News

With the enrichment of the survey and competence data of the NEPS adult cohort with administrative data from the so-called Integrated Employment Biographies of the IAB, a new and innovative data product for scientific analyses is now available to interested researchers.

As part of the LIfBi lectures, Dr. Marko Neumann from the German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF) Frankfurt/Berlin presented the “BERLIN-Study”. This multicohort longitudinal study, investigates the structural reform of Berlin’s secondary school system carried out since 2010/11.

As part of LIfBi lectures, Prof. Dr. Yvonne Anders from Freie Universität Berlin held a presentation on May 15, 2018, about how the pedagogical quality in day care can be adequately measured.

On May 14 and 15, the 60th NEPS user training took place for scientists analyzing NEPS data—this time giving an “Introduction to the Data of the Starting Cohort 1 With a Focus on Learning Environments”.

As part of LIfBilectures, Katarina Weßling from the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA) at Maastricht University presented on the topic “The Teacher and the ‘Ghetto’–Investigating the Influence of School Class and Neighbourhood Contexts on Teachers’ Evaluations of Primary School Students”. She shared her thoughts and analyses of the influence of school class composition and economical-cultural school environment on teachers’ recommendations for a choice of secondary schools.

On November 22-23, 2018, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) will host the 3rd International NEPS Conference. Proposals for contributions can be submitted from now on.

In January 2018, two new projects started at LIfBi: Research projects SEED and LIFETRACK are part of the European research program “Dynamics of Inequality Across the Life Course” (DIAL).

In his lecture titled “Federal School System and Small-Scale Social Segregation: About the Increasing Relevance of Context Effects in the Empirical Educational Research” Prof. Dr. Marcel Helbing from the Social Science Center Berlin (WZB) and the University of Erfurt discussed the question regarding the extent to which context effects can be conceptualized and measured in empirical educational research. The lecture was held on April 17.

On April 12, 2018, Dr. Klaus Pforr, Research Assistant at the German Microdata Lab at GESIS-Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, presented a project in which small-scale regional context data are extrapolated from the microcensus.

Starting on April 1, 2018, Prof. Dr. Sabine Weinert has taken over the position of Interim Director of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories and will thus also lead the NEPS study “Educational Trajectories in Germany”. She succeeds Prof. Dr. Sandra Buchholz, who had been managing the Institute during its dynamic development phase after the retirement of Prof. Dr. Hans-Günther Roßbach.

Led by the Chair Professor Marlis Buchmann from the University of Zurich, the 14th meeting of the LIfBi Board of Trustees took place on March 21, 2018. Interim Director Professor Sandra Buchholz gave her final report to the Board of Trustees about key themes and developments during her one-year tenure, which will end on March 31, 2018. Professor Sabine Weinert was appointed by the Board of Trustees as the new Interim Director as of April 1.

In February, fieldwork started with interviews of refugee families in selected local communities. This survey collects data of parents and adolescents and tests the competencies of children and adolescents.

The ReGES study appeared with a contribution from Anike Dröscher at the 6th Conference of the Society for Empirical Educational Research (GEBF).

PD Dr. Timo Gnambs, Head of LIfBi Research Unit “Educational Measurement”, has been appointed to a professorship at the Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria).

On February 19, 2018, the Annual General Meeting of NEPS met in Bamberg for the fifth time. Besides electing the new Chairperson and Vice Chairperson of the Annual General Meeting of NEPS and the members of the NEPS Network Committee, the meeting focused on the report of the Interim Director, Prof. Sandra Buchholz.

In his guest talk on February 8, 2018, Mathieu Ichou, PhD, from the INED French Institute for Demographic Studies, emphasizes the role of immigrants’ selectivity when it comes to analysing their social integration.

Dr. Daniel Fuß, Head of the Research Data Center LIfBi (RDC LIfBi) in an interview on the available data of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), the tasks of the RDC LIfBi, and future challenges.

As part of the LIfBi lectures series, Dr. Gabriele Steuer, Research Assistant at the University of Augsburg, presented the results of several studies on the topic “effective regulation of motivation”.

As part of the LIfBi lectures series, Prof. Dr. Marcus Hasselhorn, the Executive Director of the German Institute for International Educational Research (Deutsches Institut für internationale Pädagogische Forschung, DIPF), presented results from the early support program "The Mature School Child" (Schulreifes Kind).

Playing a lot of video games makes adolescents stupid—a statement that is often referred to by the term “digital dementia”. This popular assumption is challenged by studies in which video gamers demonstrate a quicker perception and can solve complex problems more easily. Researchers could not validate either assumption through their new study. They did not find any significant correlation between the time 15-year-olds spend playing video games and their cognitive abilities.