1 were fast but were present when the N-1 response was slow. Taken together, our results suggest that task execution leads to associative strengthening of the corresponding task-set, irrespective of response accuracy, and that such automatic strengthening can be counteracted by slowly acting control mechanisms.

Post-error cognitive control processes are evident in post-error slowing (PES) and post-error increased accuracy (PIA). A recent theory (Wessel, 2018) proposes that post-error control disrupts not only ongoing motor activity but also current task-set representations, suggesting an interdependence of post-error control and memory. In 2 experiments, we directly tested this interdependence using response repeat/switch targets. As participants' memory of the previously-given response determined their next response, we predicted that participants would not show post-error performance improvements, or may even exhibit decrements (memory obstruction hypothesis). In line with a weak version of the memory obstruction hypothesis, participants' performance did not improve post-error regardless of preparation time across several measures (intertrial interval 500 ms-3000 ms). This could not alternatively be explained by a lack in post-error processing or error awareness. Thus, our results suggest an interdependence of memory and cognitive control in post-error processing, and we offer a novel way of directly assessing this interdependence using response repeat/switch targets.

Purpose: This study examined whether monolingual German-speaking preschool children with developmental language disorder (DLD) were facilitated by the presence of case-marking cues in their interpretation of German subject and object "welcher" ("which")-questions, as reported for their typically developing peers. We also examined whether knowledge of case-marking and/or phonological working memory modulated children's ability to revise early assigned interpretations of ambiguous questions. Method: Sixty-three monolingual German-speaking children with and without DLD aged between 4;0 and 5;11 (years;months) participated in an offline picture selection task targeting the comprehension of "welcher"-questions in German. We manipulated question type (subject, object), case-marking transparency, and case-marking position within the question (sentence-initial/-final). Results: The typically developing children outperformed the children with DLD across conditions, and all children performed better on subject than on object "wh"-questions. Transparent and early cues elicited higher accuracy than late-arriving cues. For the DLD children, their working memory capacity explained their inability to revise early assigned interpretations to ambiguous questions, whereas their knowledge of case did not. Conclusions: The results suggest that disambiguating morphosyntactic cues can only partly facilitate comprehension of German "welcher"-questions in children with DLD, whose poor phonological working memory rather than their knowledge of case-marking mediates performance on these structures.

In Simon-type interference tasks, participants are asked to perform a 2-choice reaction on a stimulus dimension while ignoring the stimulus position. Commonly, robust congruency effects are found; that is, reactions are faster when the relevant stimulus attribute and the assigned response match the location of the stimulus. Simon congruency effects are regularly attributed to a fast, nonverbal processing route. In 3 experiments, we tested the importance of verbal representations in the Simon effect by manipulating the format of representations (verbal vs. nonverbal) with stimulus material (i.e., words vs. gratings) and stimulus arrangement (i.e., horizontally vs. vertically). Results of the first experiment point to a modulation of the Simon effects by both factors when they were manipulated between subjects, up to an inversion of the Simon effect for words presented in vertical arrangement. We replicated the inverse congruency effect for verbal material in vertical arrangement when a within-participant design was used (Experiment 2) and when the impact of reading processes was ruled out (Experiment 3). One cause for this inversion might be the construction of language-based representations that counteract automatic processing given the stimulus arrangement. To investigate this, we assessed individual differences in the use of inner speech for self-instruction. Using hierarchical linear modeling analysis, we found that self-rated evaluative and motivational inner speech processes accounted for a significant portion of the Simon effect. This supports claims that individual differences predict performance even in simple cognitive tasks such as the Simon task and highlights the flexibility of basic cognitive processes.

Internal error monitoring as reflected by the error-related negativity (ERN) component can give insight into the process of learning a second language (L2). Yet, early stages of learning are characterized by high levels of uncertainty, which obscures the process of error detection. We examine how uncertainty about L2 syntactic representations, induced by different levels of language conflict, is reflected in ERN patterns during learning. German learners of Dutch performed a feedback-guided gender decision task in their L2 and provided subjective certainty ratings for their responses. Initially, high-conflict items yielded more uncertainty and ERN modulations were reversed (i.e., correct responses elicited larger amplitudes than errors). Two rounds of feedback resulted in an increase of accuracy, reduced uncertainty, and normalization of the ERN effect, signaling effective error monitoring. These outcomes demonstrate how subjective intuitions about response accuracy affect performance monitoring during L2 learning.

Two studies investigated the effects of errors in German business letters written by Dutch students. Gaining insight into these effects is important since Germany and the Netherlands are one of the largest economically interdependent partnerships. One hundred and fifty-six German professionals rated letters with errors and letters without errors on comprehensibility, attitude toward text, writer organization, and behavioral intention. Errors negatively affected attitude toward text, writer, and organization. The second study investigated whether pragmatic, syntactical, lexical, and morphological errors elicited different effects on the same variables. Pragmatic and syntactical errors aroused negative effects and, therefore, deserve extra attention in class.

Stimuli encoded shortly before an aversive event are typically well remembered. Traditionally, this emotional memory enhancement has been attributed to beneficial effects of physiological arousal on memory formation. Here, we proposed an additional mechanism and tested whether memory formation is driven by the unpredictable nature of aversive events (i.e., aversive prediction errors). In a combined Pavlovian fear conditioning and incidental memory paradigm, participants saw initially neutral pictures from 2 distinct categories, 1 of which was associated with a risk to receive an electric shock. During encoding, we measured both physiological arousal and explicit prediction errors to explain memory differences in a surprise recognition test that followed approximately 24 hr later. In a first experiment, we show that physiological arousal, expressed as outcome-related skin conductance responses, was associated with improved recognition memory, corroborating arousal-based models. Critically, unsigned binary prediction errors derived from explicit shock expectancy ratings in each trial were also linked to enhanced recognition and model fits showed that the impact of prediction errors on memory was dissociable from the impact of arousal. In a second experiment, we replicated and extended the findings of the first experiment by demonstrating that the memory-promoting effect of prediction errors remained even after controlling for arousal. The present data point to prediction error-related learning as a cognitive mechanism that contributes to the emotional enhancement of memory, above and beyond the well-established effects of arousal in emotional memory formation.

There is much evidence showing that the prospect of performance-contingent reward increases the usage of cuing information and cognitive stability. In a recent study, we showed that participants under reward conditions even continued using cues even when they were no longer predictive of the required response rule, even at the expense of higher errors feedback. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the mechanism underlying this maladaptive perseveration. One possible mechanism was that participants under reward conditions use cue-related stimulus frequencies even when they are not indicative of response rule frequencies. In a series of 3 experiments, using modified versions of the classical AX-continuous performance task, this hypothesis was confirmed. Taken together, the findings have important implications, as they show that the prospect of performance-contingent reward encourages the selective usage of any information that might be relevant for preparatory behavior. And this reward-induced cue usage persists until the cuing information loses any predictive information.

In view of the ubiquitous increase in the use of C-tests, which are almost unanimously believed to measure general language proficiency, this study investigates whether the aspects of language proficiency tapped into by the C-test format are the same when the test is taken by a learner population other than that of foreign language learners. Specifically, we conducted a differential functioning analysis and compared the types of mistakes that 113 foreign language learners of Russian made when completing C-test gaps, with the performance of 89 heritage language learners on the same C-test. The results showed that almost half of the C-test gaps are biased towards either learner group. In addition, the error analysis for a number of the biased items demonstrated that, although heritage language learners seem to have an advantage in reconstructing the meaning of C-test gaps, they fail to translate their recognition skills into producing the right form. Furthermore, the study reveals a possible sensitivity of the C-test construct to the traditionally used dichotomous scoring method. We conclude with a discussion that includes the implications of the results regarding the construct measured by the C-test and the possible consequences for its actual use.

From a constructivist perspective on learning, mistakes are seen as natural elements of learning processes. A supportive and constructive way of dealing with student mistakes has shown to affect students' individual motivation and learning performances in a favorable way. In classroom settings, however, making mistakes is not just a personal but also a social event. Dealing with mistakes should therefore be considered as both student-level and classroom-level characteristic. This study investigates three aspects of dealing with mistakes and their relevance for students' achievement and motivation in English as a foreign language by analyzing the aspects at student and classroom level. The aspects are (a) teacher attitude toward mistakes, (b) teacher response to student mistakes, and (c) students' perception of mistakes as useful for learning. Analyzing data of 5266 students from 427 classes in German secondary schools, the results demonstrate that at student level, all three aspects of dealing with mistakes affect students' individual achievement as well as motivation in English language class. At classroom level, none of the aspects affect student average achievement. Two aspects affect student average motivation at the classroom level, namely (a) teacher attitude toward mistakes and (c) students' shared perception of the usefulness of mistakes for learning. Our results show that students' individual and shared perception of dealing with mistakes affect students' motivational and cognitive learning outcomes in different ways. Furthermore, our findings underline the relevance of teachers' attitudes as well as students' perceptions concerning mistakes for student learning and motivation in English as a foreign language class.

One prominent feature of adaptive cognition in humans is the ability to flexibly adjust to changing task demands. In this respect, context-specific proportion congruency (CSPC) effects describe the phenomenon that participants learn to adapt to contexts of frequently occurring conflicts even when the upcoming context cannot be anticipated. Here, we aim to provide evidence that such CSPC effects strongly depend on the affective valence of the context. Participants had to categorize pictures as animals versus humans (Experiment 1), words as male versus female (Experiment 2), and food pictures as depicting cold or hot dishes/beverages (Experiment 3). Stimuli were laterally presented to the left or right, creating Simon-like response interference. Half of the stimuli were of positive valence, half of negative valence with valence always being task-irrelevant. Positive or negative stimuli were associated with a high proportion of incongruent trials and a low proportion of congruent trials, respectively. In all three experiments, a CSPC effect was only significant when the high proportion of incongruent trials was associated with positive stimuli but reduced or even absent when the high proportion of incongruent trials was associated with negative stimuli. The findings further speak to the idea that it is the aversive nature of conflict stimuli that functions as a trigger for control adaptation. And such an unexpected aversive conflict signal looms larger when presented in a positive context than in a negative context.

Language-specific differences in number words influence number processing even in nonverbal numerical tasks. For instance, the unit-decade compatibility effect in two-digit number magnitude comparison (compatible number pairs [42_57: 4 < 5 and 2 < 7] are responded to faster than incompatible pairs [47_62: 4 < 6 but 7 > 2]) was shown to be influenced by the inversion of number words (e.g., in German the number word for 42 is "zweiundvierzig" [literally: "two-and-forty"]). In two studies, we used articulatory suppression to investigate whether previously observed cross-linguistic differences in two-digit number processing are indeed driven by differences in number word formation. In a two-digit number comparison task, German- and English-speaking participants had to identify the larger of two numbers presented in Arabic digits. In Study 1, participants performed the same task twice, with and without articulatory suppression. In Study 2, the percentage of within-decade filler items (36_39) was manipulated additionally. As expected, in both studies between-groups differences in the compatibility effect disappeared under articulatory suppression irrespective of the percentage of fillers included. Furthermore, paralleling results of previous studies including 33% or less filler items, we found that the compatibility effect was larger in German compared with English speakers in the 20% filler condition. However, this pattern was reversed in the 50% filler condition in both studies. Thus, results provide first direct evidence for influences of verbal number word formation on symbolic number processing. Moreover, these new findings suggest that linguistic influences and those of cognitive control processes associated with characteristics of the stimulus set interact in symbolic number processing.

Constructive error handling is considered an important factor for individual learning processes. In a quasi-experimental study with Grades 6 to 9 students, we investigate effects on students' attitudes towards errors as learning opportunities in two conditions: an error-tolerant classroom culture, and the first condition along with additional teaching of strategies for analyzing errors. Our findings show positive effects of the error-tolerant classroom culture on the affective level, whereas students are not influenced by the cognitive support. There is no evidence for differential effects for student groups with different attitudes towards errors.

The acquisition of diagnostic competence is seen as a major goal during the course of study in medicine. One innovative method to foster this goal is problem-based learning with erroneous worked examples provided in a computer learning environment. The present study explores the relationship of attitudinal, emotional and cognitive factors for learning with erroneous worked examples. 72 medical students from a German university worked with six case-based examples in the domain of arterial hypertension. Domain-specific conceptual prior knowledge, anxiety of making errors, attitudes towards errors, and ambiguity tolerance were measured as independent variables before the students worked with the examples. Diagnostic competence was operationalized by measuring conceptual, strategic, and conditional knowledge, which were assessed as dependent variables after working with the learning environment. A cluster analytic approach yielded three clusters. For each, the relationship with the learning outcome was analysed. Cluster membership significantly influenced the learning outcome in strategic, but not in conditional knowledge. Furthermore, cluster membership had a significant effect on conceptual knowledge; there was also an increase in conceptual knowledge for all clusters when conceptual knowledge measured after the treatment was compared to prior conceptual knowledge. The results clearly indicate the importance of a certain pattern of psychological factors for learning with erroneous worked examples.

Existing studies on plural acquisition in German have relied on small samples and thus hardly deliver generalizable and differentiated results. Here, overgeneralizations of certain plural allomorphs and other tendencies in the acquisition of German plural markers are described on the basis of test data from 7,394 3- to 5-year-old monolingual German and bi/multilingual immigrant children tested with a modified, validated version of the Marburger Sprachscreening (MSS) language test and 476 children tested with the SETK 3-5 language test. Classified correct and wrong answers to MSS and SETK 3-5 plural items were compared. The acquisition patterns of immigrants corresponded to those of younger German children. Both monolingual German and immigrant children demonstrated generally the same universal frequency and phonetically/phonologically based error patterns, irrespective of their linguistic background, but with different tendencies such as overgeneralization of "-s" by German children only.

Building on the sociological work by Lareau, this study examined the association between students' socioeconomic background, prior achievement and the perception of teacher support within the classroom. We expected that students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds would be more critical about the support they receive in the classroom and rate their teachers more negatively, while those with higher prior achievement would perceive teacher support more positively. Multilevel models confirmed that there is a negative association between wealth and students' perception of two dimensions of teacher support, and a negative association between parental educational attainment and one dimension of teacher support. Our findings were in line with the 'sense of entitlement' theory by Lareau. Having higher prior achievement was associated with a more positive perception of teacher support, but did not seem to interact with socioeconomic background.

The present study investigated the influence of mood state (positive vs. negative) on the cognitive control process of conflict adaptation. A task-switching paradigm was applied, allowing to assess conflict adaptation both within tasks and across tasks. A success-failure manipulation was applied for mood induction. Within-task conflict adaptation tended to be larger in negative mood than in positive mood, in line with previous findings in the literature. Across-task conflict adaptation was also observed, but only in the positive mood group: Participants in positive mood showed larger conflict adaptation than participants in negative mood. We suggest that different cognitive mechanisms underlie this double dissociation: Within-task conflict adaptation is enhanced in negative mood because response conflict is aversive in nature, and is therefore congruent to negative mood states. Between-task conflict adaptation is only present in positive mood because of less distinct task representations under positive mood, leading conflict adaptation to transfer to the other task. The data show that influences of mood state on cognitive control are multifaceted, with some control processes being enhanced and others attenuated in negative relative to positive mood.

Most current models of sentence comprehension assume that the human parsing mechanism (HPM) algorithmically computes detailed syntactic representations as basis for extracting sentence meaning. These models share the assumption that the representations computed by the HPM accurately reflect the linguistic input. This assumption has been challenged by Ferreira (2003), who showed that comprehenders sometimes misinterpret unambiguous sentences in which subject and object appear in noncanonical order, such as passives or object-clefts. According to Ferreira, these misinterpretations show that parallel to an algorithmic analysis, the HPM performs a heuristic analysis sometimes resulting in interpretations not licensed by the grammar. Our study investigated whether misinterpretation effects indeed reflect an erroneous mapping of form to meaning due to heuristic processing strategies. Using an experimental design closely following Ferreira (2003), Experiment 1 demonstrates that errors with noncanonical sentences show up in German as well, despite the fact that German provides morphological case, which a heuristic strategy should use. Experiment 2 required participants to judge the plausibility of the same sentences. With this task, no evidence for misinterpretation of noncanonical sentences was found. Taken together, our results suggest that misinterpretation errors do not reflect errors in the mapping of form to meaning, but task-specific difficulties that arise when participants retrieve information from the memory representation of a sentence. Consequently, misinterpretation errors do not provide evidence for the claim that the HPM pursues a heuristic analysis in addition to an algorithmic analysis. Our results instead lend support to models of the HPM that assume algorithmic processing only.

Event-based prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform an intention in response to an environmental cue. Recent microstructure models postulate four distinguishable stages of successful event-based PM fulfillment. That is, (a) the event must be noticed, (b) the intention must be retrieved, (c) the context must be verified, and (d) the intended action must be coordinated with the demands of any currently ongoing task (e.g., Marsh, Hicks, & Watson, 2002b). Whereas the cognitive processes of Stages 1, 2, and 3 have been studied more or less extensively, little is known about the processes of Stage 4 so far. To fill this gap, the authors manipulated the magnitude of response overlap between the ongoing task and the PM task to isolate Stage-4 processes. Results demonstrate that PM performance improves in the presence versus absence of a response overlap, independent of cue saliency (Experiment 1) and of demands from currently ongoing tasks (Experiment 2). Furthermore, working-memory capacity is associated with PM performance, especially when there is little response overlap (Experiments 2 and 3). Finally, PM performance benefits only from strong response overlap, that is, only when the appropriate ongoing-task and PM response keys were identical (Experiment 4). They conclude that coordinating ongoing-task and PM actions puts cognitive demands on the individual which are distinguishable from the demands imposed by cue-detection and intention-retrieval processes.

It is widely assumed that the British are poorer modern foreign language (MFL) learners than their fellow Europeans. Motivation has often been seen as the main cause of this perceived disparity in language learning success. However, there have also been suggestions that curricular and pedagogical factors may play a part. This article reports a research project investigating how German and English 14- to 16-year-old learners of French as a first foreign language compare to one another in their vocabulary knowledge and in the lexical diversity, accuracy and syntactic complexity of their writing. Students from comparable schools in Germany and England were set two writing tasks which were marked by three French native speakers using standardised criteria aligned to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEF). Receptive vocabulary size and lexical diversity were established by the X_lex test and a verb types measure respectively. Syntactic complexity and formal accuracy were respectively assessed using the mean length of T-units (MLTU) and words/error metrics. Students' and teachers' questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to provide information and participants' views on classroom practices, while typical textbooks and feedback samples were analysed to establish differences in materials-related input and feedback in the two countries. The German groups were found to be superior in vocabulary size, and in the accuracy, lexical diversity and overall quality--but not the syntactic complexity--of their writing. The differences in performance outcomes are analysed and discussed with regard to variables related to the educational contexts (e.g. curriculum design and methodology).

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the complex relationship between emotions, coping approaches and learning in error situations in the workplace. The study also examines the influence of individual error orientation, as well as psychological safety, and team learning behaviour as contextual factors. Design/methodology/approach: To measure emotions, coping and learning from errors "in situ," a semi-standardised error diary was administered. Individual and contextual factors were measured by standard questionnaires. Totally, 22 young employees participated in the study and recorded n = 99 error situations in a three-week diary period. Findings: Errors typically provoked negative emotions, particularly in cases of "public" errors. Negative emotions provoked emotion-focused coping. However, there was no direct effect of emotions on learning. Learning seems to depend primarily on the in-depth analysis of the error, no matter whether the original coping intention is aimed at problem-solving, self-protection or emotion regulation. A quick error correction does not necessarily result in learning. Furthermore, plausible influences of individual and contextual factors were found, but must be interpreted cautiously. Research limitations/implications: The small sample size, particularly in person-level analyses, is a major shortcoming of the study. Originality/value: To overcome shortcomings of common retrospective self-reports such as interviews or questionnaires, this study uses the diary method as an innovative approach to investigate processes in situ.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize error reporting as a strategy for informal workplace learning and investigate nurses' error reporting cost/benefit evaluations and associated behaviors. Design/methodology/approach: A longitudinal survey study was carried out in a hospital setting with two measurements (time 1 [t1]: implementation of a critical incident reporting (CIR) system; t2: three months after t1). Correlational and hierarchical cluster analyses were used to interpret the data. Findings: Positive cost-benefit correlations and negative cross-correlations were found, with no substantial changes over time. "Reporters" and "learners" were differentiated regarding error-reporting behaviors. Cost-benefit perceptions predicted membership in the "reporters" group; perception of effort costs negatively predicted an error-reporting preference. Research limitations/implications: This study was limited, in that only a questionnaire was used to collect data. Practical implications: Stressing the benefits of CIR systems should contribute to reducing employees' perception of reporting costs; thus, ease of use is a critical factor in CIR system use. Originality/value: The study empirically probes a well-established theoretical model, and various ideas for further research are suggested.

The time required to determine the larger of 2 digits decreases with their numerical distance, and, for a given distance, increases with their magnitude (Moyer & Landauer, 1967). One detailed quantitative framework to account for these effects is provided by random walk models. These chronometric models describe how number-related noisy partial evidence is accumulated over time; they assume that the drift rate of this stochastic process varies lawfully with the numerical magnitude of the digits presented. In a complete paired number comparison design we obtained saccadic choice responses of 43 participants, and analyzed mean saccadic latency, error rate, and the standard deviation of saccadic latency for each of the 72 digit pairs; we also obtained mean error latency for each numerical distance. Using only a small set of meaningfully interpretable parameters, we describe a variant of random walk models that accounts in considerable quantitative detail for many facets of our data, including previously untested aspects of latency standard deviation and error latencies. However, different from standard assumptions often made in random walk models, this account required that the distributions of step sizes of the induced random walks are asymmetric. We discuss how our findings can help in interpreting complex findings (e.g., conflicting speed vs. accuracy trends) in applied studies which use number comparison as a well-established diagnostic tool. Finally, we also describe a novel effect in number comparison, the decrease of saccadic response amplitude with numerical distance, and suggest an interpretation using the conceptual framework of random walk models.

Thus far, it is unclear how students can learn most effectively from their own errors. In this study, reflections on the rationale behind self-made errors are assumed to enhance knowledge acquisition. In a field experiment with pre/post/follow-up design, the authors practiced fractions with 174 seventh- and eighth-grade students who were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: The students reflected on either the rationale behind their own errors or on the correct solution corresponding to their own errors. Students in the first condition group demonstrated a greater procedural knowledge at the posttest and at the follow-up test. Furthermore, at the follow-up test, these students demonstrated a higher conceptual knowledge. The implications for theory and school instruction are discussed.

This article reports an eye-tracking study on the native and non-native processing of case in Spanish. Twenty-four native and 27 first language (L1) German non-native speakers of Spanish were tested on their sensitivity to case marking violations involving structural case with objects of ditransitive verbs and to violations of inherent case for objects of transitive verbs (differential object marking; DOM). Both groups distinguished between grammatical and ungrammatical case marking for all sentence types in off-line acceptability judgments. In reading, however, the non-native speakers, unlike the native speakers, were sensitive only to violations of structural case marking with ditransitive verbs and the erroneous realization of DOM with inanimate objects. In contrast, they did not show processing slowdowns for the omission of DOM with animate objects. We interpret the asymmetry in non-native processing as reflecting sensitivity of the parser to grammatical feature hierarchies in that the parser licenses default case markings, yet flags feature clashes occasioned by the suppliance of erroneous inflectional forms with inherent case marking. We discuss the findings in the context of current approaches to second language (L2) acquisition and processing.

Purpose: The purpose of this replication study is to identify relevant individual and contextual factors influencing learning from errors at work and to determine if the predictors for learning activities are the same for the domains of nursing and retail banking. Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional replication study was carried out in retail banking departments of a German bank. In a pre-study, interviews were conducted with experts (N4) of retail banking. The pre-study was necessary to develop vignettes describing authentic examples of error situations which were part of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was filled out by 178 employees. Findings: Results indicate that the estimation of an error as relevant for learning positively predicts bankers' engagement in social learning activities. The tendency to cover up an error predicts bankers' engagement negatively. There are also indirect effects of error strain and the perception of a safe social team climate on the engagement in social learning. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the generalization of results by transferring and testing a model of learning from errors in a domain different from the previous domains where this topic was investigated.

The paper focuses on an unexplored area of metalinguistic awareness in the acquisition of third language (L3) phonology, hereafter referred to as metaphonological awareness. It addresses the role of attention and noticing in input processing. The contribution constitutes a part of a larger scale project on metaphonological awareness in various multilingual settings investigated through the application of stimulated recall verbal protocols. The study involved quasi-concurrent retrospective and introspective protocols, in which the participants were asked to attend to, modify, and comment on their phonological output in L3 Polish after listening to an excerpt of their previous text reading recording. The investigation aimed to explore qualitative and quantitative aspects of metaphonological awareness manifested through the participants' self-repair and modifications of pronunciation mistakes in L3 Polish, reflective metalinguistic analysis of their oral performance in L3, intentional focus on articulatory gestures, self-awareness of problems in L3 pronunciation, the level of metacognitive control, and comments on the pronunciation learning process. Explored from a multilingual perspective, the construct of metaphonological awareness was demonstrated to entail an interaction of metalinguistic awareness as well as cross-linguistic awareness and to be an essential component of multilingual competence.

This paper assesses attitudes of principals from one German federal state toward school inspections. The discussion about school inspections and their acceptance can be imbedded into theoretical reflections on the design of and approach to feedback in social psychology. In our study, 50 school principals were interviewed about their attitudes toward school inspections. The contents of their statements were analysed in a qualitative study. The central result was that 42% of the respondents were generally cooperative and had positive attitudes toward school inspections. The analysis of the school principals with rather negative statements (32% of the respondents) reflects a criticism of the anticipated workload in relation to the expected efficacy of school inspections and emotional as well as practical problems. Based on our findings, we discuss recommendations for action for those involved in school inspections from a social psychological point of view.

In task switching, a common result supporting the notion of inhibitory processes as a determinant of switch costs is the occurrence of "n"-2 repetition costs. Evidence suggests that this effect is not affected by preparation. However, the role of preparation on preceding trials has been neglected so far. In this study, evidence for an influence of preparatory processes on "n"-2 repetition costs is provided by focusing on the cue--target interval on trials "n"-1 and "n"-2. "N"-2 repetition costs were affected by an interaction of both "n"-1 and "n"-2 preparation time, being more pronounced when both preparatory intervals were long. The results provide support for the notion of active preparation processes involved in backward inhibition.

Working memory (WM) as the ability to temporarily maintain and manipulate various kinds of information is known to be affected by proactive interference (PI) from previously relevant contents, but studies on developmental changes in the susceptibility to PI are scarce. In the present study, we investigated life span development of item-specific PI. To this end, 92 individuals between the ages of 8 and 74 years completed a recent-probes task and an n-back task that both composed experimental manipulations of PI. Regarding global WM development, young adults had higher WM performance than children and older adults in both tasks. Significant PI × Age interactions revealed that susceptibility to PI changed over the life span in both tasks, whereas the developmental course of PI differed between the tasks: Children committed more PI-related errors than young adults in the recent-probes task but showed marginally less PI in the n-back task. Regarding reaction time costs, children did not differ from adults in the recent-probes task and were less affected than adults in the n-back. Older adults showed more PI-related errors than young adults in both tasks. Therefore, as expected, item-specific PI changed over the life span with the young adults being less susceptible to PI than children and older adults. The diverging developmental effects of PI across both tasks, especially in the children, are supposed to reflect different causes for the difficulties regarding resisting PI in children and older adults. These might concern differently developed underlying cognitive processes such as inhibition or recollection, or different responses to task demands across both tasks.

This article reports a lexical-decision experiment that was conducted to investigate the impact of word stress on visual word recognition in German. Reaction-time latencies and error rates of German readers on different levels of reading proficiency (i.e., third graders and fifth graders from primary school and university students) were compared in order to shed light on the role of word stress during reading and reading acquisition. Results show that word stress has a significant effect on the performance of third and fifth grade readers and thus influences single-word reading in at least some stages of reading acquisition.