This year, the LIfBi Research Award recognizes outstanding research achievements by PhD students. The jury decided to award the prize to two publications for the first time. The award-winning research, for which Kerstin Schörner, as well as Jana Welling and Eva Zink, are receiving the LIfBi Research Award this year, opens up new perspectives on the interplay between the educational aspirations of children and parents, as well as on how to address systematic response biases in large-scale education studies.
The award is presented annually to employees of the institute who have performed outstanding work in research or infrastructure. This year, in accordance with the established rotation, the Research Award was presented to doctoral candidates. The members of the LIfBi Scientific Advisory Board made the decision regarding the award. Given the excellence of the proposals submitted this year, they decided to award the prize to two publications.
Children's and Parents' Educational Aspirations in Focus
One of the award-winning contributions is the first publication resulting from Kerstin Schörner’s doctoral research, which has already received considerable attention among experts in the field. The publication, co-authored with Dr. Felix Bittmann, systematically compares concepts from sociology and psychology regarding the relationship between the educational aspirations of children and parents and links them together.
In its statement, the jury praised the strong theoretical foundation and critical discussion of the theories applied, as well as the development of original insights into the complex reciprocal influences between children and parents. These go beyond the usual one-dimensional assumptions that it is primarily parents who influence their children. The findings are of great significance for research, education policy, and family education alike, as they show that during secondary school, children are far more actively involved in the goal-setting process than previously assumed and are thus key actors in educational decisions.
For award winner Kerstin Schörner, the LIfBi Award is an important affirmation of her commitment to continuing her interdisciplinary path in educational research: “I am convinced that looking beyond disciplinary boundaries helps us pose new research questions and rethink and answer familiar ones. Since interdisciplinary work is not always easy to position in a research landscape that is strongly organized along disciplinary lines, this recognition means a great deal to me.”
Dealing with “Rapid Guessing” as a Systematic Error
The jury recognized a second outstanding scholarly achievement with a methodological paper by PhD students Jana Welling and Eva Zink. Their article, published in collaboration with Dr. Timo Gnambs, makes a significant contribution to methodological educational research by examining various approaches to addressing “rapid guessing.” This phenomenon refers to very rapid and largely unreflective responses to test items, which can compromise the validity of the results and distort key conclusions. Therefore, a better understanding of this phenomenon is particularly relevant for research as well as for education policy recommendations based on data from large-scale educational studies.
Drawing on a comprehensive simulation study, the paper by the two LIfBi doctoral candidates brings together two lines of research that—until now largely conducted in isolation—have focused either on individual responses or on the respondents’ response patterns. Based on this, the authors formulate concrete empirical guidelines on how to mitigate the bias caused by rapid guessing in practice.
The two award winners are delighted that their article—published with equal first authorship—impressed the jury: “How we analyze data influences the conclusions we can draw from educational studies. Through our collaboration, we were able to combine our different areas of expertise and support one another in exploring this question. The award encourages us to continue critically examining methodological issues and to derive reliable recommendations for research practice from them.”
Original publications:
Schörner, K., & Bittmann, F. (2024). Children’s aspirations, their perceptions of parental aspirations, and parents’ factual aspirations – Gaining insights into a complex world of interdependencies. European Sociological Review, 40(6), 981–995. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcad074
Welling, J., Zink, E., & Gnambs, T. (2026). Comparing different approaches of (not) accounting for rapid guessing in plausible values estimation. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 86(4), 792–821. https://doi.org/10.1177/00131644251395590