The first talk in the series "Psychologisches Forschungskolloquium" is given by Raven Rinas, M.Sc. & Dr. Martin Daumiller.

Professional learning opportunities can help university academics to expand their competencies and implement high quality education practices. Within these opportunities, academics differ in the extent to which they engage in learning and their resulting learning gains. A theoretical explanation for these differences involves their achievement motivations. To examine this, a pilot study was conducted (Daumiller, Rinas, Olden, & Dresel, 2019) which found that academics’ achievement goals affected learning gains through learning engagement. Based on this, the aim of the current study was to expand on these findings. Specifically, we were interested in (1) replicating the findings of the previous study using a larger sample size, (2) including self-efficacy and course value as further aspects of their achievement motivations, (3) integrating objective knowledge tests into the study design, and (4) additionally considering the impact of participants’ experiences of achievement emotions and self-threat throughout their professional development courses for a more comprehensive understanding of the learning processes. To this end, a sample of 172 German university academics from 24 professional training courses completed assessments of their motivations prior to course participation, three assessments throughout the course measuring their learning engagement and emotional experiences, and subjective and objective learning gains after the course. Taken together, this research contributes to the understanding of the relevance of university instructors’ motivations for their professional development and acts as a stepping stone for further studies on developing strategies to foster adaptive and high quality learning experiences during academics’ professional development.