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Background: Although research on mathematics learning programs has taken off in recent years, little is known about how different person characteristics are related to practice behaviour with such programs. When implementing a mathematics learning program in the classroom, it might be important to know whether students with specific characteristics need more encouragement to make use of this learning opportunity. Objectives: Using a supply-use model, we analysed the predictive power of students' cognitive characteristics (prior mathematics knowledge), personality traits (conscientiousness), motivational-affective characteristics (mathematics self-concept and mathematics anxiety), and family background characteristics (socioeconomic status and migration background) for practising with an adaptive arithmetic learning program. Methods: We used longitudinal data from 203 fifth graders from seven non-academic-track schools in Germany. Practice behaviour, measured by completed tasks in the learning program, was recorded weekly for every student over a period of 22 weeks. Results and Conclusions: The results of our multilevel analyses showed that mathematics anxious students practised less with the program. We did not find any relationship with the other characteristics. Takeaways: Our results suggest that mathematics anxious students need more encouragement when practising with a mathematics learning program; otherwise, they do not get the chance to benefit from the use.

Private supplementary tutoring is a widespread phenomenon. However, evidence that private tutoring has positive effects on academic achievement or about the specific conditions of successful private tutoring is rare. Adapting Carroll's (1963) model for school learning to private tutoring, we expected to find positive effects of tutoring duration, tutoring intensity, and students' motivation to attend private tutoring. In a sample of eighth-grade students in German secondary schools (N = 8510, 18.6% currently being tutored), we conducted regression analyses with multiple covariates and did not find a positive main effect of private tutoring attendance in any of the school subjects examined. Moreover, within the subsamples of tutored students, we were not able to identify positive effects of tutoring duration, tutoring intensity, tutoring content (such as a focus on homework completion, test preparation, or study behavior), or students' motivation to attend private tutoring. Given these disillusioning findings, we primarily derive suggestions for future research.

Science performance is highly affected by students' reading comprehension. Recently, there has been a growing attention to the role of linguistic features for science performance, but findings are ambivalent, especially when looking into item word count. The aim of this study was to investigate the interaction of students' reading comprehension and item word count of given science measures on performance, controlling for students' cognitive abilities, gender, family language, and school track. The sample consisted of N = 2051 German students in grades 10 and 11. Students completed (scientific) literacy measures. We then applied a multilevel logistic regression to investigate the hypothesized interaction effect of reading comprehension and word count on students' science performance. The results showed a significant interaction of students' reading comprehension and word count on science performance, controlling for several covariates. Particularly students with high reading comprehension benefit from science items with increasing word count. Our findings empirically support previous research, showing that reading comprehension is crucial for science performance and enhances the interaction between reading comprehension and linguistic features of written text in science subjects. Finally, theoretical and practical implications and limitations of this study are discussed.

Background: A considerable proportion of secondary school students gets additional support from private tutoring lessons. Empirical findings on the effectiveness of private tutoring are inconclusive. The instructional quality of the tutoring lessons might influence their effectiveness. Aims: We analysed (1) whether students privately tutored in the subjects German or mathematics outperformed their non-tutored counterparts; (2) whether the instructional quality of the tutoring lessons can be described with the three dimensions, structure, challenge, and support; and (3) the effects of these quality dimensions on the students' academic achievement and their global satisfaction with their school and family situation. Sample: We used data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). From a total sample of N = 11,358 10th-grade secondary school students, subsamples provided information about tutoring quality in mathematics (n[subscript M] = 1,714), German (n[subscript G] = 148), and English (n[subscript E] = 490). Methods: The model of three correlated dimensions of tutoring quality was evaluated with confirmatory factor analyses, and the effects on student outcomes were tested in a structural equation modelling framework. Results: Analyses revealed neither global effects of private tutoring nor effects of its instructional quality on students' grades in mathematics or German. However, the support dimension was positively related to students' satisfaction with their school situation. Conclusions: Private tutoring cannot be recommended as a generally effective strategy to improve academic achievement in school, but might be helpful to relieve the stress level induced by insufficient achievement in school.

More and more students attend private supplementary tutoring to improve their academic achievement. Private tutoring might be understood as a reaction to insufficient instructional quality in school, especially regarding individual support. However, it might also be possible that parents generally see insufficient grades as an indicator of lacking support and engage a tutor in hopes of improvement or to enhance a competitive edge for their children. So far, the relationship between tutoring attendance and perceived individual learning support during classroom lessons has not been tested. We used multilevel analyses based on N = 2,842 students in 102 Grade 5 classrooms at German academic track schools to test for a relationship between private tutoring in several subjects and students' shared perception of the instructional quality in these subjects. On the individual level, we controlled for typical predictors of private tutoring such as academic achievement and family income, as well as for additional variables such as working behaviour and parental homework assistance. In classrooms with more individual support, students were less likely to start private tutoring in English. However, we did not find comparable relationships for tutoring in mathematics and German. Therefore, school principals and educational policy-makers should monitor the incidence of private tutoring and consider within-school structured tutoring programmes as an effective measure to improve academic achievement and to meet parents' desire for individualised instruction.

Research on the instructional quality of private tutoring is scarce. Meanwhile, poor instructional quality may be a reason for the minimal or null effects of private tutoring on academic achievement reported in many studies. It is also not clear what makes a good private tutor. To fill in these gaps, the study examined whether the structure of instructional quality in private tutoring could be described using dimensions typically applied to classroom teaching. Moreover, it verified whether tutor enthusiasm for teaching and tutor emotional exhaustion, two central but under-researched antecedents of instructional quality, predicted the quality of private tutoring. We used data of 402 German private tutors (76.74% were female, 57.1% reported being either pre-service or in-service teachers). Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the expected structure of instructional quality consisting of cognitive activation, classroom management, and student support. Latent regression analyses revealed enthusiasm and emotional exhaustion to predict the dimensions. The findings suggest that research on instructional quality in private tutoring can connect to research on instructional quality in regular lessons. Moreover, it might be fruitful for tutoring companies and parents to search for tutors who are enthusiastic about teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Math learning programs were expected to revolutionize students' learning, but their effects so far have mostly been disappointing. Following the debate about why to continue research on math learning programs, we aimed to reformulate this question into how to continue this research. Investigations to date have neither considered a sufficiently wide set of outcome variables nor differentiated between performance measures (e.g., measuring addition and subtraction performance separately) and affective-motivational variables. Moreover, as students can only benefit from a program if they use it, researchers need to take practice behavior into account. Thus, we investigated whether the adaptive arithmetic learning program Math Garden fostered students' addition and subtraction performance, their math self-concept, and a reduction of their math anxiety. We also investigated how practice behavior (practiced tasks/weeks) affected these outcomes. We used a randomized pretest-posttest control group design with 376 fifth-grade students in Germany. Students in the experimental condition practiced with Math Garden for 20.7 weeks and had an increase in math self-concept. The more subtraction tasks the students practiced, the more they improved their subtraction performance. We found no effects on math anxiety. The results are discussed in terms of providing a starting point for new directions in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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