TY - JOUR A1 - Lenkeit, Jenny A1 - Hartmann, Anne A1 - Ehlert, Antje A1 - Knigge, Michel A1 - Spörer, Nadine T1 - Effects of special educational needs and socioeconomic status on academic achievement BT - Separate or confounded? JF - International Journal of Educational Research N2 - Germany is continuously expanding its inclusive education system. Research provides evidence that students with special educational needs (SEN) in inclusive school settings show lower academic achievement and come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than their peers without SEN. Identifying to what extent the disadvantages originating from both characteristics are confounded in predicting academic achievement, has been neglected in the German educational context. Using data of 1711 primary and secondary school students from a longitudinal study in the state of Brandenburg, this study evaluates to what degree SEN (in the areas of learning and emotional-social difficulties) and socioeconomic background (SES) are confounded in predicting academic initial achievement in reading and mathematics as well as their development over time. Using multilevel modelling techniques that nest three measurement points into students and students into classes, results identify SES and SEN as relevant predictors of achievement status and growth in both subjects. Only few and small mediation effects of SES were found, indicating that both SES and SEN remain independent risk factors for achievement. Understanding the origins of student disadvantage can help teachers to make better informed choices for designing support measures and aid policymakers' reasoning for resource allocations. KW - Special educational needs KW - Socioeconomic background KW - Multiple disparities KW - Longitudinal KW - Hierarchical linear modelling Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2022.101957 SN - 0883-0355 VL - 113 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Horn, Peter A1 - Fritzsche, Tom A1 - Ehlert, Antje A1 - Adani, Flavia T1 - Tapping into the interplay of lexical and number knowledge using fast mapping BT - a longitudinal eye-tracking study with two-year-olds JF - Infant behavior & development : an international and interdisciplinary journal N2 - Language skills and mathematical competencies are argued to influence each other during development. While a relation between the development of vocabulary size and mathematical skills is already documented in the literature, this study further examines how children's ability to map a novel word to an unknown object as well as their ability to retain this word from memory may be related to their knowledge of number words. Twenty-five children were tested longitudinally (at 30 and at 36 months of age) using an eye-tracking-based fast mapping task, the Give-a Number task, and standardized measures of vocabulary. The results reveal that children's ability to create and retain a mental representation of a novel word was related to number knowledge at 30 months, but not at 36 months while vocabulary size correlated with number knowledge only at 36 months. These results show that even specific mapping processes are initially related to the acquisition of number words and they speak for a parallelism between the development of lexical and number-concept knowledge despite their semantic and syntactic differences. KW - Number KW - Number knowledge KW - Cognitive development KW - Fast mapping KW - Word KW - learning KW - Cross-domain development Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101573 SN - 0163-6383 SN - 1879-0453 VL - 64 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fritz, Annemarie A1 - Long, Caroline A1 - Herzog, Moritz A1 - Balzer, Lars A1 - Ehlert, Antje A1 - Henning, Elizabeth T1 - Mismatch of the South African foundation phase curriculum demands and learners’ current knowledge JF - African journal of research in mathematics, science and technology education N2 - Against the background of the low mathematical performance of South African learners in international panel studies, there is an urgent need to improve mathematical education. In particular, the curriculum and its structure raise questions. It is logical that the prescribed curricula should align with learners' developmental trajectories. Given the hierarchical structure of mathematics, the curricular requirements should pay attention to learners' current knowledge of mathematical concepts. The aim of this study was to compare the curricular requirements as defined by the CAPS with the conceptual current knowledge of South African learners. South African Grade 1 learners (N = 602) were assessed on a test of numeracy concepts, based on a theoretically informed and empirically validated model of developing mathematical proficiency. The content of the CAPS for Grade 1 was aligned to the model levels by two experts (Cohen's kappa = .753, p < 0.001). Results show that the curricular requirements go far beyond the current knowledge required to engage with these new concepts of the vast majority of South African Grade 1 learners. The mismatch may to some extent be responsible for the unsatisfactory results in international comparison studies. These results show that the intended curriculum is beyond the grasp of most South African Grade 1 learners. These children are unlikely to develop new arithmetic concepts based on their lack of required foundation knowledge. We therefore argue that the intended curriculum for Grade 1 should focus more on counting skills, ordinal relations between numbers and-most importantly-set-based number representations and part-part-whole relations. KW - Arithmetic development KW - number concepts KW - curriculum development KW - mathematical learning difficulties Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/18117295.2020.1724466 SN - 1811-7295 SN - 2469-7656 VL - 24 IS - 1 SP - 10 EP - 20 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kobs, Scarlett A1 - Ehlert, Antje A1 - Lenkeit, Jenny A1 - Hartmann, Anne Therese A1 - Sporer, Nadine A1 - Knigge, Michel T1 - The influence of individual and situational factors on teachers' justice ratings of classroom interactions JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Teachers, as role models, are crucial in promoting inclusion in society through their actions. Being perceived as fair by their students is linked to students' feelings of belonging in school. In addition, their decisions of resource allocations also affect students' academic success. Both aspects underpin the importance of teachers' views on justice. This article aims to investigate what teachers consider to be just and how teacher characteristics and situational factors affect justice ratings of hypothetical student-teacher-interactions. In an experimental design, we randomly varied the description of the interacting student in text vignettes regarding his/her special educational need (SEN) (situational factor). We also collected data on teachers' attitudes toward inclusion and experiences with persons with disabilities (individual factors). A sample of in-service teachers in Germany (N = 2,254) rated randomized versions of two text vignettes. To also consider the effect of professional status, a sample of pre-service teachers (N = 275) did the same. Linear mixed effect models point to a negative effect of the SEN on justice ratings, meaning situations in which the interacting student is described with a SEN were rated less just compared to the control condition. As the interacting student in the situations was treated worse than the rest, this was indicative for the application of the need principle. Teachers with more positive attitudes toward inclusion rated the vignettes as significantly less just. Professional status also had a negative effect on justice ratings, with in-service teachers rating the interactions significantly lower than the pre-service teachers. Our results suggest that the teachers applied the principle of need in their ratings. Implications for inclusive teaching practices and future research are discussed further. KW - classroom interactions KW - justice KW - special educational need KW - ratings KW - inclusion Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.789110 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 13 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Spörer, Nadine A1 - Lenkeit, Jenny A1 - Bosse, Stefanie A1 - Hartmann, Anne A1 - Ehlert, Antje A1 - Knigge, Michel T1 - Students’ perspective on inclusion BT - Relations of attitudes towards inclusive education and self-perceptions of peer relations JF - International journal of educational research N2 - The goal of the present study was to analyze how students' attitudes towards inclusive education develop over the course of a school year and how these attitudes relate to students' peer relations. Sixth- and seventh-graders of 44 inclusive classes filled out a questionnaire at two measurement points within one school year to assess attitudes towards inclusive education and peer relations. Applying multilevel regression analyses it turned out that changes in peer relations over time were positively predicted by students' attitudes towards instructional adaptations for students with behaviour difficulties. Further, students with self-perceived behavior difficulties reported lower scores for peer relations compared to students without self-perceived difficulties. Results are discussed with respect to structural factors and individual characteristics affecting inclusive education. KW - peer relations KW - inclusion KW - students KW - attitudes KW - special educational KW - needs Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101641 SN - 0883-0355 SN - 2666-3740 VL - 103 PB - Elsevier Science CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ehlert, Antje A1 - Poltz, Nadine A1 - Quandte, Sabine A1 - Kohn-Henkel, Juliane A1 - Kucian, Karin A1 - Aster, Michael von A1 - Esser, Günter T1 - Taking a closer look: The relationship between pre-school domain general cognition and school mathematics achievement when controlling for intelligence JF - Journal of Intelligence N2 - Intelligence, as well as working memory and attention, affect the acquisition of mathematical competencies. This paper aimed to examine the influence of working memory and attention when taking different mathematical skills into account as a function of children’s intellectual ability. Overall, intelligence, working memory, attention and numerical skills were assessed twice in 1868 German pre-school children (t1, t2) and again at 2nd grade (t3). We defined three intellectual ability groups based on the results of intellectual assessment at t1 and t2. Group comparisons revealed significant differences between the three intellectual ability groups. Over time, children with low intellectual ability showed the lowest achievement in domain-general and numerical and mathematical skills compared to children of average intellectual ability. The highest achievement on the aforementioned variables was found for children of high intellectual ability. Additionally, path modelling revealed that, depending on the intellectual ability, different models of varying complexity could be generated. These models differed with regard to the relevance of the predictors (t2) and the future mathematical skills (t3). Causes and conclusions of these findings are discussed. KW - intellectual ability KW - intelligence KW - pre-school KW - mathematical development KW - school mathematics KW - longitudinal KW - numerical skills KW - working memory KW - attention Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence10030070 SN - 2079-3200 VL - 10 SP - 1 EP - 23 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 3 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herzog, Moritz A1 - Ehlert, Antje A1 - Fritz, Annemarie T1 - A Competency Model of Place Value Understanding in South African Primary School Pupils JF - African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education N2 - Although the general development of mathematical abilities in primary school has been the focus of many researchers, the development of place value understanding has rarely been investigated to date. This is possibly due to the lack of conceptual approaches and empirical studies related to this topic. To fill this gap, a theory-driven and empirically validated model was developed that describes five sequential conceptual levels of place value understanding. The level sequence model gives us the ability to estimate general abilities and difficulties in primary school pupils in the development of a conceptual place value understanding. The level sequence model was tried and tested in Germany, and given that number words are very differently constructed in German and in the languages used in South African classrooms, this study aims to investigate whether this level sequence model can be transferred to South Africa. The findings based on the responses of 198 Grade 2-4 learners show that the English translation of the test items results in the same item level allocation as the original German test items, especially for the three basic levels. Educational implications are provided, in particular concrete suggestions on how place value might be taught according to the model and how to collect specific empirical data related to place value understanding. KW - Place value KW - Rasch test modelling KW - mathematical concepts Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/18117295.2017.1279453 SN - 1811-7295 SN - 2469-7656 VL - 21 SP - 37 EP - 48 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER -