Tamara Marksteiner

Listening, not watching : Situational familiarity and the ability to detect deception

In 4 experiments, the authors investigated the influence of situational familiarity with the judgmental context on the process of lie detection. They predicted that high familiarity with a situation leads to a more pronounced use of content cues when making judgments of veracity. Therefore, they expected higher classification accuracy of truths and lies under high familiarity. Under low situational familiarity, they expected that people achieve lower accuracy rates because they use more nonverbal cues for their veracity judgments. In all 4 experiments, participants with high situational familiarity achieved higher accuracy rates in classifying both truthful and deceptive messages than participants with low situational familiarity. Moreover, mediational analyses demonstrated that higher classification accuracy in the high-familiarity condition was associated with more use of verbal content cues and less use of nonverbal cues.

Accurately detecting students’ lies regarding relational aggression by correctional instructions

This study investigates the effect of correctional instructions when detecting lies about relational aggression. Based on models from the field of social psychology, we predict that correctional instruction will lead to a less pronounced lie bias and to more accurate lie detection. Seventy-five teachers received videotapes of students’ true denial messages (e.g., students were innocent) and untrue denial messages (students were involved in relational aggression). A random half of the teachers were either given no further instructions or were told not to use stereotypical non-verbal cues when forming judgements (correctional instruction condition). As predicted, teachers in the correctional instruction condition were slightly better at detecting true than invented stories.

General Noncognitive Outcomes

The core goals for education systems in the twenty-first century have shifted from teaching clearly defined knowledge and skills to promoting lifelong learners who are eager, as well as able, to face the demands and challenges of a truly global society. As a reflection of the emerging policy interest in a more comprehensive definition of adolescent and young adult success, national and international large-scale assessments (LSAs) have started broadening their focus to include noncognitive outcomes in addition to achievement results. In this chapter we describe the opportunities and challenges associated with noncognitive outcome assessments, with a special focus on the implementation in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015. We provide research-based rationales why LSAs should focus on noncognitive outcomes, which specific outcomes deserve most attention, and how measurement approaches can be enhanced for more validity and efficiency. Two main categories of noncognitive outcomes are described in more detail: first, constructs that can be tied back to the Big Five model of human personality; second, variables representing well-being or general quality of life indicators, comprising factors such as health, subjective well-being, and psychological functioning. Examining the interplay between cognitive and noncognitive factors is essential to better understand what policies can promote learning and prepare students to face twenty-first century challenges. National and international LSAs can shed light on the factors that are most strongly associated, either positively or negatively, with student development. The success of LSAs as helpful tools and monitoring systems for policy makers and educators will depend to a growing extent on how well they can serve the policy and public demand for enhanced measurement of noncognitive outcomes.

Diskussion: Über den Zusammenhang zwischen Faktoren mit sozialem Bezug und Leistungsmaßen im Bildungskontext

Bisherige Forschung identifizierte eine Vielzahl von Faktoren, die schulische Leistung determinieren. Mit zu den wichtigsten Determinanten zahlen soziale Faktoren bzw. soziale und sozial-kognitive Prozesse. Das vorliegende Themenheft hatte zum Ziel, neue Erkenntnisse uber den Zusammenhang zwischen sozialen Faktoren und Schulleistung zusammenzutragen. Zur kritischen Reflexion des Erkenntnisgewinns werden die Einzelbeitrage zunachst zueinander in Beziehung gesetzt. Dies geschieht durch die Einordnung der Einzelbeitrage in ein prominentes und zugleich breit angelegtes und umfassendes Modell schulischer Leistung, das Angebots-Nutzungs-Modell. Danach wird uberpruft, inwiefern die Einzelbeitrage die zentralen Faktoren – soziale Faktoren und Schulleistung – fokussieren. Insgesamt sind die Beitrage sehr heterogen. Sie uberschneiden sich nicht hinsichtlich der empirisch bzw. theoretisch untersuchten Faktoren. Aufgrund der Heterogenitat der Einzelbeitrage wird die Fragestellung aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln uberpruft und beinhaltet somit Erkenntnisse aus unterschiedlichen Forschungsrichtungen. Die Heterogenitat erschwert allerdings den Zusammenhang zwischen den Beitragen direkt zu erkennen, was den Erkenntnisgewinn einschrankt.

The potential of anchoring vignettes to increase intercultural comparability of non-cognitive factors

ABSTRACT We investigate whether Anchoring Vignettes (AV) improve intercultural comparability of non-cognitive student-directed factors (e.g., procrastination). So far, correlation analyses for anchored and non-anchored scores with a criterion have been used to demonstrate the effectiveness of AV in improving data quality. However, correlation analyses are often used to investigate external validity of a scale. Nonetheless, before testing for validity, the reliability of the measurement of a construct should be examined. In the present study, we tested for measurement invariance across countries and languages and compared anchored and non-anchored student-directed self-reports that are highly relevant for the students’ self and their behaviour and performance. In addition, we apply further criteria for testing reliability. The results indicate that the data quality for some of the constructs can – in fact – be improved slightly by anchoring; whereas, for other self-reports, anchoring is less successful than was hoped. We discuss with regard to possible consequences for research methodology.

Knowing One’s Place: Parental Educational Background Influences Social Identification with Academia, Test Anxiety, and Satisfaction with Studying at University

First-generation students (i.e., students whose parents did not attend university) often experience difficulties fitting in with the social environment at universities. This experience of personal misfit is supposedly associated with an impaired social identification with their aspired in-group of academics compared to continuing-generation students (i.e., students with at least one parent with an academic degree. In this article, we investigate how the postulated differences in social identification with the group of academics affect first-generation students’ satisfaction with studying and test anxiety over time. We assume that first-generation students’ impaired social identification with the group of academics leads to decreased satisfaction with studying and aggravated test anxiety over the course of the first academic year. In a longitudinal study covering students’ first year at a German university, we found that continuing-generation students consistently identified more strongly with their new in-group of academics than first-generation students. The influence of social identification on test anxiety and satisfaction with studying differed between groups. For continuing-generation students, social identification with the group of academics buffered test anxiety and helped them maintain satisfaction with studying over time. We could not find these direct effects within the group of first-generation students. Instead, first-generation students were more sensitive to effects of test anxiety on satisfaction with studying and vice versa over time. The results suggest that first-generation students might be more sensitive to the anticipation of academic failure. Furthermore, continuing-generation students’ social identification with the group of academics might have buffered them against the impact of negative experiences during the entry phase at university. Taken together, our findings underscore that deficit-driven approaches focusing solely on first-generation status may not be sufficient to fully understand the importance of parental educational background for students’ well-being. More specifically, continuing-generation students might reap benefits from their parental educational background. These benefits widen the social gap in academia in addition to the disadvantages of students with first-generation status. In sum, understanding the benefits of continuing-generation status has important implications for interventions aiming to reduce social class gaps in academia.