Firstly, the subproject ZuBAb – the Role and Practice of Counseling (ZuBAb-Counseling) takes a closer look at counselors who support young people with higher education entrance qualifications in choosing their post-secondary educational pathways. The aim is to gain insights into the role and practice of counseling activities in North Rhine-Westphalia. This substudy plans to examine three groups of ounselors: counselors working within the NRW-Talentscouting program (so-called “Talentscouts”), student counselors employed at higher education institutions, and counselors from employment agencies (so-called “Agenturen für Arbeit”) who advise young adults on their post-secondary educational pathways.
Beyond the goal of describing the diversity of counseling activities in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), a research focus lies on the question of how counselors perceive educational success and equal opportunities, and how their perceptions are reflected in their professional understanding.
Secondly, the focus is on investigating the effect of the program. In the previous funding phases, this was determined at a high methodological level using an experimental research design. However, in the field experiment, not all aspects of the program corresponded exactly to the real world conditions. Therefore, the current funding phase aims to examine the effect under real world conditions at the population level, i.e. for the entire state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Thirdly, the project will carry out further in-depth analyses of the longitudinal data already collected. This will focus on the most recent waves of the survey to examine the long-term impact of the programme and to explore selected aspects in greater depth.