TY - JOUR A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Vock, Miriam A1 - Lazarides, Rebecca T1 - Are more conscientious seventh- and ninth-graders less likely to be retained? BT - effects of big five personality traits on grade retention in two different age cohorts JF - Journal of applied developmental psychology : an internat. multidisciplinary N2 - Previous research has identified students' personality traits, especially conscientiousness, as highly relevant predictors of academic success. Less is known about the role of Big Five personality traits in students when it comes to teachers' decisions about students' educational trajectories and whether personality traits differentially affect these decisions by teachers in different grade levels. This study examines to what extent students' Big Five personality traits affect teacher decisions on grade retention, looking at two cohorts of 12,146 ninth-grade and 6002 seventh-grade students from the German National Educational Panel Study. In both grade levels, multilevel logistic mediation models show that students' conscientiousness indirectly predicts grade retention through the assignment of grades by teachers. In the ninth-grade sample, students' conscientiousness was additionally a direct predictor of retention, distinct from teacher-assigned grades. We discuss potential underlying mechanisms and explore whether teachers base their decisions on different indicators when retaining seventh-grade students or ninth-grade students. KW - grade retention KW - personality KW - gender KW - socioeconomic status KW - educational KW - large-scale study KW - educational achievement Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2019.101088 SN - 0193-3973 VL - 66 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - GEN A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Lazarides, Rebecca A1 - Vock, Miriam T1 - Are some students graded more appropriately than others? BT - student characteristics as moderators of the relationships between teacher-assigned grades and test scores in mathematics T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Background Building on the Realistic Accuracy Model, this paper explores whether it is easier for teachers to assess the achievement of some students than others. Accordingly, we suggest that certain individual characteristics of students, such as extraversion, academic self-efficacy, and conscientiousness, may guide teachers' evaluations of student achievement, resulting in more appropriate judgements and a stronger alignment of assigned grades with students' actual achievement level (as measured using standardized tests). Aims We examine whether extraversion, academic self-efficacy, and conscientiousness moderate the relations between teacher-assigned grades and students' standardized test scores in mathematics. Sample This study uses a representative sample of N = 5,919 seventh-grade students in Germany (48.8% girls; mean age: M = 12.5, SD = 0.62) who participated in a national, large-scale assessment focusing on students' academic development. Methods We specified structural equation models to examine the inter-relations of teacher-assigned grades with students' standardized test scores in mathematics, Big Five personality traits, and academic self-efficacy, while controlling for students' socioeconomic status, gender, and age. Results The correlation between teacher-assigned grades and standardized test scores in mathematics was r = .40. Teacher-assigned grades more closely related to standardized test scores when students reported higher levels of conscientiousness (beta = .05, p = .002). Students' extraversion and academic self-efficacy did not moderate the relationship between teacher-assigned grades and standardized test scores. Conclusions Our findings indicate that students' conscientiousness is a personality trait that seems to be important when it comes to how closely mathematics teachers align their grades to standardized test scores. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 853 KW - teacher‐ assigned grades KW - teacher judgements KW - Realistic Accuracy KW - Model KW - Big Five personality traits Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-563330 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 3 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Lazarides, Rebecca A1 - Vock, Miriam T1 - Are some students graded more appropriately than others? BT - student characteristics as moderators of the relationships between teacher-assigned grades and test scores in mathematics JF - British journal of educational psychology N2 - Background Building on the Realistic Accuracy Model, this paper explores whether it is easier for teachers to assess the achievement of some students than others. Accordingly, we suggest that certain individual characteristics of students, such as extraversion, academic self-efficacy, and conscientiousness, may guide teachers' evaluations of student achievement, resulting in more appropriate judgements and a stronger alignment of assigned grades with students' actual achievement level (as measured using standardized tests). Aims We examine whether extraversion, academic self-efficacy, and conscientiousness moderate the relations between teacher-assigned grades and students' standardized test scores in mathematics. Sample This study uses a representative sample of N = 5,919 seventh-grade students in Germany (48.8% girls; mean age: M = 12.5, SD = 0.62) who participated in a national, large-scale assessment focusing on students' academic development. Methods We specified structural equation models to examine the inter-relations of teacher-assigned grades with students' standardized test scores in mathematics, Big Five personality traits, and academic self-efficacy, while controlling for students' socioeconomic status, gender, and age. Results The correlation between teacher-assigned grades and standardized test scores in mathematics was r = .40. Teacher-assigned grades more closely related to standardized test scores when students reported higher levels of conscientiousness (beta = .05, p = .002). Students' extraversion and academic self-efficacy did not moderate the relationship between teacher-assigned grades and standardized test scores. Conclusions Our findings indicate that students' conscientiousness is a personality trait that seems to be important when it comes to how closely mathematics teachers align their grades to standardized test scores. KW - teacher‐ assigned grades KW - teacher judgements KW - Realistic Accuracy KW - Model KW - Big Five personality traits Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12397 SN - 0007-0998 SN - 2044-8279 VL - 91 IS - 3 SP - 865 EP - 881 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wulff, Peter A1 - Buschhüter, David A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Mientus, Lukas A1 - Nowak, Anna A1 - Borowski, Andreas T1 - Bridging the gap between qualitative and quantitative assessment in science education research with machine learning BT - a case for pretrained language models-based clustering JF - Journal of science education and technology N2 - Science education researchers typically face a trade-off between more quantitatively oriented confirmatory testing of hypotheses, or more qualitatively oriented exploration of novel hypotheses. More recently, open-ended, constructed response items were used to combine both approaches and advance assessment of complex science-related skills and competencies. For example, research in assessing science teachers' noticing and attention to classroom events benefitted from more open-ended response formats because teachers can present their own accounts. Then, open-ended responses are typically analyzed with some form of content analysis. However, language is noisy, ambiguous, and unsegmented and thus open-ended, constructed responses are complex to analyze. Uncovering patterns in these responses would benefit from more principled and systematic analysis tools. Consequently, computer-based methods with the help of machine learning and natural language processing were argued to be promising means to enhance assessment of noticing skills with constructed response formats. In particular, pretrained language models recently advanced the study of linguistic phenomena and thus could well advance assessment of complex constructs through constructed response items. This study examines potentials and challenges of a pretrained language model-based clustering approach to assess preservice physics teachers' attention to classroom events as elicited through open-ended written descriptions. It was examined to what extent the clustering approach could identify meaningful patterns in the constructed responses, and in what ways textual organization of the responses could be analyzed with the clusters. Preservice physics teachers (N = 75) were instructed to describe a standardized, video-recorded teaching situation in physics. The clustering approach was used to group related sentences. Results indicate that the pretrained language model-based clustering approach yields well-interpretable, specific, and robust clusters, which could be mapped to physics-specific and more general contents. Furthermore, the clusters facilitate advanced analysis of the textual organization of the constructed responses. Hence, we argue that machine learning and natural language processing provide science education researchers means to combine exploratory capabilities of qualitative research methods with the systematicity of quantitative methods. KW - Attention to classroom events KW - Noticing KW - NLP KW - ML Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-022-09969-w SN - 1059-0145 SN - 1573-1839 VL - 31 IS - 4 SP - 490 EP - 513 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wulff, Peter A1 - Buschhüter, David A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Nowak, Anna A1 - Becker, Lisa A1 - Robalino, Hugo A1 - Stede, Manfred A1 - Borowski, Andreas T1 - Computer-based classification of preservice physics teachers’ written reflections JF - Journal of science education and technology N2 - Reflecting in written form on one's teaching enactments has been considered a facilitator for teachers' professional growth in university-based preservice teacher education. Writing a structured reflection can be facilitated through external feedback. However, researchers noted that feedback in preservice teacher education often relies on holistic, rather than more content-based, analytic feedback because educators oftentimes lack resources (e.g., time) to provide more analytic feedback. To overcome this impediment to feedback for written reflection, advances in computer technology can be of use. Hence, this study sought to utilize techniques of natural language processing and machine learning to train a computer-based classifier that classifies preservice physics teachers' written reflections on their teaching enactments in a German university teacher education program. To do so, a reflection model was adapted to physics education. It was then tested to what extent the computer-based classifier could accurately classify the elements of the reflection model in segments of preservice physics teachers' written reflections. Multinomial logistic regression using word count as a predictor was found to yield acceptable average human-computer agreement (F1-score on held-out test dataset of 0.56) so that it might fuel further development towards an automated feedback tool that supplements existing holistic feedback for written reflections with data-based, analytic feedback. KW - reflection KW - teacher professional development KW - hatural language KW - processing KW - machine learning Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-020-09865-1 SN - 1059-0145 SN - 1573-1839 VL - 30 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kretschmann, Julia A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Vock, Miriam T1 - Does it pay to be one of the oldest in class? BT - Relative age effects on academic self-concept, peer relations, and teacher judgments in German primary schools JF - Learning and instruction : the journal of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction N2 - Several studies have revealed that older students in a year group reach higher achievement scores than younger students in that group. But less is known about how students' relative age in class relates to their self-perception of academic achievement, their social acceptance in class and to how teachers judge their abilities. Therefore, we examined relative age effects within class on students' academic self-concept, peer relations, grades, and teachers' secondary school recommendation. Analyses were based on a sample of N = 18,956 German fourth graders, who had never been retained or accelerated. We applied multilevel regression to control for covariates at the individual and classroom level. There were no substantial relative age effects within class across any of the outcomes, except for a small advantage for the youngest in their reading self-concept. Our findings therefore contradict the common assumption that younger students in class are disadvantaged compared to their older classmates. KW - Relative age effects KW - Month of birth KW - Academic self-concept KW - Peer KW - relations KW - Teacher judgments Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2021.101463 SN - 0959-4752 SN - 1873-3263 VL - 74 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - GEN A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Vock, Miriam A1 - Stubbe, Tobias T1 - Grade skipping from the perspective of teachers in Germany BT - the links between teachers’ decisions, acceptance, and perceived knowledge T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The present study explored teachers' perspectives on one specific type of acceleration, namely, grade skipping. In addition, we investigated the extent to which teachers' beliefs about students' academic, motivational, and social development after grade skipping may explain teachers' acceptance of this accelerative strategy. Moreover, we examined whether teachers' acceptance is linked to their decisions about using this intervention. Using data from the PARS project, which included 316 teachers from 18 secondary schools in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, we assessed teachers' acceptance, beliefs, and perceived knowledge about grade skipping using 4-point rating scales. Teachers also reported whether they had advised a student to skip a grade. Multilevel regression analyses indicated that teachers' beliefs about students' social, motivational, and academic development largely explained their acceptance. Teachers who showed a higher level of acceptance and perceived knowledge were more likely to have recommended grade skipping before. Educational implications are discussed. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 411 KW - grade skipping KW - teacher knowledge KW - teacher beliefs and practices KW - teacher attitudes KW - acceleration Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-405235 IS - 411 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Kalinowski, Eva A1 - Hoferichter, Clara Josepha A1 - Vock, Miriam T1 - K-12 teachers' stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic BT - a systematic review JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - We present the first systematic literature review on stress and burnout in K-12 teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a systematic literature search, we identified 17 studies that included 9,874 K-12 teachers from around the world. These studies showed some indication that burnout did increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were, however, almost no differences in the levels of stress and burnout experienced by K-12 teachers compared to individuals employed in other occupational fields. School principals' leadership styles emerged as an organizational characteristic that is highly relevant for K-12 teachers' levels of stress and burnout. Individual teacher characteristics associated with burnout were K-12 teachers' personality, self-efficacy in online teaching, and perceived vulnerability to COVID-19. In order to reduce stress, there was an indication that stress-management training in combination with training in technology use for teaching may be superior to stress-management training alone. Future research needs to adopt more longitudinal designs and examine the interplay between individual and organizational characteristics in the development of teacher stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. KW - burnout KW - stress KW - COVID-19 KW - pandemic KW - K-12 teachers KW - remote teaching Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.920326 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 13 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Kalinowski, Eva A1 - Hoferichter, Clara Josepha A1 - Vock, Miriam T1 - K−12 teachers' stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - We present the first systematic literature review on stress and burnout in K−12 teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a systematic literature search, we identified 17 studies that included 9,874 K−12 teachers from around the world. These studies showed some indication that burnout did increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were, however, almost no differences in the levels of stress and burnout experienced by K−12 teachers compared to individuals employed in other occupational fields. School principals' leadership styles emerged as an organizational characteristic that is highly relevant for K−12 teachers' levels of stress and burnout. Individual teacher characteristics associated with burnout were K−12 teachers' personality, self-efficacy in online teaching, and perceived vulnerability to COVID-19. In order to reduce stress, there was an indication that stress-management training in combination with training in technology use for teaching may be superior to stress-management training alone. Future research needs to adopt more longitudinal designs and examine the interplay between individual and organizational characteristics in the development of teacher stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. KW - burnout KW - stress KW - COVID-19 KW - pandemic KW - K−12 teachers KW - remote teaching Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.920326 SN - 1664-1078 SP - 1 EP - 29 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - GEN A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Kalinowski, Eva A1 - Hoferichter, Clara Josepha A1 - Vock, Miriam T1 - K−12 teachers' stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - We present the first systematic literature review on stress and burnout in K−12 teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a systematic literature search, we identified 17 studies that included 9,874 K−12 teachers from around the world. These studies showed some indication that burnout did increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were, however, almost no differences in the levels of stress and burnout experienced by K−12 teachers compared to individuals employed in other occupational fields. School principals' leadership styles emerged as an organizational characteristic that is highly relevant for K−12 teachers' levels of stress and burnout. Individual teacher characteristics associated with burnout were K−12 teachers' personality, self-efficacy in online teaching, and perceived vulnerability to COVID-19. In order to reduce stress, there was an indication that stress-management training in combination with training in technology use for teaching may be superior to stress-management training alone. Future research needs to adopt more longitudinal designs and examine the interplay between individual and organizational characteristics in the development of teacher stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 796 KW - burnout KW - stress KW - COVID-19 KW - pandemic KW - K−12 teachers KW - remote teaching Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-565521 SN - 1866-8364 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER -