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Background: Online exams have become a more common form of assessment at universities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, cheating behaviour in online exams is widespread and threatens exam validity as well as student learning and well-being. Objective: To better understand the role of university students' needs, conceptions and reasons regarding cheating in online exams. Methods: In Study 1, we used four pairs of contrasting online exam scenarios to explore the impact of addressing students' needs on their cheating intention. In Study 2, we examined how students' conceptions of online exams are related to their cheating behaviour. In Study 3, we asked students to name their most important reasons for and against cheating in past online exams. All studies were conducted online and are based on a convenience sample of 339 students from universities in Germany. Results and Conclusions: First, students were less likely to cheat when they expected exam content relevant to their future profession, exam tasks relevant to their future professional life and detailed feedback on their performance. Second, most students' conceptions of online exams were related to their cheating intention and behaviour, whereas the conceptions that online exams support teaching, promote collaboration and impair learning were of relatively high importance. Third, most important reasons for cheating included the relevance of grades and the unfairness of exams, and most important reasons against cheating included moral standards and values as well as the fear of consequences. Implications: Addressing students' needs and considering their conceptions and reasons could be a learner-centred approach to decrease cheating behaviour.

Students from a high socioeconomic background show relatively homogeneous, high levels of educational attainment, whereas students with a low socioeconomic origin display a large variability in their educational careers. In this paper, we examine whether the varying degrees of students' academic self-efficacy can contribute to an explanation of this variation. Focusing on Germany's highly stratified educational system, we utilized the CILS4EU dataset to analyse the association between the academic self-efficacy of students from low and high socioeconomic backgrounds in 9th grade and their later educational aspirations and transitions. Our results show that students from non-academic families are much more likely to (a) aspire to an Abitur, (b) transition to upper secondary school, and (c) enter tertiary education if they exhibit a high level of academic self-efficacy. In contrast, academic self-efficacy shows no link to the educational aspirations and decisions of students who have at least one parent with an academic certificate.

Despite a vast body of research on inclusive education, students' perspectives and experiences of inclusive secondary schools have garnered little attention. Yet their perspectives and experiences are central to the development of inclusive schools. To investigate this, we conducted seven group discussions with ninth-year students at German inclusive secondary schools, asking them what makes a school a place where all students can learn well. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we developed three themes (community, justice, and school as a place to live), three cross-thematic areas (limits, teachers, and belonging), and two overarching central discourses (othering and submission to a meritocratic, non-participative school logic). In light of our findings, we argue that inclusive secondary schools still face major challenges vis-a-vis the continuing non-inclusiveness of societies and that students' views can provide valuable insights into key success factors for inclusive secondary education.

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 research has found that student achievement is positively related to students' social standing in class. However, negative stereotypes about high academic achievers prevail among secondary school students, suggesting that higher achievers might be less well-integrated socially. These stereotypes especially target academically high-achieving boys, students achieving highly in mathematics and sciences, and students performing well in opposite-gender stereotyped subjects. This article tries to link these stereotypes to actual social integration measured by self-report and social network nominations. It tests whether there is a nonlinear relationship between achievement and social integration, and whether high performance in opposite-gender stereotyped ways is associated with lower levels of social integration. Using data from a German large-scale assessment study with about 45,000 ninth-grade students, we investigated the relationship between achievement and multiple facets of social integration (friendship, acceptance, contact, and subjective integration). Overall, the relations between achievement and social integration were positive. Only the facet of friendship followed the hypothesized shape of an inverted U. We found no support for an interaction between general achievement level and gender and no interactions between subject of achievement and gender, except for the facet of acceptance (being asked for help by peers). Girls were asked for help more often than their male classmates, and this gender difference was particularly evident in students who were not as highly achieving. We conclude that high-achieving students are not at a higher risk for social exclusion and that stereotypes seem not to align with actual social relationships in secondary school classes in Germany.

This article examines the extent to which normative beliefs on acculturation constitute (a) individual resources and risk factors for adolescents facing developmental tasks and (b) institutional norms that define developmental milieus in secondary schools. To what extent do egalitarianism, multiculturalism, assimilationism, and segregationism help or hinder academic and psychosocial adjustment in mid-adolescence? We examined how both individually endorsed beliefs and socially shared beliefs at the 10th-grade cohort level relate to students' academic performance, educational and occupational aspirations, motivational and emotional attachment to school, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. Data came from a random sample of 15- to 17-year-olds in Berlin, Germany, assessed at the end of Grades 9 and 10 (N = 1,992). Multivariate analyses identified egalitarianism and multiculturalism as the most prevalent acculturation beliefs, forming a combined belief pattern that pairs recognition of equality with respect for diversity. At the individual level, this belief pattern was positively related to academic and psychosocial adjustment. Assimilationism beliefs were associated with higher motivational and emotional attachment to school in both minority and majority students. Segregationism beliefs were associated with higher self-esteem in all adolescents regardless of background, but with lower levels of academic performance in immigrant youth. At the grade cohort level, a single bipolar factor (egalitarianism/multiculturalism vs. assimilationism/segregationism) described the institutional diversity culture. An environment characterized by egalitarianism/multiculturalism beliefs was positively associated with motivational and emotional attachment to school but not related to academic adjustment or psychological well-being.

Social comparisons with peers are important sources of self-development during adolescence. Many previous studies showed that students' academic self-concepts (ASC) form by contrasting one's own achievement with the average of one's class or school (the Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect [BFLPE]). Based on social comparison theory, however, we would expect some peers to be more likely social comparison targets than other peers, for example, because they are more visible or students perceive them as similar to themselves. In this study, we used sociometric data to analyze which peers play the most important role for social comparison effects on ASC. We examined how the average achievement of friends, study partners, peers perceived as popular by the student, as well as same-gender and same-ethnic peers affect the general ASC and how these effects compare to the effect of the classroom's average achievement. The study was based on a German longitudinal sample of 2,438 students (44% no recent immigrant background, 19% Turkish immigrant background, 10% Eastern European immigrant background, 27% other immigrant background) from 117 school classes that were followed from grade 9 to 10. Results from longitudinal social network analysis do not confirm substantial incremental effects of specific types of peers, while class average achievement showed a stable negative effect (confirming the BFLPE). In addition, we could provide evidence for social selection effects based on ASC. We conclude that classrooms provide a specific setting that imposes social comparisons with the "generalized peer" rather than with specific subgroups of peers.

Academic self-concept is understood as a multidimensional, hierarchical construct. Multidimensionality refers to the subject-specific differentiation of academic self-concepts, whereas hierarchy refers to the aggregation of more specific facets of self-concepts into more general ones. Previous research demonstrated that students distinguish between their self-concepts in biology, chemistry, and physics, if taught as separate school subjects, as is done in Germany. However, large-scale international educational studies, such as PISA, often use a monolithic science self-concept measure. It is yet unclear whether an aggregate of subject-specific self-concepts is equivalent to a directly measured science self-concept. We assessed the subject-specific and a global science self-concept of 1,229 German grade 10 students. A higher-order factor model and a bifactor model demonstrated a very high correlation between the "inferred" and the explicitly assessed global science self-concept. Despite the high empirical overlap, we argue for a more nuanced view of the science self-concept, because statistical unity is not to be confused with causal unity. Moreover, from a methodological perspective, we used multi-group confirmatory factor analysis to examine the mean structure and local structural equation models to study measurement invariance across science ability. Implications for the theoretical status of self-concept as a hierarchical construct are discussed.

In recent studies, the existence and relevance of achievement composition effects on students' individual achievement have been called into question because of the methodological challenges arising in multilevel analyses. Our study examined how class-average achievement is related to students' achievement development across one school year. We used data from Germany, which has a secondary school system with large achievement differences between schools and classrooms due to rigid, explicit between-school tracking practices. We accounted for two methodological challenges, controlling for both selection bias and measurement error. Adopting an approach based on integrative data analysis (IDA), we systematically (re)analyzed five German longitudinal large-scale data sets. This IDA approach allowed us to quantify the extent to which results vary across (a) different longitudinal data sets and (b) different analytical strategies (i.e., ways of accounting for confounding variables and measurement reliability). Overall, we found both general achievement composition effects and narrower peer spillover effects (i.e., effects of student composition above and beyond the effects of tracking) in the German setting, even after controlling for measurement error and selection bias. Our results counter recent suggestions that composition effects on achievement development may be mere phantom effects due to methodological misspecifications. However, estimates of composition effects varied substantially based on the analytical approach. We conclude with considerations regarding how to interpret composition effects in multilevel modeling and which effects are of interest for educational research.

The structure of academic self-concept (ASC) is assumed to be multidimensional and hierarchical. This methodological review considers the most central models depicting the structure of ASC: a higher-order factor model, the Marsh/Shavelson model, the nested Marsh/Shavelson model, a bifactor representation based on exploratory structural equation modeling, and a first-order factor model. We elaborate on how these models represent the theoretical assumptions on the structure of ASC and outline their inherent psychometric properties. We analyzed these models using a data set of German 10th-grade students (N = 1,232) including a wide range of domain-specific ASCs as well as general ASC. The correlations among ASCs and between ASCs and academic achievement varied depending on the structural model used. We conclude with discussing recommendations for research purposes and advantages and limitations of each ASC model. Our approach may also guide research on other affective or motivational constructs (e.g., academic anxiety or interest).

This experimental study examined the influence of vocabulary and spelling on teachers' perceptions of English as a second language (ESL) essays. Sixty-nine pre-service teachers from Switzerland and Germany rated four upper-intermediate ESL argumentative essays and provided written comments on strengths and weaknesses of the student compositions. In Study 1 (N = 34), the level of lexical sophistication and diversity of the four texts had been experimentally varied. Results suggest a successful manipulation, since comments responding to texts with a low quality of vocabulary included more negative feedback points regarding vocabulary. Yet, participants also commented more negatively on grammar when responding to texts with a low quality of vocabulary, indicating a halo effect. In Study 2 (N = 35), the quality of spelling was manipulated in the same four student essays. Results indicate that comments responding to texts with a low quality of spelling involved more negative feedback points regarding spelling (manipulation check) on the one hand, and vocabulary, grammar, and others (halo effects) on the other hand. In both studies, teachers' perception of strengths and weaknesses correlated moderately with their holistic and analytic assessment of the texts. The implications of this study for classroom practice and teacher education are discussed.

Academic self-concept (ASC) is characterized by the dual nature of stability and change. That is, students strive for consistency in their self-concept but also receive achievement feedback that leads to changes in ASC. Only a few previous studies have scrutinized the stability of ASC. The STARTS model (Stable, AutoRegressive Trait, and State) disentangles three sources of variation that underlie individual differences in a construct across time: (a) a time-invariant stable component, (b) a time-varying, partly stable component, and (c) an occasion-specific state component. This study is the first to analyze the stability of ASC with the STARTS model. Rather than selecting a single data set, we followed the idea of using an integrative data analysis (IDA) and applied the STARTS model to 11 longitudinal studies that included more than 20,000 students. Our results show that there is a substantial proportion of stable trait variance in both mathematical (26%) and verbal self-concept (24%)--that is, some sources of individual differences in ASC are completely stable (e.g., genes, preschool environment). The largest part of the variation in ASC across time could be attributed to factors that systematically changed in an autoregressive way (e.g., achievement feedback). Mathematical self-concept showed higher stability than verbal self-concept as a result of a smaller proportion of occasion-specific state variance. The IDA also revealed substantial heterogeneity across studies. We argue that disentangling stable and temporally changing aspects of ASC is important not only for informing theory but also for assessing the potential of psychological interventions.

Which factors help young adults choose educational pathways leading to higher educational attainment? Academic self-concept (ASC), achievement, and socioeconomic background have all been found to be important predictors of postsecondary educational choices and success. Although research has shown that student composition in secondary school may affect some of these predictors, only a few studies (mostly from the United States) have investigated the effects of student composition on postsecondary educational outcomes. The results showed that students with similar individual achievement had lower postsecondary educational attainment if they graduated from secondary schools with higher mean achievement. It has been proposed that social comparison processes explain this negative context effect (big-fish-little-pond effect [BFLPE]). In contrast, students with the same individual socioeconomic status (SES) had higher postsecondary educational attainment if they graduated from secondary schools with a higher mean SES. In the present study, we investigated the effects of achievement-related and socioeconomic student composition on subsequent educational outcomes using data from a longitudinal study in Germany. Contrary to previous studies, our results showed that student composition had little relevance for later educational pathways. There was a small, long-lasting, indirect BFLPE of achievement-related composition in secondary school on postsecondary educational outcomes through students' ASC. Furthermore, individual SES was strongly related to postsecondary educational outcomes, whereas being in an academic-track school with a higher or lower mean SES was not relevant for postsecondary educational pathways.

Self-concept in mathematics (MSC) and interest in mathematics are important predictors of whether a student will choose to major in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) field at university. Research on the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) has shown that both predictors are affected by the achievement composition of students in schools. That is, given the same individual ability, students in higher achieving schools exhibit lower MSC and interest in mathematics than students in lower achieving schools due to social comparison processes. The BFLPE has been replicated in high school settings many times, but less is known about the long-term effects of this context effect. In the present study, we investigated the long-term effects of the BFLPE on the aspiration to major in and the actual decision to major in a STEM field at university. We used data from a German longitudinal study. The results showed no direct BFLPE on the aspiration to enroll in a STEM major at the end of high school or on actual enrollment in a STEM major 2 years after graduating from high school. However, small negative indirect effects of the BFLPE via MSC and interest in mathematics on the aspiration to and enrollment in a STEM major occurred. In sum, the longitudinal BFLPE on STEM major choice was small.

Assessing student writing is a complex task and experimental studies have shown that textual determinants, such as spelling or vocabulary, affect teachers' judgments of other analytic criteria in student essays. Among these elements, organisation has not been extensively explored. This experimental study examines how organisational quality influences teacher judgments of ESL student texts in order to obtain a comprehensive overview of important determinants in the assessment process. Pre-service English teachers (N = 53) in Switzerland and Germany assessed four argumentative essays of two different overall text qualities in which two organisational features had been manipulated in terms of cohesive devices and paragraphing. Findings show that texts with higher organisational quality were assessed more positively concerning all analytic scales than texts with low organisational quality, indicating halo effects. In addition, an interaction effect was found between overall text quality and organisational quality, suggesting that the effect of organisational quality was stronger when overall text quality was low. This study sheds new light on the interaction between individual text features in the assessment of complex learner texts. Practical implications regarding essay assessment in teacher education are discussed.

Educational expectations are a key predictor of educational attainment. Throughout adolescence, friends increasingly function as 'significant others' and, thus, can affect the development of these expectations. Although scholars often interpret the clustering of students with similar expectations within friendship networks as the outcome of peer influence, a similarity of friends can also be a result of friendship selection processes and preselection due to ability tracking. We apply multilevel social network models to panel data of adolescents from Germany (1,992 ninth-grade students in 91 classes) to disentangle these mechanisms. Beyond selecting similar friends (homophily), we find that adolescents adapt their expectations towards the average expectations of their friends (social influence) but only in secondary-school tracks that support diverse educational paths. We conclude that peer socialization is important for the development of students' educational expectations in contexts that are sufficiently heterogeneous to allow for the emergence of distinct peer milieus.

Despite the fact that grade retention is now seen as controversial in many quarters, it remains common practice in numerous countries. Previous research on the effects of grade retention on student development has, however, generated ambiguous results, particularly in terms of motivational outcomes. This ambiguity has been attributed in part to a lack of high-quality studies including a longitudinal design, a suitable comparison group, and adequate statistical control of preretention differences. Based on longitudinal data of N = 3,288 German students over 3 years of secondary school, we examined differences in their academic self-concept, scholarly interests, learning motivation, and achievement motivation between those being retained in the 6th grade (n = 61) and those of the same age being promoted annually. To account for confounding variables, we applied full propensity score matching on baseline measures of the dependent variables, as well as various other covariates that have been found to be associated with the risk of retention (e.g., cognitive ability, academic performance, and family background variables). Results reveal a steep decline in students' academic self-concept, interests, and learning motivation during the last months spent in the original class, just before retention. For those measures that were available, negative effects were still partly significant after 1 year, but had diminished 2 years after grade retention. Contrary to predictions suggested by the "big-fish-little-pond effect," we found no positive effects of retention on students' academic self-concept.

Study aim: To assess the influence of juggling training on mental rotation performance in children. Material and methods: Two groups of girls aged 6-14 years were studied: experimental (EG; n = 26) and control (CG; n = 24). All girls solved a mental rotation task with 3-D block figures on computer screen (pre-test). After the initial test, EG girls participated in juggling training for 3 months; the CG girls participated in light strength training with theraband stretch bands. After 3 months, all girls solved the mental rotation task again (post-test). The post-pre differences in the mental rotation performance were recorded. Results: Children who learned juggling performed the mental rotation task significantly (p less than 0.05-0.01) faster, in terms of reaction time, at non-zero angular disparity than their mates who were strength-trained. Conclusions: Since mental rotation skills enhance spatial imagination, problem solving and mathematical skills, it may be assumed that juggling training enhances also other cognitive domains and is worth implementing in the education process. (Contains 2 figures and 2 tables.)

The main goal of this study was to investigate the influence of an established school programme with a high amount of physical education on visual-spatial ability in a secondary school. One hundred and forty-four adolescents, 69 from sport classes and 75 from regular classes, solved a cognitive processing speed task and a mental rotation task. The results reflect a better cognitive processing speed of the boys in the sports classes compared to regular classes but no differences for girls. Concerning the mental rotation performance, we found a significantly better mental rotation performance for boys and girls in the sports classes compared to regular classes due to an increased number of items worked on. Supposedly, motor expertise facilitates mental rotation performance by promoting a faster editing of the task. The benefits of sport classes in normal high school settings have to be investigated in further studies considering the effect on academic performance.

Dimensional comparison theory (DCT; Möller & Marsh, 2013) assumes that students compare their academic achievement intraindividually across domains to form domain-specific self-concepts. Upward dimensional comparisons are believed to lead to lower self-concepts in the worse-off domain, while downward dimensional comparisons should lead to higher self-concepts in the better-off domain. Furthermore, DCT assumes the net effect of upward and downward dimensional comparisons to be beneficial to the self. To test these assumptions, 3 experiments and 2 field studies were conducted investigating the relative effects of upward and downward dimensional comparisons as well as their net effect. In Studies 1 (N = 149), 2 (N = 150) and 3 (N = 300), participants were asked to infer self-concepts of fictitious students after receiving experimentally manipulated information about their achievements in 2 domains, whereas participants in Studies 4 (N = 2,268) and 5 (N = 20,662) assessed their own self-concepts in German and mathematics. In all studies, downward dimensional comparisons resulted in higher self-concepts, whereas upward dimensional comparisons led to lower self-concepts. The net effect of dimensional comparisons was always found to be not statistically different from zero. The findings therefore support the central prediction of DCT on the discreteness of the effects of upward and downward dimensional comparisons, yet do not support the assumed positivity of their net effect. Furthermore, results indicate the effect patterns to be rather universal as they were stable across different samples, domains, achievement situations, research designs, and types of assessment.

Academic self-concept has been conceptualized as a multidimensional and hierarchical construct. Previous research has mostly focused on its multidimensionality, distinguishing between verbal and mathematical self-concept domains, and only a few studies have examined the factorial structure within specific self-concept domains. The present study aims to extend the scarce evidence of the simultaneous operation of multidimensionality and hierarchy within language self-concepts. Skill-specific (i.e., reading, listening, speaking, and writing) and global self-concept measures for German as students' native language and English and French as students' foreign languages were administered to a sample of 4,257 ninth-grade German students. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated better levels of fit for multidimensional models with highly correlated but separate factors for each skill-specific self-concept compared to unidimensional models. The skill-specific facets could be aggregated into a higher order factor for each language, demonstrating a hierarchical structure. Differential gender effects on the various skill-specific self-concept facets provided further evidence of the multidimensional nature of language self-concepts, although differential relations to skill-specific achievement measures were not found. The high correlation between the higher order and global self-concept factors as well as similar gender effects and relations to achievement supported the notion of the similarity of both constructs. A comparable pattern of results emerged across the 3 languages, but detailed inspection indicated that multidimensionality seems to be more pronounced in the native language domain (German). The findings of the study are discussed regarding their implications for the assessment of language self-concepts and future research on the structure of language self-concepts.

Students evaluate their achievement in a specific domain in relation to their achievement in other domains and form their self-concepts accordingly. These comparison processes have been termed "dimensional comparisons" and shown to be an important source of academic self-concepts in addition to social and temporal comparisons. Research on the internal/external frame of reference model (I/E model) has frequently found negative effects of students' achievement on their academic self-concept between different scholastic domains (mathematics and the language of instruction) that are interpreted as contrast effects of dimensional comparisons. There is mixed evidence with regard to whether negative contrast effects or positive assimilation effects occur when students compare their achievement in domains that are more similar. In this study, we extended the original I/E model with 3 science domains (biology, chemistry, and physics). Using structural equation modeling, we analyzed the domain-specific self-concepts, grades, and test scores of a representative sample of 9th-grade students in Germany (N = 20,050) across 5 domains. Mathematics, physics, and chemistry showed contrast effects to German, whereas small assimilation effects were found between mathematics, physics, and chemistry. This effect pattern was present for both grades and test scores. Achievement in mathematics and the language of instruction affected self-concepts in the sciences, whereas achievement in the sciences had no effect on self-concepts in other subjects. The results support the hypotheses derived from dimensional comparison theory that both contrast and assimilation effects can result from dimensional comparisons and that the 3 science subjects are affected differentially by these comparisons.

This article presents a reanalysis of the data of 862 second and fourth graders collected in two previous studies, focusing on the influence of method (psychometric vs. chronometric) and stimulus type on the gender difference in mental-rotation accuracy. The children had to solve mental-rotation tasks with animal pictures, letters, or cube figures, either in a chronometric condition (computerized) or in a psychometric condition (paper-and-pencil). Results show a slight male advantage in mental-rotation accuracy, which is neither influenced by method nor by stimulus type. However, mental-rotation accuracy differed between the stimulus types, with the highest accuracy in animal pictures and the lowest accuracy in cube figures, and between age groups, with better performance in fourth graders than in second graders in both conditions. Results show that psychometric and chronometric mental-rotation tests with all the stimulus types are more or less similarly usable with children of that age.

There is accumulating evidence that individual differences in stress reactivity contribute to the risk for stress-related disease. However, the assessment of stress reactivity remains challenging, and there is a relative lack of questionnaires reliably assessing this construct. We here present the Perceived Stress Reactivity Scale (PSRS), a 23-item questionnaire with 5 subscales and 1 overall scale, based on an existing German-language instrument. Perceived stress reactivity and related constructs were assessed in N = 2,040 participants from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany. The 5-factor structure of the PSRS was found to be similar in the 3 countries. In the U.S. sample the questionnaire was applied using 2 modes of administration (paper-pencil and computerized), and measures were repeated after 4 weeks. Measurement invariance analyses demonstrated full invariance across mode of administration and partial invariance across gender and countries. Scale scores differed between countries and genders, with women scoring higher on most scales. Overall, reliability analysis suggested good stability of PSRS scores over a 4-week period, and validation analysis showed expected associations with related constructs such as self-efficacy, neuroticism, chronic stress, and perceived stress. Perceived stress reactivity was also associated with depressive symptoms and sleep. These associations were particularly strong when individuals scoring high on perceived stress reactivity were exposed to chronic stress. In sum, our findings suggest that the PSRS is a useful and easy-to-administer instrument to assess perceived stress reactivity. (Contains 3 figures and 5 tables.)

This study investigated the relation between motor development, intelligence and mental rotation ability in 5 to 6-year-old children. 80 children performed a standardized motor test (MOT 4-6), a paper-pencil mental rotation test (BIRT) and a non-verbal reasoning test (CPM). A multiple regression analysis revealed that intelligence and motor control abilities were significant and independent predictors of mental rotation performance.

Gender differences in a psychometrical and in a chronometrical mental rotation test and in a standardized math test were investigated with a sample size of 109 boys and girls aged 7 or 8 years. The results revealed gender differences in all accuracy-based measures, i.e., in the paper-pencil mental rotation test, in the math test, and in the error rate of the chronometrical test. In line with the literature for adults, however, no gender difference was found in the speed of mental rotation itself. Moreover, no evidence for a speed-accuracy tradeoff was found. Thus, gender differences in tasks of math and visual-spatial cognition are present well before puberty but they seem to be restricted to accuracy-based measures.

In collaboration with the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Department of Education and Training, the Australian National University has been offering a professional development program for language teachers (called LIFT, or Language Inservice for Teachers) for more than ten years. As the program is specially tailored to meet teachers' current needs, it has changed considerably over time, from an initial focus on graduate accreditation for teachers of all languages, to what is currently offered, that is, primarily language-specific immersion workshops on topics relevant to the teaching of a specific language. In this report the authors present a brief overview of the LIFT Program followed by an in-depth description and discussion of a composite workshop on German culture developed for teachers of German in 2002. First, the authors briefly sketch the LIFT Program as it has developed over the last decade. They then describe and discuss the composite workshop on German culture. In conclusion, they highlight the outcomes of this ongoing teacher inservice training workshop.

Three experiments investigated the route-angularity effect, which is demonstrated when a greater number of turns along a route increases the estimated length. So far, a route-angularity effect has not been demonstrated in school-age children. Because of the lack of a developmental theory, this finding could only be explained by a minor control of environmental features or by the experimental design. The experiments were conducted in a controlled virtual environment. In the first experiment, 11-year-old children explored two routes of equal length, which differed in the number of turns. Each child explored only one of the two routes in the second experiment. Only the first experiment demonstrated an influence in the number of turns on distance estimation. This result was confirmed in the last experiment with adults. If participants had no possibility to compare the routes in respect to their number of turns, both routes were estimated as equally long.

Numbers of infections with Neisseria gonorrhoeae are among the top three sexually transmitted infections (STI) worldwide. In addition, the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Neisseria gonorrhoeae pose an important public-health issue. The integration of genomic, phenotypic and epidemiological data to monitor Neisseria gonorrhoeae fosters our understanding of the emergence and spread of AMR in Neisseria gonorrhoeae and helps to inform therapy guidelines and intervention strategies. Thus, the Gonococcal resistance surveillance (Go-Surv-AMR) was implemented at the Robert Koch Institute in Germany in 2021 to obtain molecular, phenotypic and epidemiological data on Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolated in Germany. Here, we describe the structure and aims of Go-Surv-AMR. Furthermore, we point out future directions of Go-Surv-AMR to improve the integrated genomic surveillance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae. In this context we discuss current and prospective sequencing approaches and the information derived from their application. Moreover, we highlight the importance of combining phenotypic and WGS data to monitor the evolution of AMR in Neisseria gonorrhoeae in Germany. The implementation and constant development of techniques and tools to improve the genomic surveillance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae will be important in coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus is one of the most frequent pregnancy complications with a global prevalence of 13.4% in 2021. Pregnant women with COVID-19 and gestational diabetes mellitus are 3.3 times more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit than women without gestational diabetes mellitus. Data on the association of gestational diabetes mellitus with maternal and neonatal pregnancy outcomes in pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 infection are lacking.Objective: This study aimed to investigate whether gestational diabetes mellitus is an independent risk factor for adverse maternal and fetal and neonatal outcomes in pregnant women with COVID-19.Study Design: The COVID-19-Related Obstetric and Neonatal Outcome Study is a registry-based multicentric prospective observational study from Germany and Linz, Austria. Pregnant women with clinically confirmed COVID-19 were enrolled between April 3, 2020, and August 24, 2021, at any stage of pregnancy. Obstetricians and neonatologists of 115 hospitals actively provided data to the COVID-19-Related Obstetric and Neonatal Outcome Study. For collecting data, a cloud-based electronic data platform was developed. Women and neonates were observed until hospital discharge. Information on demographic characteristics, comorbidities, medical history, COVID-19-associated symptoms and treatments, pregnancy, and birth outcomes were entered by the local sites. Information on the periconceptional body mass index was collected. A primary combined maternal endpoint was defined as (1) admission to an intensive care unit (including maternal mortality), (2) viral pneumonia, and/or (3) oxygen supplementation. A primary combined fetal and neonatal endpoint was defined as (1) stillbirth at ≥24 0/7 weeks of gestation, (2) neonatal death ≤7 days after delivery, and/or (3) transfer to a neonatal intensive care unit. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the modulating effect of gestational diabetes mellitus on the defined endpoints.Results: Of the 1490 women with COVID-19 (mean age, 31.0±5.2 years; 40.7% nulliparous), 140 (9.4%) were diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus; of these, 42.9% were treated with insulin. Overall, gestational diabetes mellitus was not associated with an adverse maternal outcome (odds ratio, 1.50; 95% confidence interval, 0.88-2.57). However, in women who were overweight or obese, gestational diabetes mellitus was independently associated with the primary maternal outcome (adjusted odds ratio, 2.69; 95% confidence interval, 1.43-5.07). Women who were overweight or obese with gestational diabetes mellitus requiring insulin treatment were found to have an increased risk of a severe course of COVID-19 (adjusted odds ratio, 3.05; 95% confidence interval, 1.38-6.73). Adverse maternal outcomes were more common when COVID-19 was diagnosed with or shortly after gestational diabetes mellitus diagnosis than COVID-19 diagnosis before gestational diabetes mellitus diagnosis (19.6% vs 5.6%; P<.05). Maternal gestational diabetes mellitus and maternal preconception body mass index of ≥25 kg/m2 increased the risk of adverse fetal and neonatal outcomes (adjusted odds ratio, 1.83; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-3.18). Furthermore, overweight and obesity (irrespective of gestational diabetes mellitus status) were influential factors for the maternal (adjusted odds ratio, 1.87; 95% confidence interval, 1.26-2.75) and neonatal (adjusted odds ratio, 1.81; 95% confidence interval, 1.32-2.48) primary endpoints compared with underweight or normal weight.Conclusion: Gestational diabetes mellitus, combined with periconceptional overweight or obesity, was independently associated with a severe maternal course of COVID-19, especially when the mother required insulin and COVID-19 was diagnosed with or after gestational diabetes mellitus diagnosis. These combined factors exhibited a moderate effect on neonatal outcomes. Women with gestational diabetes mellitus and a body mass index of ≥25 kg/m2 were a particularly vulnerable group in the case of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The rejuvenation ecology of three main tree species in anthropogenic pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) forests is explored in our study. We focus on the scale of micro-plots, which provide the safe sites for tree rejuvenation. We thrive on the multi-factorial relationship of tree establishment and driving ecological factors using a large dataset from pine stands in NE Germany and applying multivariate analyses. The success of the establishment of the investigated focal tree species Fagus sylvatica L., Quercus petraea Liebl. and Pinus sylvestris L. is, on general, mostly affected by three factors, i.e. water balance of the upper soil layers, browsing pressure, and diaspore sources. Our investigations on the micro-plot scale revealed species-specific differences. For beech saplings <50cm growth height, primarily the availability of water, indicated by available water capacity (AWC), thickness, quality, and structure of the organic layer, silt and humus content in the topsoil, and the lack of a dense competitive herb layer, were identified as most important factors. On the contrary, oak seems hardly be restricted by hydrologic and/or trophic deficits in the topsoil or humus layer. In conclusion and comparison to Fagus sylvatica L., we assume for Quercus petraea Liebl. advantages in natural regeneration processes under sub-continental climate conditions and thus under the scenarios of climate change. Pinus sylvestris L. regeneration in our investigation area occurs only in a narrow niche. We conclude with regard to future forest development and the objective of stand conversion with low management intensity that oak should be favoured within natural stand regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Introduction: The purpose of this study was to assess the occurrence of hypercementosis in a selected German dental school patient population. Methods: A total of 800 full-mouth periapical radiographic series were screened. The radiographs were evaluated under optimal conditions by using double magnifying glasses. A total of 18,589 teeth including third molars were evaluated. The relative incidence of hypercementosis and the correlation regarding the location (left-side versus right-side occurrence, maxillary versus mandibular, and anterior versus posterior teeth) and between men and women were recorded and analyzed by using the χ2 test. Results: Eleven patients were found to have hypercementosis, 10 women and 1 man (P < .05). Of these, 5 of 11 (45.46%) had only 1 tooth with hypercementosis, and 6 had more than 1 (54.54%). In total, 22 teeth associated with hypercementosis were found. Seven maxillary teeth were associated with hypercementosis (31.82%) and 15 mandibular teeth (68.18%) (P = .198). No significant differences were found regarding left-side and right-side occurrence of the affected teeth (P > .05). Hypercementosis was significantly more often associated with premolars and molars than with incisors (P < .01). Hypercementosis was found in 11 of 800 patients (1.33%). It was identified in 22 of the 18,589 teeth examined (0.12%). Conclusions: The occurrence of hypercementosis among this selected German population was rare. Female patients were approximately 10 times more often affected than male patients. Mandibular teeth were approximately twice as often associated with hypercementosis as maxillary teeth. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An obituary for German painter and glass artist Wilhelm Buschulte is presented.