Olivia Metzner

External LIFE Fellow since 2024, Universität Potsdam

I am a PhD student at the University of Potsdam, working in Rebecca Lazarides' research group "School and Instructional Research." My academic journey began with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education Science and European Ethnology from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, followed by a Master of Arts in Educational Science with a specialization in consulting and organizational development from TU Berlin.
My dissertation project investigates motivational-affective processes in learning and instruction. Specifically, I am interested in the relations between teachers’ motivational-affective beliefs and their instructional behavior. To investigate these relations, I examine associations between teachers’ motivational beliefs and their instructional behavior by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis (macro-level approach). Furthermore, I apply AI-based methodologies to examine the relations between pre-service teachers’ motivation and their motivational language in class (micro-level approach).

Dissertation project:

Situation-specific motivational-affective dynamics in social interactions: Macro- and micro-level perspectives

Publications

Metzner, O., Wang, Y., Symes, W., Huang, Y., Keller, L., de Melo, G., & Lazarides, R. (2025). A process-oriented perspective on pre-service teachers' self-efficacy and their motivational messages: Using large language models to classify teachers' speech. British Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12779A