Learning, Education and Development

Research group

The Learning, Education, and Development group conducts fundamental and applied research on individual differences in learning and development of children, teenagers and adolescents. The core characteristics of our research are visualized below.

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Research projects

Onderzoeksproject

Transition from secondary education to higher education

Radboud University offers activities for secondary school students and prospective university students. This study examined how these activities support students’ transition to university.

Logo's van alle deelnemers van het onderzoeksconsortium

School en Omgeving

This project studies the "School en Omgeving" programme in collaboration with three schools. In this programme, pupils participate in a variety of extracurricular activities outside school hours.

Wandelend gezin in de bergen

TRansitions Into Active Living

Our society has reached a peak in physical inactivity. This interdisciplinary project leverages individuals' social networks to encourage lasting changes in active behavior during significant life transitions.

Research

Our research relates individual differences in learning and development to characteristics, the knowledge and skills individuals have to acquire, and the context in which their learning and development occur.

News

friends on a staircase all smiling

Do detracked classes increase equity in education?

Educational anthropologist Floris Burgers examines the effectiveness of detracked classes to identify their success factors.

Afbeelding van de NRO subsidie

Two NRO grants for equality of educational opportunity research

Researchers Eddie Denessen, Floris Burgers, Lineke van Tricht and Eric Robbers have received two grants from the NRO for research projects to promote equity in education.

yound child taking care of a tomato plant in the grass

How school gardens build bridges in primary education

Jan de Moor develops a way to incorporate school gardening into primary education. The school garden connects all basic subjects and provides more practice and nature experience at school.

Individual Differences 

Individual differences lie at the heart of our research. We study variations between and within homogeneous age samples to describe, predict, and explain how people learn and develop. We focus on both typically developing groups and samples with atypical development in one or more areas (e.g., attention deficits, visual impairment, coordination disorder, giftedness).

Application areas 

The doughnut chart’s outer ring represents our research’s main application areas. Each area has specific themes prompted by academic or societal relevance, shaping the research questions we seek to answer. Examples include differentiated teaching, learning, treatment, and intervention forms, adaptive and dynamic assessments, and policy measures regarding equal opportunities and inclusive education.

 

Infographic over Individual differences

Child characteristics

Child characteristics include a person’s cognitive, behavioural, affective, psychomotor and social-emotional attributes. We examine how such personal traits influence learning and development through longitudinal and correlational research. To illustrate, our previous research established that children’s science learning differences depend on their executive functions and reading comprehension. Other studies found that motivational differences are related to successful physical rehabilitation and that giftedness is a poor predictor of academic achievement.

Knowledge and skills

Knowledge and skills refer to the discipline or domain in which our research is embedded. We usually focus on the school subjects of language, math and science but also address motor and domain-general cognitive skills such as self-regulation, problem solving and creativity. We use longitudinal and cross-sectional designs to study whether and how learners differ in their proficiency and development of these skills. We also conduct intervention studies to determine how this development is effectively promoted through instruction and guided practice.

Contextual factors 

Contextual factors relate to the physical and social environment in which learning and development occur. Learning occurs mainly in schools by interacting with teachers and peers; treatment is given in clinics by therapists, and at home, parents, siblings and friends play an essential role in youngsters’ development. By considering these situational characteristics, we aim to give a complete picture of how learning and development occur and differ between individuals.

Contact information

Location

Maria Montessori building

Thomas Van Aquinostraat 4
6525GD Nijmegen
024-3611822
Postal address
Postbus 9104
6500HE NIJMEGEN