Prof. Dr. Matthias Nückles

I am an educational psychologist and professor of Educational Science. In my research, I investigate how students’ self-regulated learning can be effectively supported. I further seek to improve our understanding of successful teaching in order to create learning environments that support prospective teachers in the development of their teaching abilities. With these goals in mind, I regard a thorough analysis of the cognitive and motivational processes underlying learning and teaching, as well as the combination of different research methodologies (experiments, thinking-aloud studies, longitudinal studies) as fundamental for my research. My research is interdisciplinary, because I try to integrate ideas from Educational, Social and Cognitive Psychology as well as from the Philosophy of Science. Also, I appreciate collaboration with researchers from Mathematics, Science, History and Literature Education. Currently I am interested in the following research questions:

• How can students’ cognitive and motivational learning processes as well as their learning outcomes be increased through the writing of learning journals?
• How do mindsets about the teaching of mathematics tacitly influence the way mathematics teachers explain math problems to students?
• How should learning by explaining be instructionally supported in order to become an effective learning method?
• How can teacher students be instructionally supported in acquiring didactic reasoning skills that enable them to successfully tackle ill-defined and complex teaching problems?
• How should teacher trainings be designed in order to promote the acquisition of core practices in teaching?

I teach lectures and courses on current issues in Educational Psychology and Instructional Design. Currently, I am the head of the Department of Educational Science and member of the executive board of the School of Education FACE.