Thomas Vo
Biographic Data
| ID | 273792 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas Vo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas |
| FAMILY NAME | Vo |
| SIGNATURE | VO T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Freiburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3862-739X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 232 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
They keep on learning: Teachers’ pedagogical/psychological knowledge increases over 15 years in the teaching profession
Teachers’ pedagogical/psychological knowledge (PPK) increases significantly during the first 15 years of their professional career. • The induction phase proves especially effective for PPK acquisition. • Teachers with initially low PPK benefit the most during induction, indicating that initial gaps can be effectively closed. • Reflection on teaching experiences is especially effective for promoting PPK acquisition. Pedagogical/psychological know…
Back to normal? Longitudinal changes and predictors of teachers’ post-pandemic occupational well-being
Teachers' occupational well-being is crucial for teacher-student interactions and classroom management. Although research has demonstrated impaired well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, less is known about its development afterward. Psychological theories such as set-point and conservation-of-resources theory differ on whether well-being should return to pre-pandemic levels or show lasting changes. This study examined teachers’ well-being deve…
“Who evaluates immigrant students differently? Not me!”: Effects of an intervention with and without personalized refutation on (future) teachers’ beliefs and evaluations
Research shows that teachers’ evaluations and interactions can be influenced by students’ backgrounds, such as their ethnicity. Yet, many teachers believe that biases related to ethnicity do not exist, or that they are easy to control. Targeted interventions, which usually include evidence-based information and encourage reflection, can correct such false beliefs and reduce evaluation biases. They might be especially effective when preceded by a …
Ready to assess? A survey of German pre-service teachers’ traditional and digital formative assessment in physical education
Despite its acknowledged pedagogical value, formative assessment (FA) remains underutilized in physical education (PE). Understanding the factors that support or hinder FA implementation – such as teachers' positive attitudes, knowledge, and self-efficacy in applying both traditional and digital FA – is therefore essential for informing PE teacher education programs. This study investigates German pre-service PE teachers’ ( N = 208) attitudes, kn…
Lernstandserhebungen: Mehrwert oder nur Mehraufwand
Seit dem Schuljahr 2015/16 werden in Baden-Württemberg verpflichtend zu Beginn der fünften Klasse die Basiskompetenzen in den Fächern Deutsch und Mathematik der Schüler:innen mit der Lernstandserhebung Lernstand 5 erhoben. Ergebnisse aus Lernstand 5 können, wie die Ergebnisse anderer Lernstandserhebungen (z. B. VERA), im Sinne des Data Based Decision Making genutzt werden. Lernstand 5 unterscheidet sich aber in seiner vorrangig individualdiagnost…
Long-term changes in teacher beliefs and motivation: Progress, stagnation or regress
Developing and maintaining constructivist beliefs and high levels of enthusiasm are important goals in the teaching profession. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated beliefs and enthusiasm of N = 856 German mathematics teacher (candidates) longitudinally. Results of latent growth curve modeling revealed that teachers’ constructivist beliefs declined, subject enthusiasm initially increased, and teaching enthusiasm remained stable over a…
Student teachers’ conceptual knowledge of operant conditioning: How can case comparison support knowledge acquisition
Teachers need knowledge about operant conditioning as an important way to prevent student misbehavior. In an experiment with 181 student teachers, we investigated how the acquisition of conceptual knowledge about operant conditioning can be promoted through case comparisons. Our results showed that case comparison effectively supported the acquisition of knowledge about operant conditioning. Knowledge acquisition was higher with more guidance dur…
How does teachers' noticing of students' fixed mindsets relate to teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and experience? An exploratory study
Students' belief that abilities are unchangeable (fixed mindset) can hamper learning. Teachers should thus be able to recognize such problematic beliefs. We explored whether teachers' skills to notice students' fixed mindset were related to teachers' knowledge about learners' beliefs, teachers' mindset, and their experience. Our sample included pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers (N = 112). Noticing (i.e., attending and interpreting) …
Do they know what they know? Accuracy in teacher candidates' self‐assessments and its influencing factors
Although self‐assessing one's knowledge is an integral part of a teacher's professional development, little is known about the accuracy of teacher candidates' self‐assessments. In particular, not much attention has been paid to their self‐assessment accuracy assessed on an individual level. Using measures from research on metacognition, we investigated the accuracy and bias of 513 mathematics teacher candidates who were tested in and self‐assesse…
Not useful to inform teaching practice? Student teachers hold skeptical beliefs about evidence from education science
A goal of teacher education is to promote evidence-based teaching. Teacher beliefs are assumed to act as facilitators or barriers to evidence-based thinking and practices. In three sub-studies with a total of N = 346 German student teachers, the extent of student teachers’ beliefs about education science and their consequences and sources were investigated. First, the results of questionnaire data indicated that student teachers held skeptical be…
Classifying Examples is More Effective for Learning Relational Categories Than Reading or Generating Examples
Successful teaching requires that student teachers acquire a conceptual understanding of teaching practices. A promising way to promote such a conceptual understanding is to provide student teachers with examples. We conducted a 3 (between-subjects factor example format : reading, generation, classification) x 4 (within-subjects factor type of knowledge : facts, concepts, principles, procedures) experiment with N = 83 student teachers to examine …
Teachers’ dysfunctional feedback to students from immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds: A pilot study
Teachers often provide more positive feedback to ethnic minority students than to ethnic majority students in order to compensate for potential discrimination. However, even feedback that sounds positive can have unwanted effects on the students, such as reinforcing negative beliefs and reducing motivation. In this experimental pilot study, we investigated whether teachers were more likely to convey such dysfunctional feedback to students from im…
Forschungsmethoden in der Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung
"Reality Shock" of Beginning Teachers? Changes in Teacher Candidates' Emotional Exhaustion and Constructivist-Oriented Beliefs
Beginning teachers often feel disillusioned and stressed during their first years of teaching. In the present study, we investigated changes in teacher candidates' constructivist beliefs and emotional exhaustion. We assessed 163 German mathematics teacher candidates 3 times: at the beginning of, in the middle of, and after they completed the induction program. The results revealed a statistically significant decrease in constructivist beliefs and…
What makes a good teacher? The relative importance of mathematics teachers' cognitive ability, personality, knowledge, beliefs, and motivation for instructional quality
BackgroundTeachers differ substantially in their instructional performance in the classroom. Thus, researchers and policymakers are interested in how these differences can be explained and how the instruction provided by low-performing teachers can be improved. Previous research has focused either on generic (cognitive ability and personality) or profession-specific (professional knowledge, beliefs, and motivation for teaching) teacher characteri…
Student and teacher ratings of instructional quality: Consistency of ratings over time, agreement, and predictive power.
Prior research has shown that the agreement between teacher and student ratings of instructional quality is, at best, moderate, and the associations between measures of instructional quality and outcomes such as standardized achievement are typically small and somewhat mixed across both perspectives. One explanation for these low-to-moderate associations is the assumption that teacher and student ratings are not perfectly stable over time. By usi…
Racial/ethnic differences in use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana: Is there a cross-over from adolescence to adulthood
Professional competence of teachers: Effects on instructional quality and student development.
This study investigates teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, professional beliefs, work-related motivation, and self-regulation as aspects of their professional competence. Specifically, it examines how these aspects impact instruction and, in turn, student outcomes. In a nationally representative sample of 194 German secondary school mathematics classes, multiple measures were used to assess teacher competence, instructional quality, and stu…
Assessing teacher candidates' general pedagogical/psychological knowledge: Test construction and validation.
Teachers' general pedagogical/psychological knowledge (PPK) can be defined as the knowledge needed to create and optimize teaching--learning situations across subjects, including declarative and procedural knowledge of classroom management, teaching methods, classroom assessment, and student heterogeneity. Although PPK is thought to be an important aspect of teacher quality, it has seen little empirical investigation--largely because no direct an…
Teachers' Mathematical Knowledge, Cognitive Activation in the Classroom, and Student Progress
In both the United States and Europe, concerns have been raised about whether preservice and in-service training succeeds in equipping teachers with the professional knowledge they need to deliver consistently high-quality instruction. This article investigates the significance of teachers' content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge for high-quality instruction and student progress in secondary-level mathematics. It reports findings from…
On the Usefulness of Game Theory for the Resolution of Real-World Collective Action Problems
An important task in the application of game-theoretic rational choice models to collective action problems consists in linking elements of the social structure to abstract concepts used in the modeling of game situations. Michael Hechter correctly identifies three major research areas in game theory (equilibrium selection, incomplete information, imperfect information) where such links are needed. However, we disagree with most of his conclusion…
Die Sozialstruktur der Kooperation rationaler Egoisten: Zur „utilitaristischen“ Erklärung sozialer Ordnung
Soziale Situationen strategischer Interdependenz, in denen kooperatives Verhalten für nicht durch externe Instanzen eingeschränkte, rationale und egoistische Akteure zwar vorteilhaft, jedoch schwierig zu erreichen ist, treten in vielen Zusammenhängen auf. Klassisches Beispiel ist Hobbes’ Problem der sozialen Ordnung. Weitere zentrale Beispiele sind bestimmte wirtschaftliche und „soziale“ Austauschbeziehungen oder solidarisches Verhalten in Gruppe…
Rationale Akteure und soziale Institutionen: Beitrag zu einer endogenen Theorie des sozialen Tauschs
Teachers' Mathematical Knowledge, Cognitive Activation in the Classroom, and Student Progress
In both the United States and Europe, concerns have been raised about whether preservice and in-service training succeeds in equipping teachers with the professional knowledge they need to deliver consistently high-quality instruction. This article investigates the significance of teachers' content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge for high-quality instruction and student progress in secondary-level mathematics. It reports findings from…
Racial/ethnic differences in use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana: Is there a cross-over from adolescence to adulthood
Rationale Akteure und soziale Institutionen: Beitrag zu einer endogenen Theorie des sozialen Tauschs
Die Sozialstruktur der Kooperation rationaler Egoisten: Zur „utilitaristischen“ Erklärung sozialer Ordnung
Soziale Situationen strategischer Interdependenz, in denen kooperatives Verhalten für nicht durch externe Instanzen eingeschränkte, rationale und egoistische Akteure zwar vorteilhaft, jedoch schwierig zu erreichen ist, treten in vielen Zusammenhängen auf. Klassisches Beispiel ist Hobbes’ Problem der sozialen Ordnung. Weitere zentrale Beispiele sind bestimmte wirtschaftliche und „soziale“ Austauschbeziehungen oder solidarisches Verhalten in Gruppe…
What makes a good teacher? The relative importance of mathematics teachers' cognitive ability, personality, knowledge, beliefs, and motivation for instructional quality
BackgroundTeachers differ substantially in their instructional performance in the classroom. Thus, researchers and policymakers are interested in how these differences can be explained and how the instruction provided by low-performing teachers can be improved. Previous research has focused either on generic (cognitive ability and personality) or profession-specific (professional knowledge, beliefs, and motivation for teaching) teacher characteri…
"Reality Shock" of Beginning Teachers? Changes in Teacher Candidates' Emotional Exhaustion and Constructivist-Oriented Beliefs
Beginning teachers often feel disillusioned and stressed during their first years of teaching. In the present study, we investigated changes in teacher candidates' constructivist beliefs and emotional exhaustion. We assessed 163 German mathematics teacher candidates 3 times: at the beginning of, in the middle of, and after they completed the induction program. The results revealed a statistically significant decrease in constructivist beliefs and…
Long-term changes in teacher beliefs and motivation: Progress, stagnation or regress
Developing and maintaining constructivist beliefs and high levels of enthusiasm are important goals in the teaching profession. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated beliefs and enthusiasm of N = 856 German mathematics teacher (candidates) longitudinally. Results of latent growth curve modeling revealed that teachers’ constructivist beliefs declined, subject enthusiasm initially increased, and teaching enthusiasm remained stable over a…
Do they know what they know? Accuracy in teacher candidates' self‐assessments and its influencing factors
Although self‐assessing one's knowledge is an integral part of a teacher's professional development, little is known about the accuracy of teacher candidates' self‐assessments. In particular, not much attention has been paid to their self‐assessment accuracy assessed on an individual level. Using measures from research on metacognition, we investigated the accuracy and bias of 513 mathematics teacher candidates who were tested in and self‐assesse…
Teachers’ dysfunctional feedback to students from immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds: A pilot study
Teachers often provide more positive feedback to ethnic minority students than to ethnic majority students in order to compensate for potential discrimination. However, even feedback that sounds positive can have unwanted effects on the students, such as reinforcing negative beliefs and reducing motivation. In this experimental pilot study, we investigated whether teachers were more likely to convey such dysfunctional feedback to students from im…
On the Usefulness of Game Theory for the Resolution of Real-World Collective Action Problems
An important task in the application of game-theoretic rational choice models to collective action problems consists in linking elements of the social structure to abstract concepts used in the modeling of game situations. Michael Hechter correctly identifies three major research areas in game theory (equilibrium selection, incomplete information, imperfect information) where such links are needed. However, we disagree with most of his conclusion…
Rationale Akteure und soziale Institutionen: Beitrag zu einer endogenen Theorie des sozialen Tauschs
Die Sozialstruktur der Kooperation rationaler Egoisten: Zur „utilitaristischen“ Erklärung sozialer Ordnung
Soziale Situationen strategischer Interdependenz, in denen kooperatives Verhalten für nicht durch externe Instanzen eingeschränkte, rationale und egoistische Akteure zwar vorteilhaft, jedoch schwierig zu erreichen ist, treten in vielen Zusammenhängen auf. Klassisches Beispiel ist Hobbes’ Problem der sozialen Ordnung. Weitere zentrale Beispiele sind bestimmte wirtschaftliche und „soziale“ Austauschbeziehungen oder solidarisches Verhalten in Gruppe…
On the Usefulness of Game Theory for the Resolution of Real-World Collective Action Problems
An important task in the application of game-theoretic rational choice models to collective action problems consists in linking elements of the social structure to abstract concepts used in the modeling of game situations. Michael Hechter correctly identifies three major research areas in game theory (equilibrium selection, incomplete information, imperfect information) where such links are needed. However, we disagree with most of his conclusion…
Teachers' Mathematical Knowledge, Cognitive Activation in the Classroom, and Student Progress
In both the United States and Europe, concerns have been raised about whether preservice and in-service training succeeds in equipping teachers with the professional knowledge they need to deliver consistently high-quality instruction. This article investigates the significance of teachers' content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge for high-quality instruction and student progress in secondary-level mathematics. It reports findings from…
Assessing teacher candidates' general pedagogical/psychological knowledge: Test construction and validation.
Teachers' general pedagogical/psychological knowledge (PPK) can be defined as the knowledge needed to create and optimize teaching--learning situations across subjects, including declarative and procedural knowledge of classroom management, teaching methods, classroom assessment, and student heterogeneity. Although PPK is thought to be an important aspect of teacher quality, it has seen little empirical investigation--largely because no direct an…
Professional competence of teachers: Effects on instructional quality and student development.
This study investigates teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, professional beliefs, work-related motivation, and self-regulation as aspects of their professional competence. Specifically, it examines how these aspects impact instruction and, in turn, student outcomes. In a nationally representative sample of 194 German secondary school mathematics classes, multiple measures were used to assess teacher competence, instructional quality, and stu…
Racial/ethnic differences in use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana: Is there a cross-over from adolescence to adulthood
Student and teacher ratings of instructional quality: Consistency of ratings over time, agreement, and predictive power.
Prior research has shown that the agreement between teacher and student ratings of instructional quality is, at best, moderate, and the associations between measures of instructional quality and outcomes such as standardized achievement are typically small and somewhat mixed across both perspectives. One explanation for these low-to-moderate associations is the assumption that teacher and student ratings are not perfectly stable over time. By usi…
What makes a good teacher? The relative importance of mathematics teachers' cognitive ability, personality, knowledge, beliefs, and motivation for instructional quality
BackgroundTeachers differ substantially in their instructional performance in the classroom. Thus, researchers and policymakers are interested in how these differences can be explained and how the instruction provided by low-performing teachers can be improved. Previous research has focused either on generic (cognitive ability and personality) or profession-specific (professional knowledge, beliefs, and motivation for teaching) teacher characteri…
Forschungsmethoden in der Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung
"Reality Shock" of Beginning Teachers? Changes in Teacher Candidates' Emotional Exhaustion and Constructivist-Oriented Beliefs
Beginning teachers often feel disillusioned and stressed during their first years of teaching. In the present study, we investigated changes in teacher candidates' constructivist beliefs and emotional exhaustion. We assessed 163 German mathematics teacher candidates 3 times: at the beginning of, in the middle of, and after they completed the induction program. The results revealed a statistically significant decrease in constructivist beliefs and…
Not useful to inform teaching practice? Student teachers hold skeptical beliefs about evidence from education science
A goal of teacher education is to promote evidence-based teaching. Teacher beliefs are assumed to act as facilitators or barriers to evidence-based thinking and practices. In three sub-studies with a total of N = 346 German student teachers, the extent of student teachers’ beliefs about education science and their consequences and sources were investigated. First, the results of questionnaire data indicated that student teachers held skeptical be…
Classifying Examples is More Effective for Learning Relational Categories Than Reading or Generating Examples
Successful teaching requires that student teachers acquire a conceptual understanding of teaching practices. A promising way to promote such a conceptual understanding is to provide student teachers with examples. We conducted a 3 (between-subjects factor example format : reading, generation, classification) x 4 (within-subjects factor type of knowledge : facts, concepts, principles, procedures) experiment with N = 83 student teachers to examine …
Teachers’ dysfunctional feedback to students from immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds: A pilot study
Teachers often provide more positive feedback to ethnic minority students than to ethnic majority students in order to compensate for potential discrimination. However, even feedback that sounds positive can have unwanted effects on the students, such as reinforcing negative beliefs and reducing motivation. In this experimental pilot study, we investigated whether teachers were more likely to convey such dysfunctional feedback to students from im…
Student teachers’ conceptual knowledge of operant conditioning: How can case comparison support knowledge acquisition
Teachers need knowledge about operant conditioning as an important way to prevent student misbehavior. In an experiment with 181 student teachers, we investigated how the acquisition of conceptual knowledge about operant conditioning can be promoted through case comparisons. Our results showed that case comparison effectively supported the acquisition of knowledge about operant conditioning. Knowledge acquisition was higher with more guidance dur…
How does teachers' noticing of students' fixed mindsets relate to teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and experience? An exploratory study
Students' belief that abilities are unchangeable (fixed mindset) can hamper learning. Teachers should thus be able to recognize such problematic beliefs. We explored whether teachers' skills to notice students' fixed mindset were related to teachers' knowledge about learners' beliefs, teachers' mindset, and their experience. Our sample included pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers (N = 112). Noticing (i.e., attending and interpreting) …
Do they know what they know? Accuracy in teacher candidates' self‐assessments and its influencing factors
Although self‐assessing one's knowledge is an integral part of a teacher's professional development, little is known about the accuracy of teacher candidates' self‐assessments. In particular, not much attention has been paid to their self‐assessment accuracy assessed on an individual level. Using measures from research on metacognition, we investigated the accuracy and bias of 513 mathematics teacher candidates who were tested in and self‐assesse…
Lernstandserhebungen: Mehrwert oder nur Mehraufwand
Seit dem Schuljahr 2015/16 werden in Baden-Württemberg verpflichtend zu Beginn der fünften Klasse die Basiskompetenzen in den Fächern Deutsch und Mathematik der Schüler:innen mit der Lernstandserhebung Lernstand 5 erhoben. Ergebnisse aus Lernstand 5 können, wie die Ergebnisse anderer Lernstandserhebungen (z. B. VERA), im Sinne des Data Based Decision Making genutzt werden. Lernstand 5 unterscheidet sich aber in seiner vorrangig individualdiagnost…
Long-term changes in teacher beliefs and motivation: Progress, stagnation or regress
Developing and maintaining constructivist beliefs and high levels of enthusiasm are important goals in the teaching profession. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated beliefs and enthusiasm of N = 856 German mathematics teacher (candidates) longitudinally. Results of latent growth curve modeling revealed that teachers’ constructivist beliefs declined, subject enthusiasm initially increased, and teaching enthusiasm remained stable over a…
They keep on learning: Teachers’ pedagogical/psychological knowledge increases over 15 years in the teaching profession
Teachers’ pedagogical/psychological knowledge (PPK) increases significantly during the first 15 years of their professional career. • The induction phase proves especially effective for PPK acquisition. • Teachers with initially low PPK benefit the most during induction, indicating that initial gaps can be effectively closed. • Reflection on teaching experiences is especially effective for promoting PPK acquisition. Pedagogical/psychological know…
Back to normal? Longitudinal changes and predictors of teachers’ post-pandemic occupational well-being
Teachers' occupational well-being is crucial for teacher-student interactions and classroom management. Although research has demonstrated impaired well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, less is known about its development afterward. Psychological theories such as set-point and conservation-of-resources theory differ on whether well-being should return to pre-pandemic levels or show lasting changes. This study examined teachers’ well-being deve…
“Who evaluates immigrant students differently? Not me!”: Effects of an intervention with and without personalized refutation on (future) teachers’ beliefs and evaluations
Research shows that teachers’ evaluations and interactions can be influenced by students’ backgrounds, such as their ethnicity. Yet, many teachers believe that biases related to ethnicity do not exist, or that they are easy to control. Targeted interventions, which usually include evidence-based information and encourage reflection, can correct such false beliefs and reduce evaluation biases. They might be especially effective when preceded by a …
Ready to assess? A survey of German pre-service teachers’ traditional and digital formative assessment in physical education
Despite its acknowledged pedagogical value, formative assessment (FA) remains underutilized in physical education (PE). Understanding the factors that support or hinder FA implementation – such as teachers' positive attitudes, knowledge, and self-efficacy in applying both traditional and digital FA – is therefore essential for informing PE teacher education programs. This study investigates German pre-service PE teachers’ ( N = 208) attitudes, kn…
Psychology (13 works) · Mathematics education (12 works) · Education, Achievement, and Giftedness (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · German (5 works) · Motivation and Self-Concept in Sports (5 works) · Pedagogy (5 works) · Mathematics Education and Teaching Techniques (4 works) · Political science (4 works)