LEAD Graduate School & Research Network

27.08.2025

Former Hector scientists receive international awards

Lisa Bardach and Babette Bühler were honored for work they produced during their time at the Hector Institute.

by Philipp Sigle
Two former researchers at the Hector Institute for Empirical Educational Research were honored for their work at this year's conference of the European Association for Research on Learning & Instruction (EARLI) in Graz. Both awards underscore the international visibility and relevance of the research conducted during their time in Tübingen.

Lisa Bardach receives EARLI Outstanding Publication Award
Prof. Dr. Lisa Bardach, former junior professor at the Hector Institute, received the award for her publication “Cultural Diversity Climate in School“, which was written during her time at the Hector Institute. The meta-analysis summarizes 79 studies with more than 56,000 students and examines how different approaches to dealing with cultural diversity in schools are related to central learning, development, and interaction processes. Good conditions for intercultural encounters and an appreciative approach to diversity had a particularly positive effect.

As the award winner, Bardach will have the opportunity to give a presentation on her award-winning topic at the next EARLI conference.
She is now a university professor in the Department of Psychology at Justus Liebig University in Giessen. There, her research focuses on individual differences (motivation, personality, self-regulation, cognitive abilities), cultural diversity, social inequality, digital learning, and technology-based interventions.

Babette Bühler receives FUTURE EDUCATION Early Career Award
Dr. Babette Bühler, who was a doctoral student at the Hector Institute and completed her doctorate in computer science at the University of Tübingen, also received an award. She received the FUTURE EDUCATION Early Career Award at the EARLI conference in Graz.

The award was presented for the first time this year and honors young researchers who have achieved outstanding research results within their dissertation or shortly thereafter.

Babette Bühler was honored for her study “Temporal Dynamics of Meta-Awareness of Mind Wandering During Lecture Viewing“. The research was supported by the LEAD Graduate School & Research Network and uses innovative methods to investigate how awareness of “mind wandering” develops during video lectures and how this can be captured using machine learning approaches. The results contribute to a better understanding and promotion of attention and self-regulation in digital learning scenarios.

Since August 2024, Bühler has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Munich in the field of Human-Centered Technologies for Learning. There, she conducts research on AI-supported, attention-based learning technologies and is involved in teaching as well as in promoting young scientists.

Interview about the study
Further studies on the topic of Mind-Wandering
 

Publications

Bühler, B., Bozkir, E., Goldberg, P., Deininger, H., D'Mello, S., Gerjets, P., Trautwein, U., & Kasneci, E. (2025). Temporal dynamics of meta-awareness of mind wandering during lecture viewing: Implications for learning and automated assessment using machine learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 117(1), 38–62. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000903

Bardach, L., Röhl, S., Oczlon, S., Schumacher, A., Lüftenegger, M., Lavelle-Hill, R., Schwarzenthal, M., & Zitzmann, S. (2024). Cultural diversity climate in school: A meta-analytic review of its relationships with intergroup, academic, and socioemotional outcomes.Psychological Bulletin, 150(12), 1397–1439. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000454

Media Contact

Rebecca Beiter
presse@lead.uni-tuebingen.de

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