Dr. Tim Steininger

I am a research associate in the Instruction, Learning, and Difference section at the Department of Educational Science. My research focuses on the effective design of adaptive and example-based teaching and learning materials. In my doctoral dissertation, I investigated effective example formats for learning relational categories. Currently, I am investigating the effects of differentiated instructional approaches on performance, metacognitive judgment accuracy, and motivation. I am particularly interested in the characteristics on which differentiation should be based, how instruction should be differentiated, how cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational processes shape the effects of differentiated instruction, and how autistic university students can be supported through differentiated instruction.
In teaching, I offer courses on learning theories, research methods, and assessment/support.
I am the coordinator for the M.A. program Educational Science – Teaching and Learning.

In der Lehre biete ich Veranstaltungen zu Lerntheorien, Forschungsmethoden sowie Beurteilen und Fördern an.

Ich bin Fachberater für den Studiengang M.A. Bildungswissenschaft: Lehren und Lernen.

Tim_steininger (002)

Contact

Instruction, Learning, and Difference

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Rempartstraße 11
79098 Freiburg

Tel: 0761 – 2032447
E-Mail: tim.steininger|at|ezw.uni-freiburg.de

Office hours: by appointment by e-mail

Selected Publications

Steininger, T. M., Moschberger, A., Voss, T, & Wittwer, J. (2025, October 8–9). Learning relational categories: Effects of combining classification tasks and generation tasks on learning and metacognitive judgment accuracy [Poster presentation]. AQUA-d Conference 2025, Karlsruhe, Germany.

Steininger, T. M., Voss, T, & Wittwer, J. (2025, August 25–29). Even with support, generating examples is less effective than classifying provided examples [Paper presentation]. 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), Graz, Austria.

Steininger, T. M., Wittwer, J., & Voss, T. (2025). Learning relational categories: Benefits of blocking, classification, and subject-specific examples. Psychology Learning & Teaching. 24(1), 38–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/14757257241248155

Wimmer, L., Steininger, T. M., Schmid, A., & Wittwer, J. (2024). Category learning in autistic individuals: A meta-analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-023-02365-4

Steininger, T. M., Voss, T, & Wittwer, J. (2023, 18.–20. September). Gezielte Unterstützung von Generalisierung und Diskriminierung beim Kategorienlernen: Das Klassifizieren vorgegebener Beispiele bleibt effektiver als das Generieren eigener Beispiele [Vortrag]. 19. Tagung der Fachgruppe Pädagogische Psychologie (PAEPS), Kiel, Deutschland.

Steininger, T. M., Kienzler, J., Wittwer, J., & Voss. (2023, 13.–15. September). Konzeptlernen in der Lehrkraftbildung als Voraussetzung für die erfolgreiche Anwendung von Core Practices [Vortrag]. Sektionstagung empirische Bildungsforschung der Arbeitsgruppe für Empirische Pädagogische Forschung (AEPF), Potsdam, Deutschland.

Kienzler, J., Steininger, T. M., Voss, T., & Wittwer, J. (2023, August 22–26). At the core of core practices: Conceptual knowledge as an enabling factor for successful teaching [Paper presentation]. 20th Biennial Conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), Thessaloniki, Greece.

Golke, S., Steininger, T., & Wittwer, J. (2022). What makes learners overestimate their text comprehension? The impact of learner characteristics on judgment bias. Educational Psychology Review 34, 2405–2450. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-022-09687-0

Steininger, T. M., Wittwer, J., & Voss, T. (2022, 9.–11. März). Geblocktes, aktives und fachspezifisches beispielbasiertes Lernen fördert die Anwendung relationaler Konzepte in generativen Aufgaben [Vortrag]. 9. Tagung der Gesellschaft für empirische Bildungsforschung (GEBF), online.

Steininger, T. M., Wittwer, J., & Voss, T. (2022). Classifying examples is more effective for learning relational categories than reading or generating examples. Instructional Science 50. 771–788. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-022-09584-7

Steininger, T. M., Kienzler, J., Wittwer, J., & Voss, T. (2021, August 23–27). Supporting student teachers’ conceptual knowledge acquisition through example-based learning [Paper presentation]. 19th Biennial Conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), online.

Herppich, S., Steininger, T., & Wittwer, J. (2018, April 13–17). Physics tutors‘ planned strategy use for conceptual and procedural problems: Encouraging and puzzling results [Paper Presentation]. Annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, NY, United States of America. http://www.aera.net/Publications/Online-Paper-Repository/AERA-Online-Paper-Repository/Owner/1001210