Research

The research topics of our work unit focus on emotion measurement, emotional processes and mechanisms as well as interventions to promote positive emotions. The age range we are interested in covers the entire school and university career.

  • Emotion measurement

    Revision of the AEQ-ES
    As part of this project, the existing scales on emotional experience in elementary school are being revised in collaboration with Prof. Putwain (Liverpool John Moores University) and Dr. Stockinger (University of Augsburg) and expanded to include further emotions. In addition to the existing scales on joy, fear and boredom, the aim is to include the assessment of further emotions and to revise the existing scales so that they can be assessed using fewer items.

    Scales measuring Emotions in Reading and Writing (AEQW-EES; AEQR-EES)
    In cooperation with Dr. Meyer (FA University, Nuremberg) and Dr. Schlesier (Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg), this project will develop instruments to measure the emotional experience of preschool children and first graders in the acquisition of written language and investigate how emotions are related to reading and spelling performance.

  • Emotional processes and mechanisms

    Antecedents and consequences of exam-related emotion profiles in the performance context: A latent transition analysis
    Empirical studies show that achievement emotions arise due to individual differences in control and value judgments.This project aims to investigate whether students' profile affiliations in their patterns of exam-related emotions are based on their domain-specific self-efficacy expectations and value beliefs in this domain.In addition, the intensity with which students experience different emotions is also influenced by individual factors such as temperament. The present study therefore aims to investigate whether trait characteristics such as test anxiety and intolerance of uncertainty are also related to students' profile affiliation.

    In a longitudinal research project, we investigate the characteristics of students with regard to their test anxiety and their intolerance of uncertainty and how these factors are related to the stability and change in the profile affiliation of achievement emotions over the course of a school year.

    The Relationship between Teacher Use of Value-Promoting Messages and Student Academic Outcomes
    Teachers may use a range of messages to communicate the importance of academic work to their students. For example, they might highlight the potential usefulness of the content being taught for everyday life, or the importance of certain grades to achieve academic or career goals. These messages can be called ‘value-promoting messages’. Research in the UK has shown that such messages can have different effects depending on how they are interpreted by the students receiving them.

    The aim of this project is to examine teacher use of value-promoting messages in the German education context. The study aims to answer the following questions:

    1. Do teachers in Germany use value-promoting messages with their students and, if so, what do they say?
    2. How do students in Germany respond to these messages? And what factors influence this response?
    3. How do the different types of student responses to the messages relate to student outcomes such as motivation, engagement and academic performance?

  • Interventions to foster positive emotions

    Intervention to promote reading for pleasure
    The latest report from the Institute for Quality Development in Education (IQB; Stanat et al., 2022) shows a clear negative trend in the skills levels of primary school pupils at the end of fourth grade. It shows that children's skills in German and mathematics have deteriorated dramatically over the last five years. It also shows that the gap between socially disadvantaged children and children from immigrant backgrounds has widened further compared to children from more privileged families and that this trend is particularly affecting this subgroup. According to Petra Stanat, Director of the Institute for Quality Development in Education (IQB) at Humboldt University in Berlin, a central goal should therefore be to focus on securing basic language and mathematical skills.

    The aim of this project is to implement an intervention measure in schools that will enable students to enjoy learning to read and provide the opportunity for all stakeholders (teachers, students and parents) to participate in the reading learning process in an adequate way. The concept of this intervention measure aims to promote the three basic psychological needs postulated by Deci and Ryan (2000) of striving for competence, autonomy and social inclusion and in this way to ensure the intrinsic motivation of children of primary school age.