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Interactions with classroom friends may be an important contributor to first and second language development, but to date this hypothesis has not been tested. Using a longitudinal design, the current study investigated the relationship between classroom friendships and oral language development in children. In 8 classrooms, we assessed the relationship between oral language skills and classroom social networks. Across the classrooms, 165 primary school children in Austria (83 boys; 119 L2 learners; age: 6-10) were assessed on oral language proficiency at the beginning of the school year (T1) and 6-7 months later (T2). Results indicated that the more reciprocal best friendships at T1, the greater language improvement at T2. Language improvement was strongest among friends with moderate differences in language proficiency, regardless of whether students were first or second language learners. These results underline the importance of positive social relations at school for language learning broadly.

Practitioner research as one approach of research-based learning in teacher education aims at the enhancement of student teachers' professional learning and research orientation. As current research does not provide sufficiently detailed and generalisable findings about the effects of internship integrated practitioner research, the present mixed-methods study combines qualitative and quantitative methods to deliver valuable insights. Content analysis of qualitative data of a first survey (n = 312) shows that student teachers solely report a development of their practise and do not report effects on their research orientation when openly asked. Factor analysis of quantitative data of a second survey (n = 124) with closed questions about practise- and research-orientated effects reveals four overarching factors: structuring of teaching, researching, communicating during teaching, and learner centred teaching. Results of the second survey demonstrate benefits in all factors. The findings provide indications that professional learning and research orientation is related to practitioner research.

The differentiation of personality by intelligence hypothesis suggests that there will be greater individual differences in personality traits for those individuals who are more intelligent. Conversely, less intelligent individuals will be more similar to each other in their personality traits. The hypothesis was tested with a large sample of managerial job candidates who completed an omnibus personality measure with 16 scales and five intelligence measures (used to generate an intelligence "g"-factor). Based on the "g"-factor composite, the sample was split using the median to conduct factor analyses within each half. A five-factor model was tested for both the lower and higher intelligence halves and were found to have configural invariance but not metric or scalar invariance. In general, the results provide little support for the differentiation hypothesis as there was no clear and consistent pattern of lower inter-scale correlations for the more intelligent individuals.

Neuromyths have been discussed to detrimentally affect educational practice, but the evidence for this assumption is still very scarce. We investigated whether 255 student-teacher' beliefs in neuromyths are related to their academic achievement (overall grade point averages and first-year practical courses). Believing or rejecting neuromyths that make no direct assumptions about learners' educability was not related to academic achievement. Believing in neuromyths that explicitly deny the educability of learners was only marginally related to academic achievement. We conclude that self-reported beliefs in neuromyths do not differentiate between high- and low-achieving initial teacher education students.

Comparing teachers' self-assessment to classes' assessment of quality of teaching can offer insights for educational research and be a valuable resource for teachers' continuous professional development. However, the quality of teaching needs to be measured in the same way across perspectives for this comparison to be meaningful. We used data from 622 teachers self-assessing aspects of quality of teaching and of their classes (12229 students) assessing the same aspects. Perspectives were compared with measurement invariance analyses. Teachers and classes agreed on the average level of "instructional clarity," and disagreed over "teacher-student relationship" and "performance monitoring," suggesting that mean differences across perspectives may not be as consistent as the literature claims. Results showed a nonuniform measurement bias for only one item of "instructional clarity," while measurement of the other aspects was directly comparable. We conclude the viability of comparing teachers' and classes' perspectives of aspects of quality of teaching.

We point out potential drawbacks of some of Leising et al.'s (2022a) proposed ways how personality science can be improved. We argue that it is ill-advised to use only one measure for a concept. Also, we argue that researchers should not refrain from conducting a study when a high level of statistical power is precluded. Then, we go one step further and formulate additional ideas of how to improve research. Specifically, we argue that it is a good thing to use different methods rather than only one when attempting to generalize across these methods. Moreover, we argue for a more theory-driven strategy for specifying factor analytic models, and we emphasize that high-quality research is often interdisciplinary. Finally, we point to a particular risk associated with any formal reward system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a large (N = 612) longitudinal sample in a teacher education program, we compared how three methods of personality scoring—manifest mean scores, correlated‐factors model scores, and bifactor model scores—predict academic achievement assessed by grade point averages. Furthermore, we compared predictiveness across honest responses, applicants' responses and responses collected under laboratory faking‐good instructions. To this end, a real‐life selection setting was part of our study (i.e., applicants to initial teacher education selected, among other things on their personality). We found the expected pattern of manifest mean scores (honest responses were the lowest, applicants' responses higher and faking‐good responses highest) and could demonstrate that applicant faking does not reduce personality assessment's predictiveness. Overall, correlated‐factors model scoring increased the predictiveness of honest and applicants' responses, and scoring via bifactor model even more so. No method of scoring could retrieve the predictiveness in the faking‐good response condition. Regarding the practical application within selection processes, bifactor model scores only slightly outperformed mean scores, and this only occurred in the case of small selection ratios. Nevertheless, we showed that there is criterion‐related and systematic variance within applicants' personality scores above and beyond their personality traits that can be extracted when modeled with bifactor models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparing self-perceived quality of teaching to students' perception can be used in higher education to improve the quality of teaching of pre-service teachers in teacher education. However, comparing these measurements from different perspectives is only meaningful if the same constructs are being measured. To shed light on this comparison's meaningfulness, we scrutinised whether aspects of quality of teaching are measured in the same way across pre-service teachers and their students by means of measurement invariance analyses. To do so, 272 pre-service teachers in teacher education rated aspects of their quality of teaching, and were rated by their 4851 students. Measurement invariance across these perspectives was tested in multilevel structural equation models. Strong measurement invariance held for two aspects of quality of teaching; for the third, one item lacked weak measurement invariance. Pre-service teachers perceived their quality of teaching lower than their students. In conclusion, aspects of quality of teaching can be compared across perspectives, and teacher education should encourage pre-service teachers to use students' feedback as a valuable resource for improving their quality of teaching.

While the objective level of intelligence is not associated with narcissism, relations to self-assessed intelligence (SAI) have been repeatedly reported. Existing research suggests that different facets of narcissism may have different associations with SAI. In the current daily diary study (N = 176; N = 3975 total observations), we employed dynamic structural equation modeling to examine the relationships between facets of trait and state narcissism (i.e., agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic) and the level, variability, and instability of SAI assessed over 28 consecutive days. Both trait and state narcissism were consistently related to SAI: agentic narcissism showed a positive relationship, whereas antagonistic and neurotic narcissism showed negative relationships with SAI. Trait agentic and state antagonistic narcissism predicted greater variability of SAI scores throughout the study, while neither trait nor state narcissism predicted the instability of SAI. Finally, we found that experiencing increased agentic narcissism on one day, predicted perceiving oneself as more intelligent on the next day, but feeling smarter did not predict feeling narcissistic over time. Moreover, we demonstrated that differentiating between narcissism facets yielded more theoretically accurate results compared to distinguishing between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]