Astrid Poorthuis is an Assistant Professor at the Developmental Psychology program at Utrecht University. Her research interests concern social-emotional aspects of learning, performance, and school. Research topics include the psychological impact of grades, the transition from primary school to secondary school, and classroom social dynamics. She wants to find out how school practices, such as giving grades and school transitions, impact children's and adolescents' emotions, attributions, self-views, identity and school engagement.

Current projects include:

-The impact of grades on school engagement
-Peer relations and school engagement
-Attributional retraining interventions and attributional profiles
-Teacher - student interactions and teachers' emotions and wellbeing
-Performance overestimation in young children (4-5 years old)
-Peer academic reputation
-The role of pull-out classes in primary school students' social development and self-esteem
-Adolescents' motivation to engage in eco-friendly behavior (GREENTEENS)

As Chair of the Board of Examiners and as Teaching Innovation Ambassador of Psychology she is dedicated to high quality assessment and improving education by increasing students' active learning activities. Recently, she published a report on online study-aids developed for her Psychological Assessment course. She teaches in the bachelor program of Psychology, the master program Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, and the research master Development and Socialisation in Childhood and Adolescence (DaSCA) . She supervises students at different levels, i.e. Bachelor, Master, and PhD level.