Albert Ziegler

Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg | FAU · Department of Psychology

In principle, there could be STEMM talent everywhere if there were sufficient and adequate opportunities and learning resources everywhere. The reality, however, is that the likelihood of developing one's talent in STEMM is tied to membership in social groups. In this contribution, we explore the implications of this statement with multiple example...

Purpose In many STEM fields, the intersectionality of gender and excellence is a frequently noted phenomenon, i.e., women are underrepresented in STEM in general and specifically, at the top. Role models presumably play a key part in closing this equity gap. However, these are not available in sufficient numbers. Many researchers have suggested bet...

Students may be members of multiple disadvantaged groups whose negative effects may reinforce each other (intersectionality). In two studies dealing with elementary students' literacy skills, we examine one negative reinforcing effect and one dampening effect of intersectionality. In Study 1, we tested the negative social resonance effect of inters...

In recent years, discussion of the limitations of the standard cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) has increased, and the random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) has been proposed as an improved approach to modeling. By now, there are some first applications of the model to investigate reciprocal relations in self-concept development. Howev...

A growing number of countries has a strong interest in assessing the quality of their talent-support systems. We propose combining two relevant conceptual frameworks – hemerotopes and the learning and educational capital approach – to better achieve this end. Hemerotopes provide qualitative categories for assessing the degree to which countries hav...

Premature closure of mentoring relationships decreases positive effects of mentoring or can even lead to negative effects for mentees. Past studies retrospectively investigated mechanisms of premature match closure. However, a deeper understanding of the dynamics that lead to premature match closure is still missing. In our study, we longitudinally...

An important first step in talent development in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is getting individuals excited about STEM. Females, in particular, are underrepresented in many STEM fields. Since girls' interest in STEM declines in adolescence, interventions should begin in secondary education at the latest. One appropriate...

Labeling the gifted is one of the critical practices in the field of gifted education. A number of renowned researchers are arguing that it should be dispensed with altogether, while others are still defending it. The current discussion focuses on four questions. We examined the possible answers provided by sociology, psychology, and education scie...

The authors introduce readers to quantitative text analysis and its potential for analyzing text-based nonreactive measures as a means of broadening the evidential basis within research on giftedness and talent. After defining quantitative text analysis and describing how it can augment survey studies for analyses at individual and cultural levels,...

The reversed gender achievement gap in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in favor of girls developed in a societal environment that still predominantly favors men. The finding illustrates how equity gaps at higher systemic levels may not translate seamlessly to lower systemic levels. We propose that this lack of correspondence between systemic leve...

Im Kapitel wird zunächst unter konzeptueller Perspektive der Gegenstand traditioneller Hochbegabungsdiagnostik dargestellt, die auf die Selektion hochbegabter Personen fokussierte. Es werden Entscheidungsprozesse im Rahmen dieses traditionellen Zugangs beschrieben und verschiedene Ansätze personenbezogener Hochbegabungsdiagnostik erläutert. Nach ei...

Higher education includes e-learning in addition to on-site learning. Still, the shift to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) as reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic in the summer semester 2020, presented a challenging situation for students. Cross-sectional studies pointed towards higher stress levels of students. However, only a few studies addressed th...

Across the globe, 2020 terms began under conditions incited by the corona pandemic. Within a relatively short amount of time, universities started to develop and implement online courses for distance learning. The current study is about an online survey at a German university investigating the unique circumstances under which students began the dig...

Given that video conferencing serves as a crucial means for remote teaching, the current study investigated higher education students' (non)use of webcams and engagement in synchronous online courses. Three phases were studied: (1) A state of engagement; (2) antecedents that influence it; and (3) consequences of engagement. The cross-sectional onli...

(1) Background: Teaching in today’s schools asks teachers to foster self-regulated learning and digital competences in children and young people. In order to do so, teachers first need to acquire and use these competences themselves. (2) Methods: Based on a mixed-methods approach, the study investigates self-regulated learning in online courses of...

Germany has a well-structured, secondary education system. It is designed in such a way that students are promoted to the branch that best serves their talents. Studies show that students on course to Hauptschule-or the lowest track in Germany-have, on average, lower intelligence, and lower academic achievement. The Actiotope Model of Gifted Educat...

Lonely students typically underperform academically. According to several studies, the COVID-19 pandemic is an important risk factor for increases in loneliness, as the contact restrictions and the switch to mainly online classes potentially burden the students. The previously familiar academic environment (campus), as well as the exchange with pee...

This Meta-Analysis investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and giftedness. The study focused on whether gifted learners possessed higher levels of EI when compared with their non-gifted peers. Furthermore, it sought to determine if gifted males and gifted females differed in their EI abilities. A search of published and un...

Unter dem Eindruck der CoViD-19 Pandemie erfolgte im Sommersemester 2020 an deutschen Hochschulen flächendeckende Online-Lehre im Notbetrieb. Die vorliegende längsschnittliche Fragebogenstudie untersucht die akademische Mediennutzung, -kompetenz und -ausstattung Studierender (N = 2.037) an einer deutschen Volluniversität zu Beginn und zur Mitte des...

Citation: Ziegler, A.; Kuo, C.-C.; Eu, S.-P.; Gläser-Zikuda, M.; Nuñez, M.; Yu, H.-P.; Harder, B. Equity Gaps in Education: Nine Points toward More Transparency. Abstract: The aim of this paper is to increase transparency in the scientific analysis of equity gaps in education. This should be useful in avoiding common ambiguities and misunderstandin...

Research shows that trained mentors achieve better results than untrained ones. Their training should particularly address their expectations for their future mentoring. Our study involved 190 preservice teachers, potential mentors of ongoing school mentoring for primary and secondary school students of all grades. They were randomly assigned to on...

Bedingt durch die Covid-19-Pandemie wurde das Sommersemester 2020 deutschlandweit als reines Digital-Semester aufbereitet. Dies stellte Hochschulen, Lehrende und Studierende vor große Herausforderungen. Lehramtsstudierende, die der Nutzung digitaler Medien tendenziell eher skeptisch gegenüberstehen, sich studienbedingt aber mit (medien)-didaktische...

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and within a very short period of time, teaching in the 2020 summer term changed from predominantly on-site to online instruction. Students suddenly faced having to adapt their learning process to new demands for which they may have had both insufficient digital skills and a lack of learning resources. Such a situation...

Influential meta-analyses have concluded that only a small to medium proportion of variance in performance can be explained by deliberate practice. We argue that the authors have neglected the most important characteristic of deliberate practice: individualization of practice. Many of the analyzed effect sizes derived from measures that did not ass...

Governments of numerous countries implemented school closures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Several investigations have shown the negative impact of social-distancing policies and school closures on children worldwide. Recently, research also demonstrated adverse effects on adults’ well-being. The development of children is strongly affected by...

This issue on advanced learning focuses on the educational and developmental needs of advanced learners as they develop towards excellence. We speculated that those needs could be observed in at least three ways. The first is that the advanced learner requires educational interventions that are more closely aligned to the “deliberate practice” appr...

The pandemic situation continues to influence teaching and learning in higher education, with students oftentimes participating in synchronous videoconferencing sessions as a means to interact with peers and instructors. The frequently noted non-use of webcams by students incited the current study, investigating usage behavior as well as potentiall...

Lonely students typically underperform academically. According to several studies, the COVID-19 pandemic is an important risk factor for increases in loneliness, as the contact restrictions and the switch to mainly online classes potentially burden the students. The previously familiar academic environment (campus) as well as the exchange with peer...

Previous embodiment findings indicate a relationship between physical posture and mood states, suggesting upright postures induce positive mood states. Findings also showed a relationship between moods and cognitive performance. While positive mood states were found to be related to increased processing speed, negative mood states were associated w...

Given that videoconferencing serves as a crucial means for remote teaching, the current study investigated higher education students’ (non)use of webcams and engagement in synchronous online courses. Three phases were studied: (1) A state of engagement; (2) antecedents that influence it; and (3) consequences of engagement. In particular, the aim of...

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring term 2020, students faced a sudden change from on-campus learning to online learning with synchronous and asynchronous online courses (emergency remote teaching). To study successfully, students not only needed to be prepared in terms of digital readiness (workspace, IT equipment, previous online learn...

This study’s intended goal was to generate a common statement informed and supported by scholars at the forefront of their fields via two survey rounds of a Delphi study. Specifically, our work assesses the chances and opportunities of implementing gifted education in inclusive settings from the perspective of 27 experts (13 males vs. 14 females) i...

In the spring term 2020, students faced a sudden change from on-campus learning to online learning with synchronous and asynchronous online courses. To study successfully, students not only needed to be prepared in terms of digital readiness, they also faced challenges that pertained to the self-regulated management of external resources. In the cu...

Gifted education has followed a paradigm that implies that giftedness is characterized by superior cognitive abilities emanating from the human brain. This view contrasts with a new concept of the human mind: embodiment. Its core message maintains that cognitive processes extend throughout the entire body. This approach is an already highly influen...

Mentoring has experienced a tremendous upswing over the past decades, which has only recently slowed down somewhat. One possible factor explaining mentoring's popularity are numerous case studies suggesting that it is one of the most effective ways of helping individuals to develop. Meta-analyses indicating effect sizes for mentoring that are below...

The current study investigated how ready higher education students were for emergency remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic and how this influenced their socio-emotional perceptions. Results of N = 1,826 higher education students indicate that they seem to be ready for digital learning. A k-means cluster analysis revealed two groups of stude...

This study builds from the implicit theory of creative individuals to an understanding of the social perceptions of creative individuals. Stereotypes and prejudice about creative students were examined utilizing the self-developed stereotype and prejudice scales among German adolescents. The results indicate that German adolescents hold positive im...

The Spring term 2020 saw a global switch to emergency remote teaching in higher education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside asynchronous online learning activities, students were called to participate in synchronous videoconferencing sessions, substituting the traditional on-campus face-to-face courses. Given the preponderance of students to...

The Education and Learning Capital Approach (ELCA) has been widely used to investigate talent development. A research gap is the implicit consideration of the domain specificity of educational and learning capital. In an empirical study with 365 school students we investigated the domain specificity of the approach for the domains of school learnin...

pandemic. In an empirical study, we focus on female top performing students in STEM and the humanities. Of particular interest was whether the measures associated with the pandemic constitute a risk-factor for a re-traditionalization of gender roles. Before lectures or courses began, students at a full-scale university were invited to participate i...

Online mentoring can be useful for supporting girls in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Yet, little is known about the differential effects of various online mentoring formats. We examine the general and relative effectiveness of three online mentoring formats, one-on-one mentoring, many-to-many group mentoring, and a hybri...

Studies show that online mentoring is an effective measure to support girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), especially if it also allows for networking with other participants on the mentoring platform. However, research is missing on peer influence. This topic seems especially crucial in programs for adolescents as pee...

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and within a very short period of time, teaching in the 2020 summer term changed from predominantly on-site to online instruction. Students suddenly faced having to adapt their learning process to new demands for which they may have had both insufficient digital skills and a lack of learning resources. Such a situation...

The COVID-19 pandemic had a strong impact on higher education in 2020. Worldwide, universities developed and implemented online courses for distance learning within a relatively short amount of time. The current study investigated how ready students were for this exceptional situation and how their readiness for digital learning influenced their so...

Across the globe, 2020 terms began under conditions incited by the corona pandemic. Within a relatively short amount of time, universities started to develop and implement online courses for distance learning. These changes in learning and teaching may well have been a challenge for students.The current study is about an online survey at a German f...

A review of the literature on the effectiveness of mentoring reveals a paradox: on the one hand, there is evidence that mentoring can be highly effective. On the other hand, meta‐analyses usually only show small to moderate effect sizes, and sometimes even negative effects. To better understand this mentoring paradox, we discuss three fundamental p...

Although the theory of the socio‐cultural approach to creativity is gaining steam, empirical studies with advanced statistical tools are lagging behind. To address the gap of empirical studies integrating individual, social environmental, and cultural factors, we examined how motivational factors and environmental responsiveness were jointly relate...

This Meta-Analysis investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and giftedness. The study focused on whether gifted learners possessed higher levels of EI when compared with their non-gifted peers. Furthermore, it sought to determine if gifted males and gifted females differed in their EI abilities. A search of published and un...

This Meta-Analysis investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and giftedness. The study focused on whether gifted learners possessed higher levels of EI when compared with their non-gifted peers. Furthermore, it sought to determine if gifted males and gifted females differed in their EI abilities. A search of published and un...

This Meta-Analysis investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and giftedness. The study focused on whether gifted learners possessed higher levels of EI when compared with their non-gifted peers. Furthermore, it sought to determine if gifted males and gifted females differed in their EI abilities. A search of published and un...

Summarized are the results of a research project that focused on assessing and fostering competences for self-regulated learning in higher education. Innovative instruments (situational judgement test, competence-performance-assessment, learning journal) to assess different aspects of self-regulated learning (e.g., use of cognitive and metacognitiv...

The current study's purpose is to explore the influence of peer‐perceived creativity (sociometric creativity) on the short‐term development of friendships during a summer program for high ability students. Specifically, the two main objectives of our study are: (1) How did students' friendships network and sociometric creativity network evolve in t...

After a century during which the psychology of high ability focused largely on innate cognitive abilities, the twenty‐first century ushered in a transformative period in which views of talent broadened to include recognition that talent development is a much more complex process that begins with uncovering potential but does not stop there. Current...

Although participation rates of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are continually improving, low rates are still an issue in many countries. While previous studies found positive effects of online mentoring for increasing girls’ interests in STEM, research concerning explanatory mechanisms is lacking. We found eviden...

Die erste wissenschaftliche Entwicklungstheorie von Leistungsexzellenz stellte Galton (1869/1979) vor genau 150 Jahren vor. Er beobachtete bei leistungseminenten Personen, dass sich unter deren enger Verwandtschaft vergleichsweise häufiger leistungseminente Personen fanden als unter deren ferner Verwandtschaft. Dies deutete er als Beleg für die sta...

Regulatory processes are pervasive on many levels in talent development, yet neither a systematic analysis of their role in talent development let alone a comprehensive model have been presented to date. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the diversity and complexity of regulatory processes in talent development and to provide a conceptual f...

This study explores how secondary school students perceive high-performing potential classmates. A total of 1,794 seventh- and 10th-grade students from five countries completed a questionnaire measuring their expectations of hypothetical male and female high-performing classmates in three categories: intellectual ability, positive social qualities,...

Presentation at the 2019 Biennial Conference of the International Research Association for Talent Development and Excellence (IRATDE), Taipei, Taiwan.

System theories postulate that a system needs resources in order to evolve and function as an entirety. According to the actiotope model of giftedness, exogenous and endogenous resources needed to develop excellence include five forms of educational capital (economic, cultural, social, infrastructural, and didactic) and five forms of learning capit...

One cohort that has not been given extended attention in the period during which transition takes place is academically high-performing students. This research study uniquely synthesises some of these key factors by investigating how students in mixed-ability, seventh-grade classrooms across Australia, Peru, Scotland, South Korea, Spain and Vietnam...

It is often not trivial to interpret total scores from test batteries of cognitive ability, as the underlying set of items or subscales is typically not unidimensional. Additionally, in such cases, the reliability is not accurately estimated by coefficient alpha. The rarely addressed problem and possible solutions via bifactor analysis are presente...

We conceptualized creativity motivation (CreMo) as the force (high-quality experience, instrumental purpose, and value) which drives individuals into creativity-related behaviors shown so as to do, learn, and accomplish new things. Based on the CreMo theory, we developed the creativity motivation scale (CMS) accordingly and tested its reliability,...

Presentation at the 11th Annual UNM Mentoring Institute’s Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The underachievement of gifted students is a serious problem in gifted education. Although analytic research strategies have identified many causes of underachievement, this kind of approach still needs to be complemented by synthetic research strategies. The actiotope model of giftedness, for example, suggests that the effect of educational capita...

Das Buch bietet Studierenden einen umfassenden und praxisrelevanten Forschungsüberblick über das Phänomen der Hochbegabung: von der Begriffsklärung über Merkmale von Hochbegabung - differenziert nach Begabungsbereichen - und verschiedene Erklärungsmodelle bis hin zu Förder- und Beratungsmöglichkeiten. Fallbeispiele ermöglichen den LeserInnen den Ei...