This work aims at corroborating the importance and efficacy of mutual learning in motor imagery (MI) brain–computer interface (BCI) by leveraging the insights obtained through our participation in the BCI race of the Cybathlon event. We hypothesized that, contrary to the popular trend of focusing mostly on the machine learning aspects of MI BCI training, a comprehensive mutual learning methodology that reinstates the three learning pillars (at the machine, subject, and application level) as equally significant could lead to a BCI–user symbiotic system able to succeed in real-world scenarios such as the Cybathlon event. Two severely impaired participants with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI), were trained following our mutual learning approach to control their avatar in a virtual BCI race game. The competition outcomes substantiate the effectiveness of this type of training. Most importantly, the present study is one among very few to provide multifaceted evidence on the efficacy of subject learning during BCI training. Learning correlates could be derived at all levels of the interface—application, BCI output, and electroencephalography (EEG) neuroimaging—with two end-users, sufficiently longitudinal evaluation, and, importantly, under real-world and even adverse conditions.

March 2020 will be reminded as the time when schools around the world came to a shutdown. This resulted in a necessary and immediate redesign of teaching and learning. School-based instruction had to be replaced by a home-based instruction format. This required students, parents and teachers to adapt their daily routines to a new and unknown educational reality. Given this unprecedented situation, research into the impact of homeschooling during the COVID-19 crisis became urgent. This brief report introduces a nation-wide research project in Germany. Following a mixed-methods design, the SCHELLE project titled Student-Parents-Teachers in Homeschooling (abbreviated as SCHELLE following its German name Schüler-Eltern-Lehrer) was developed in order to comprehensively explore students’, parents’, and teachers’ experiences during homeschooling. Overall, the studies focused on collecting quantitative and qualitative data on how homeschooling was implemented, whether inclusive education was considered, and the well-being of all three perspectives. The main findings of the SCHELLE project revealed that the impact of homeschooling expanded not only into the educational domain, but as well into the social (e.g. social distancing), psychological (positive and negative activation), and educational equality matters (implementation of inclusive education).

The advantages of assessing self‐perceived deviations of mood states from mood traits in cross‐sectional as well as longitudinal studies are discussed in detail. The validity of self‐perceived mood deviations is analysed in a longitudinal study with three occasions of measurement and 176 participants. In order to assess self‐perceived mood deviations, participants rated the deviation of their momentary mood from how they felt in general with respect to 32 mood adjectives belonging to three mood scales (pleasant–unpleasant, calm–restless, awake–sleepy). Furthermore, mood states, mood traits, and other personality variables (hedonic level, neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness) are assessed by self‐report. Using models of latent state–trait theory, it is shown that the self‐perceived mood deviation scales are reliable (reliabilities between 0.73 and 0.95) and sensitive to occasion‐specific fluctuations (occasion specificities between 0.38 and 0.72). The self‐perceived deviation scales show high correlations with latent occasion‐specific deviation variables defined on the basis of repeatedly measured mood states (high convergent validity). In contrast to self‐reported mood states, however, self‐perceived mood deviations show much smaller and in most cases non‐significant correlations with personality variables (high discriminant validity). Furthermore, it is shown that self‐perceived mood deviations can be used to suppress stable situation‐specific variance in mood traits defined as aggregated states. Therefore, it can be demonstrated that including self‐perceived mood deviations in analyses on mood–personality associations enhances the association coefficients considerably. Finally, the implications of the results for the individual assessment of mood deviations, as well as for studies on affect and personality, are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Given the increasing diversity of the student body, teachers are called to appropriately address students' various learning needs by means of differentiated instruction (DI). However, empirical research has yielded mixed evidence on teachers' reported use of DI. Using nationally representative data from the National Educational Panel Study in Germany, this article aimed to explore German (as native language) and Mathematics teachers' use of DI practices. In addition, this study took into consideration contextual factors, such as school track, and investigated the impact of teachers' constructivist beliefs on their DI implementation. Results from a mixed analysis of covariance indicated that teachers occasionally implement DI practices. Furthermore, between-subject effects reported differences across school tracks. It appears that advanced secondary school teachers implement less often DI practices. The covariate of teachers' constructivist beliefs was also positively linked to overall teachers' implementation of DI. Implications of the results, as well as further lines of research are discussed. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The Corona virus (COVID-19) crisis forced many countries to follow strict protocols ordering schools to close. With schools under lockdown, homeschooling has become the only form of schooling available. Reports have indicated that parents and students have struggled with the challenges of homeschooling. Against this background, this study explored primary school students and parents' educational chances and challenges during homeschooling in two countries: Mexico and Germany. Comparing these two countries can shed light into potential differences of how inclusive approaches have been incorporated in homeschooling. Following a qualitative approach, thirteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents and school students. Results from a qualitative content analysis revealed that parents across both countries face challenges to organise homeschooling and motivate their children. However, they spent more time with their children. Primary school students in Germany and Mexico are challenged considerably by the loss of social contact.

A differential conditioning design using an aversive slide as conditioned stimulus (CS(+)) that was followed by an intracutaneous electric stimulus to the left index finger as unconditioned stimulus (US) and a pleasant slide that was not followed by shock (CS(-)) were used to test the hypothesis of enhanced aversive conditioning of muscular responses in chronic back pain patients (CBP). Heart rate, skin conductance levels, and integrated surface electromyograms (EMG) from the left and right m. flexor digitorum, the right m. trapezius, and bilaterally from the m. orbicularis oculi were recorded. The electroencephalogram (EEG) was measured from nine electrode positions. The CBP patients showed an enhanced muscular response of the left forearm (where the US was applied) to the CS(+) already in the preconditioning phase. During acquisition both the left forearm and the right trapezius of the patients but not the controls displayed enhanced muscular responding to the CS(+). During extinction the CBP patients' muscular responses to both CS(+) and CS(-) were elevated. The contingent negative variation of the EEG differentiated between CS(+) and CS(-) in the healthy controls but not the chronic pain patients. These data confirm the hypothesis of enhanced muscular responding in chronic pain patients and suggest a dissociation of muscular and central processes during aversive conditioning in the patients that might contribute to the chronicity problem.

Morphology has traditionally been used to diagnose the taxa of various taxonomic ranks. However, there is growing evidence that morphology is not always able to reveal cryptic taxa, and that pronounced morphological variation could reflect phenotypic plasticity rather than evolutionary divergence. Spur‐thighed tortoises (the Testudo graeca complex), distributed in the western Palaearctic region, are characterized by high morphological variability and complicated taxonomy, which are under debate. Previous molecular studies using mainly mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences have revealed incongruence between genetic differentiation and morphology‐based taxonomy, suggesting that morphological variability is the result of phenotypic plasticity and stabilizing selection, which masks the true genealogies. In the present study, we used a range‐wide sampling and nuclear Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers to investigate genetic differentiation within the T. graeca complex. We found that spur‐thighed tortoises are differentiated into four geographically well‐defined AFLP groups: Balkans–Middle Eastern, western Mediterranean, Caucasian and central‐eastern Iranian. Compared with the distribution of mtDNA lineages, the groups are largely concordant, although the AFLP markers are less sensitive and distinguish fewer groups than do mtDNA sequences. The AFLP groups show an allopatric or parapatric distribution. The AFLP differentiation conflicts with the previously proposed morphology‐based taxonomy of the complex, suggesting that local adaptation to different environmental conditions may have led to the great extent of morphological variation within the same lineages. We propose a re‐evaluation of the taxa that were confirmed genetically using a thorough morphological analysis corrected for phenotypic plasticity. © 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, ●●, ●●–●●.

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