Projects
How classroom social dynamics shape school engagement: The role of peers, teachers, and their interplay KU Leuven
Although engagement in school is important for successful learning, achievement, and graduation, studies have revealed generally declining trajectories of students’ school engagement during adolescence (Christenson et al., 2012a; Fredricks et al., 2016). It has been suggested that these downward trajectories might be contingent on age-related risk factors in the school environment. This dissertation addressed significant gaps in the ...
Nurturing cognitive talent: Understanding the role of classroom social experiences in high-ability students’ academic engagement KU Leuven
To secure a society’s innovative capacity, it is key to foster talents of all youth, including students with outstanding cognitive abilities. However, research suggests a loss of academic engagement among high-ability youth, increasing their risk for underachievement. Integrating giftedness models with general developmental and motivational models on student engagement, this project aims to shed light on the role of classroom social ...
In between continuity and rupture: On taskified classroom practices KU Leuven
Since the pandemic has put a halt on schools as physical gatherings of humans and non-humans over the past months, the question of digitization of classroom practices has become an ever more pressing issue. Even though the research for this dissertation was conducted before the current crisis, it was already guided by an interest in the configuration of classroom practices with personal digital devices. In this sense, digitization is ...
Uncovering the dynamics of academic engagement and emotions across ability levels: The role of crossover processes and real-time interactions with peers and teachers KU Leuven
Academic engagement and emotions have consistently been related to important student outcomes such as higher academic achievement and better socio-emotional adjustment (Skinner et al., 2008). In particular for high-ability students, promoting engagement has been suggested to be key in order to avoid underachievement and let these students excel and flourish (Siegle & McCoach, 2005; Snyder & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2015). According to ...
Teacher-student Interactions and executive functions in children: a cross-cultural investigation KU Leuven
Executive function (EF) refers to a collection of several interrelated but separated processes including working memory/updating, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility/shifting, that aim for goal-directed behaviours (Friedman & Miyake, 2017; Huizinga et al., 2006). EF is a cornerstone for an individual’s adaptive function in learning and social interactions. In order to help children to develop their EF appropriately, especially ...
Education and sociocultural identification: Facilitating learning effects through congruence. KU Leuven
In most contemporary Western educational systems, sociocultural inequalities remain prominent. Nevertheless, the functionalist meritocratic perspective—which claims that by focusing on students’ own achievement, the educational system limits the privileges associated with ascription, such as wealth and family background—has further permeated the common sense in recent decades. This perspective has been severely criticized by interactionism ...
Language socialisation and second language acquisition in kindergarten. KU Leuven
Little Pitchers, Big Ears? The Success of Learning New Vocabulary through Addressed and Overheard Speech in Flemish- and Moroccan-heritage Preschool Children
Language acquisition research has long focused nearly exclusively on the way in which young children learn language in direct interactions (Akhtar, Jipson, & Callanan, 2001). However, children also learn much language in indirect situations: by keenly observing others ...
A study into the effects of a blended professional development program on pre-primary teachers' Language Stimulating COmpetenceS (LASCOS) Ghent University
The quality of language stimulating interactions in early childhood
education (ECE) has an important impact on the academic language
skills of young children, which in turn is a powerful predictor of learning
success. Although research shows that high quality teacher-child
interactions are crucial for academic language learning, paradoxically, a
wide range of classroom interaction studies ...
A study into the effects of a blended professional development program on pre-primary teachers’ LAnguage Stimulating COmpetencieS (LASCOS) KU Leuven
The quality of language stimulating interactions in early childhood education (ECE) has an important impact on the academic language skills of young children, which in turn is a powerful predictor of learning success. Although research shows that high quality teacher-child interactions are crucial for academic language learning, paradoxically, a wide range of classroom interaction studies point to the relatively poor quality and low quantity ...