Teaching is a very effective strategy for learning. Recent findings show that teaching to a fictitious peer student enhances learning outcomes, but only when teaching via webcam, not via writing. It has been proposed that this is due to feelings of social presence during teaching (i.e., the degree to which learners feel that they are teaching an actual audience). If this is true, then increasing feelings of social presence by manipulating characteristics of the (presumed) audience should have beneficial effects on learning-by-teaching. Therefore, this project investigates the effects of audience realness (i.e., whether the audience is real or fictitious; Experiment 1) and size (i.e., whether the audience consists of one or more persons; Experiment 2) on learning-by-teaching. It is expected that a real audience and a larger audience increase feelings of social presence and learning outcomes. In both experiments it is explored whether the hypothesized positive relationship between feelings of social presence and learning outcomes is mediated by physiological arousal and cognitive processes during teaching (e.g., the quality and completeness of explanations, elaborations, and comprehension monitoring). The results of this project contribute to our understanding of why teaching on video is effective and how it can be made more effective.

The Higgs boson, the final piece of the Standard Model, was the focus of this project. Scientists studied its interactions with bottom and charm quarks with unprecedented precision, achieving the most accurate measurements to date. These results align with predictions about the Higgss behavior and push the boundaries of our understanding of the fundamental forces. The project also introduced innovative data analysis tools and represents an important step toward challenging the limitations of the Standard Model, paving the way for future insights into a more complete theory of nature.