Abstracts - Earli

expertise about the teaching to the students who present visual impairments. In a general way,these teachers follow a similar trajectory of professional.J 2230 August 2007 17:00 - 18:20Room: 0.100DPaper SessionIndividual differences and cognitive developmentChair:John Kirby, Queen’s University, CanadaIndividual and family-related influences on academic effort avoidance after the transition fromelementary to secondary school: A developmental perspective.Brigitte Rollett, University of Vienna, Faculty of Psychology, AustriaHarald Werneck, University of Vienna, Faculty of Psychology, AustriaBarbara Hanfstingl, University of Klagenfurt, AustriaTo study the development of academic effort avoidance after transition from elementary tosecondary school, we reanalyzed the data of the longitudinal study "Family development In thecourse of Life" (FIL) originally including 175 families expecting their first, second or third child(five waves, t1: pregnancy, T2: child’s age 3 months, t3: 3 years, t4: 8 years, t5: 11 years). Toidentify developmental trajectories, we conducted two pathanalysis employing Wold’s PLSprocedure.Measures: Temperament (t2, scales: positive mood, distress proneness, irritability,rhythmicity, intensity of reaction); parenting style (t4, scales: supportive parenting, strictparenting, accepting parenting) parental partnership (t2, t4 and t5, scale: conflict behavior);intelligence (t4, WISC), disorder specific personality characteristics of the child (t4 and t5, scales:hyperactivity and inattentiveness, opposition and risk taking, dominance, state anxiety, traitanxiety, depressiveness), school grades (German and Mathematics) after transition to secondaryschool; attachment to parents (t5, scales: trust, communication, negative feelings towards parents,alienation) and academic effort avoidance (t5). Two models to predict effort avoidance at t5 werecomputed, using parental partnership and personality data at t4 (Model 1) and t5 (Model 2)respectively. Parental conflict had a debilitating influence on attachment quality in both models(paths: .31 and .22). The most important result was the increasing influence of a child’sproblematic personality characteristics from t4 to t5 and the reduction of the influence ofattachment on the emergence of achievement related effort avoidance. This result can beinterpreted as an increasing consolidation of negative personality traits paralleled by a lessening ofparental influence on student’s investment in the attainment of scholastic achievement.Characteristics of complex learning environments in secondary vocational education asdeterminants for acquiring the competencies for lifelong learningRegina H. Mulder, University of Regensburg, GermanyOngoing technological and economic developments lead to the need of lifelong learning for allemployees. For lifelong learning specific competencies have to be acquired. Important is thatstudents acquire these before entering the labour market, in vocational education. The centralquestion here is: ‘What characteristics of learning environments lead to the development of– 576 –