Experimental studies have shown that testing promotes better long-term retention than repeated rereading. Regarding implications for educational practice, based on a survey study seemingly showing that students prefer repeated rereading over testing when studying [Karpicke, J. D., Butler, A. C., & Roediger, H. L. (2009). Metacognitive strategies in student learning: Do students practise retrieval when they study on their own? Memory, 17, 471–479. doi:10.1080/09658210802647009], it has been concluded that increasing the number of tests may boost students’ achievement. However, a closer look at the survey study reveals that “repeated rereading” has been operationalised in terms of “restudying” which represents a term that may subsume a variety of study strategies. We reexamined the study behaviour of students in a more fine-grained way by surveying both their hypothetical (Study 1) and real (Study 2) study behaviour when restudying texts. Results showed that rereading is preferred only by few students early in the learning process, with almost all shifting to testing late in the learning process, and that rereading is mainly performed in terms of “rereading not understood parts”, and rarely in terms of “repeated rereading”. These results indicate that the implications of the testing effect for educational practice may have to be reconsidered.

A large body of research shows that emotionally significant stimuli are better stored in memory. One question that has received much less attention is how emotional memories are influenced by factors that influence memories after the initial encoding of stimuli. Intriguingly, several recent studies suggest that post-encoding factors do not differ in their effects on emotional and neutral memories. However, to date, only detrimental factors have been addressed. In the present study, we examined whether emotionally negative memories are differentially influenced by a well-known beneficial factor: the testing of memories. We employed a standard cued recall testing-effect paradigm where participants studied cue-target pairs for negative and neutral target pictures. In a subsequent post-encoding phase, one third of the cue-target pairs were tested and one third restudied; the remaining third served as control pairs. After one week, memory for all cue-target pairs was tested. While replicating both the testing effect and the emotional enhancement effect, no differences between negative and neutral memories in the benefits received from testing and restudying were observed. Thus, it seems to be true that post-encoding factors do not influence emotional memories in any other way than neutral memories, even when they are beneficial.

Despite societal efforts toward enhancing gender equality, females are still underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). Prominent explanations draw on gender differences in attitudes about STEM (with females holding more negative attitudes than males), which result from the gender stereotype that STEM is a male domain. While a lot of research has focused on explicit attitudes, little is known about implicit attitudes toward STEM. The present research sought to examine implicit attitudes among adolescents, and how they relate to other STEM cognitions. We measured implicit attitudes about the STEM concept as a whole, and about math in particular. For this purpose, we developed two Brief Implicit Associations Tests (BIATs) and administered them online in a sample of adolescents (N = 517). We additionally measured a variety of self-reported motivational and social-psychological variables (interest, aspiration, self-concept of ability, and sense of belonging to the math and STEM community, respectively), which previous research has identified as factors contributing to the gender gap in STEM participation. Our findings confirm the reliability and validity of both the STEM BIAT and the Math BIAT. Moreover, implicit STEM attitudes predicted interest in and aspiration for STEM, self-concept of STEM ability, and sense of belonging to the STEM community. Similarly, implicit math attitudes predicted interest in and aspiration for math, and sense of belonging to the math community (but not self-concept of math ability). Our findings confirm that our novel online BIATs are efficient measurement tools of implicit attitudes in adolescents. Moreover, our findings underscore the significance of implicit attitudes in the STEM domain.

Studies on talent development show that attaining expertise relies on long-term active engagement with a domain. Mentoring plays a key role in this, but it usually takes place outside of school in informal mentoring relationships, and research on formal school-based talent development mentoring programs is lacking. In the present research, we examined which factors in a novel school-based Learning Pathway Mentoring program hinder mentees’ active engagement with their domain. Due to a lack of corresponding research, we employed an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design (QUAL → quan). We first explored factors affecting mentees’ engagement from the perspective of 55 mentors in the Learning Pathway Mentoring program. The results of these qualitative analyses served to derive research questions about variables associated with decreased mentee domain activity, which we then studied in auxiliary quantitative analyses based on a sample of 48 mentees of the same program. Our combined analyses suggest that reasons for decreased mentee engagement may, in fact, be very heterogeneous and nuanced. As talent development places a significant demand on mentees in terms of extracurricular engagement, difficulties might occur specifically when mentees are expected to set priorities regarding the implementation of learning activities in their talent domain and simultaneously meet increasing school demands.

Background: Despite extensive efforts, females remain underrepresented in STEM fields. Out-of-school programs have demonstrated the potential to address this problem. However, to ensure sustainability and maximize the impact of these programs, researchers emphasize the importance of combining out-of-school offerings with school offerings and investigating the effectiveness of such combined programs and their success criteria (Dahn et al., 2023). We developed a combined program that integrates an online mentoring program for girls, which adheres to key principles of effective mentoring and has been proven effective in previous studies, with offerings at school (i.e., teacher-led STEM clubs). In planning this combined program, we incorporated essential bridging principles for collaboration between out-of-school and school settings (Fallik et al., 2013). We investigated (a) whether the positive effects of the exclusively out-of-school online mentoring program identified in previous studies could be replicated, (b) whether participation in the combined program yielded more positive effects than participation in the mentoring-only program, and (c) which variables are related to the effectiveness of the combined program. Results: We employed a pretest–posttest control group design, comparing four groups: girls who exclusively participated in the out-of-school online mentoring program ( n = 212) and girls in the combined program ( n = 323) as well as a control group of girls ( n = 1234) and boys ( n = 1501) who did not participate in any of the programs. Participants were weighted using propensity score estimation based on age, school type, and baseline values of the evaluation variables (measured at pretest). Both programs positively impacted participants’ elective intentions in STEM, engagement in STEM activities, confidence in their STEM abilities, and STEM grades. The combined program did not generally demonstrate greater effectiveness than the mentoring-only program. However, the effectiveness of the combined program was related to the degree of bridging between the out-of-school and in-school offerings, the quality of the combined program, and the perceived value of STEM among the participants. Conclusion: This study is the first to demonstrate that combining out-of-school online mentoring by female STEM experts and teacher-led STEM clubs can effectively promote girls in STEM. However, several success criteria must be considered to realize added benefits compared to exclusively out-of-school online mentoring.

Numerous studies have shown that retrieving contents from memory in a test improves long-term retention for those contents, even when compared to restudying (i.e., the “testing effect”). The beneficial effect of retrieval practice has been demonstrated for many different types of memory representations; however, one particularly important memory system has not been addressed in previous testing effect research: autobiographical memory. The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of retrieving memories for personally experienced events on long-term memory for those events. In an initial elicitation session, participants described memories for personally experienced events in response to a variety of cue words. In a retrieval practice/restudy session the following day, they repeatedly practiced retrieval for half of their memories by recalling and writing down the previously described events; the other half of memories was restudied by rereading and copying the event descriptions. Long-term retention of all previously collected memories was assessed at two different retention intervals (2 weeks and 13 weeks). In the retrieval practice session, a hypermnesic effect emerged, with memory performance increasing across the practice cycles. Long-term memory performance significantly dropped from the 2-weeks to the 13-weeks retention interval, but no significant difference in memory performance was observed between previously repeatedly retrieved and previously repeatedly restudied memories. Thus, in autobiographical memory, retrieval practice seems to be no more beneficial for long-term retention than repeated re-exposure.