Our study focused on an educational intervention designed to increase the self-esteem of low-achieving eighth graders. The intervention was a substance-specific life skills program built upon teacher-centered versus student-centered teaching methods. A cluster analysis identified four consumption groups prior to the intervention: A potentially curious cluster (PC), a currently curious cluster (CC), an experimenter cluster (EP) and a consumer cluster (CO). Self-esteem was measured three times in a pre-, post-and retention test design. The in terms of percentage biggest PC cluster only responded positively. A consistent increase was detected among both different teaching methods and both genders. Thus, self-esteem as an important psychological construct of physical well-being could be influenced positively by many students in the context of a substance-specific life skills program. Educational consequences to increase the efficiency of scholastic measures are discussed.

Bird flight and lift in general is a complex subject which is also difficult to teach in a classroom. In order to support the teaching of this curriculum-based subject, an interactive exhibit to demonstrate aerodynamic aspects of objects has been developed, implemented and evaluated with 262 middle school students. The empirical evaluation comprised a semantic differential in order to test the affectivity of the model as well as workbook analyses in order to measure potential cognitive gains. Factor analyses of the semantic differential responses revealed two factors with high factor loadings and high consistency. Qualitative analyses of the workbooks showed that 67% of the students added cognitive knowledge by experimenting with the track model. Conclusions are drawn concerning the added value of the implementation of our track model in school.