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Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology
Team Deputy Professor Ohle-Peters

Empirical Educational Research in Primary and Secondary Education

Current research in our lab focuses on three complementary research areas.

(1) Research on the teaching profession: In this area, we study such questions as what factors motivate and enable (prospective and experienced) teachers to develop and implement high-quality instruction. Across different projects, we focus on the measurement and conceptualization of professional competences in the teaching profession (including international comparative research), on the motivational and cognitive underpinnings of teachers' pedagogical decision making and actions, as well as on teachers' professional wellbeing.

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(2) Research on educational trajectories: A key question in this area is why students often make fundamentally different choices about their educational and occupational trajectories, even when their cognitive characteristics appear to be quite similar. Such factors as gender, students' motivational-affective characteristics, the social environment, and the school context play an important role in explaining such differences.

(3) Research on the interplay between teacher and student characteristics and possible consequences for the instructional process: In more recent studies, we connect these two research areas and examine the discrepancies and the interplay between teacher and student perceptions of instructional situations, as well as possible consequences for the instructional process. The teacher's behavior in the classroom is a key factor influencing students' motivation and learning; however, characteristics of the students can also influence their teachers (e. g., such characteristics as heterogeneity of the learning group and perceived student engagement).