Hector

Since 2010 sixty Hector children academies have been created in the state of Baden-Württemberg with the financial funding of the Hector-Stiftung II in order to support highly gifted primary school students. The academic support and scientific monitoring is designed as a formative evaluation, so that vital findings of associated studies can be directly integrated into the work of the children academies.

The overall aim of the project is to examine to what extent the children academies contribute to a positive development of the talented and highly gifted primary school students. Furthermore the project aims at drawing generalizable findings that can later be used in the development and support of highly gifted children.

Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID)

The Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID) is the supra-regional research support facility for psychology in German-speaking countries. It supports the entire scientific work process, from literature research and study planning to data collection and analyses to documentation, archiving and publication of results. The services offered by ZPID are based on an ideal-type research cycle. 

ZPID is committed to the idea of open science and sees itself as a public open science institute for psychology. As a research-based support institution, ZPID conducts research on “science acceptance”, “psychological metascience”, and “big data in psychology”. 

Important projects:

  • In its reference database PSYNDEX, ZPID documents scientific publications from the field of psychology and other scientific disciplines (e.g., educational and social sciences) related to educational research.
  • ZPID’s reference database PSYNDEX Tests contains diagnostic tools from the field of educational psychology as well as related fields of application (e.g., pedagogics, curative education, speech therapy) which are well-suited for applications in educational assessment. The Open test Archive offers a number of free assessment tools for research purposes.
  • The Research Data Center (RDC) supports researchers in psychology and related disciplines in the quality-assured curation of research data and offers various access routes for the scientific use of these data corpora.The RDC supports both research-related (DataWiz) and downstream documentation and archiving of research data via the psychology repository PsychArchives. 
  • The Institute participates in research work on the monitoring of educational research in Germany.
  • In the research area Science Acceptance, the team investigates how people think about science and how they evaluate researchers and their findings. This area includes the Science Reception Lab led by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Marlene Altenmüller, the Social Influence Lab of the director Prof. Dr. Kai Sassenberg, and research projects coordinated by Dr. Tom Rosman.
  • The research area Psychological Metascience summarizes the findings of psychological research, examines their robustness, and analyzes how results are influenced by various factors. The area includes the Metascience Lab led by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Kinga Bierwiaczonek, as well as research projects led by Dr. Tanja Burgard and Dr. André Bittermann.
  • In the research area Big Data in Psychology, they investigate how theory-driven research can improve Big Data methods and how these methods can generate new insights for psychology. The area currently includes the Moral Computing Lab led by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Frederic Hopp.

ZIB – Centre for International Student Assessment

The associated member ZIB | Centre for International Student Assessment (Zentrum für internationale Bildungsvergleichsstudien e.V.) conducts educational research in the field of international comparative studies in education, thus making a significant contribution to quality assurance in education. Its core responsibilities include the planning, implementation and evaluation of the PISA studies in Germany. Another focus is on research projects dealing with methods of data collection and evaluation in PISA studies and other international comparative studies in education (so-called large-scale assessments, or LSA for short). In its further research activities, ZIB mainly concentrates on issues of practical relevance. ZIB also places importance to including questions from those involved in educational practice. It conducts in-depth analyses of existing data and shares the insights gained with educational policymakers and practitioners. These stakeholders use the well-founded knowledge to make decisions in educational policy and practice, as well as to develop informational materials for the respective actors. The project is being implemented jointly with three members of the LERN network: DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, IPN | Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, and IQB | Institute for Educational Quality Improvement. ZIB is an affiliated institute of the Technical University of Munich and is funded by the German federation federal and federal states.

Important Work and Services:

  • ZIB is responsible for the national coordination and implementation of PISA and is furthermore involved in its international development.
  • Research at ZIB focuses primarily on three fields: Educational Monitoring, School and Teaching Research and Methodology Research.
  • ZIB supports young researchers in international student assessments, especially with method workshops and junior researcher academies.
  • ZIB maintains close contact with educational practice and policy to make the scientific findings applicable for improving the quality of education.

University of Luxembourg

At the associated partner “University of Luxembourg” is the research group „Educational Processes in Contemporary Societies“ consisting of members from two Institutes devoted to educational research. It connects social scientific perspectives on education and learning processes (educational theory, philosophy, history, and sociology). The main focus is on educational policies, systems, and processes within particular cultural, political, and socio-economic contexts. Thus, particular importance is placed on historical, cross-national, and international perspectives. Objects of study, whether in quantitative or qualitative or historical and institutional analyses, are education policies, system development, learning processes and teaching, and learning within and outside educational organizations.

Activities:

The activities of the research group include editing journals and book series, contributing to national education reports (Germany, Luxembourg), organizing international conferences, evaluation and consulting in a range of countries and advisory board membership.

Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi)

The Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) in Bamberg studies educational processes from birth to late adulthood. To promote longitudinal educational research in Germany, LIfBi provides fundamental, nationally and internationally significant, research-based infrastructures for empirical educational research.

At the heart of the institute is Germany’s largest long-term educational study, the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), which is based at LIfBi and brings together the expertise of a nationwide interdisciplinary excellence network. Other large-scale projects for which LIfBi collects or provides longitudinal data include, in addition to the refugee studies ReGES and BildungswegeFlucht, the inclusion study INSIDE as well as the monitoring study Data Literacy. This work is grounded in the institute’s own research and development activities, in particular the advanced development of instruments and methods for longitudinal educational studies, which also benefit other research projects.

Important work and services:

  • Through the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), longitudinal data on competence development, educational processes, decisions, and returns in formal, non-formal, and informal contexts are collected representatively for Germany across the entire life span. In seven starting cohorts, more than 70,000 participants are being followed – from early childhood to late adulthood. In addition, about 50,000 individuals from their environments, such as parents and educational professionals, are surveyed.
  • The Research Data Center at LIfBi (FDZ-LIfBi) processes the survey data of LIfBi’s large-scale projects in a user-friendly way and provides them free of charge as Scientific Use Files for scientific analyses. The offering includes the extensive NEPS data, supplemented by special NEPS data products, as well as longitudinal data from the refugee study ReGES, the TAEPS study on teachers in adult and continuing education, the GUS study on students’ health behavior, and other unique datasets, such as the regional study BiLO. The full range of LIfBi research data and associated services is available via the FDZ-LIfBi Data and Service Portal.
  • The DFG Priority Program on Research Infrastructure “New Data Spaces for the Social Sciences” (SPP 2431) aims to develop technical and methodological solutions to ensure the future viability of panel surveys, to enrich them with data from other sources, and thereby further pave the way for social science research on key societal challenges. “New Data Spaces” is coordinated and managed by the overarching project CONNECT, which is based at LIfBi. In addition, SPP 2431 includes a “Research Infrastructure and Innovation Lab” (ENTAILab), which consists of four measures in total. Measure 4, “Results for Future Data Spaces and Open Science,” as well as two projects within the Priority Program, are also located at LIfBi.

IPN – Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education

The Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN) was established in 1966 as a research center for science education. As an institute of the Leibniz Association, the IPN has a nationwide function. It is also affiliated to the University of Kiel. The department heads at the IPN hold professorships at the University of Kiel.

The institute’s mission is to advance science and mathematics education through its research. Therefore, research deals with the full range of issues concerning teaching and learning in the sciences and in mathematics inside and outside schools. The institute comprises six departments: Educational Research, Educational Assessment and Measurement, Biology Education, Chemistry Education, Mathematics Education, and Physics Education. Approximately 170 people make up the IPN staff; about 130 work as researchers, including 60 doctoral students. About 50% of the staff work on projects funded by different research foundations or clients.

The IPN’s work ranges across the entire field of science, mathematics, and technology education. The IPN concentrates on long-term and nationwide research projects, which cannot be covered by universities.

The IPN research program focuses on following areas:

  • Aims and models of mathematics and science education
  • Prerequisites for teaching and learning mathematics and science
  • Implementation and Evaluation of Concepts for Subject-Specific Teaching and Learning Processes in Mathematics and Science
  • Promotion of Mathematics and Science through Competitions and Supplementary Learning Opportunities
  • Educational Assessment and Measurement

Besides its research activities, the IPN offers different transfer activities: Coordination of national and international student competitions in biology, chemistry, physics and environmental issues, programs for teacher education, and publications on science and mathematics education addressing teachers and scientists.

Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology (HIB)

The Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology (HIB) is a research institute within the University of Tübingen. The institute focuses on individual, social and institutional determinants of learning and teaching processes. It takes an inter-disciplinary approach drawing from psychology, educational science and other disciplines. The Hector Research Institute is mainly funded by the Hector Foundation II. In addition, the state Baden-Württermberg funds the Tübingen Postdoctoral Academy for Research on Education (PACE).

Research at the institute can be grouped into the following six focus areas: (1) Educational Effectiveness, (2) Motivation, (3) Personality, (4) Potential Development and Giftedness, (5) Teaching Quality and Professional Competencies of Teachers as well as (6) Methodological Research. The institute played a leading role in the establishment of the LEAD Graduate School (Learning, Eduational Achievement and Life Course Development) which was funded by the Excellence Initiative via the German Research Foundation and has since developed into a flourishing research network. 

Important work and services:

  • The Hector Research Institute is responsible for the multi-cohort longitudinal studies TOSCA, which examines educational biographies of high school students, and TRAIN, which analyses effect of learning environments in lower tracks in secondary education. With Professor Hasselhorn (DIPF) the institute also runs the scientific evaluation of the Hector Children’s Academies.
  • Regarding research on methods, the Hector Research Institute develops new statistical tools and strives to make them freely available as software (e.g. see here).
  • Within the National Education Panel Study (NEPS), the Hector Research Institute coordinates the focus area „From Upper Gymnasium Level and Transition to Higher Education, Vocational Training, or the Labor Market“ together with Professor Maaz (DIPF).

GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

As the largest German infrastructure institute for the social sciences, GESIS – Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, with its expertise and services, stands ready to support researchers on the basis of the newest scientific methods, high quality data and research information.

Research projects generally go through a process with several phases – the research data cycle. Therefore, the services offered by GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences are structured along a four-phase research data cycle, as follows:

  • Plan studies & collect data
  • Finding & retrieving data
  • Prepare & analyze data
  • Archive & share

GESIS offers consulting and practice-oriented guidance for each phase.
In the first phase, for example, GESIS experts advise on the collection of survey data and digital behavioral data. Researchers are supported in the development of an adequate project design and the quality assurance of the implementation.
The second phase, Find & Retrieve Data, enables researchers to find the appropriate data for secondary analysis. For this purpose, more than 6500 national and international studies are available in the GESIS data archive.
The preparation of data is also an essential step on the way to their analysis. Therefore, in the third phase Prepare & Analyze Data, GESIS supports the modification, linking, and analysis of data.
In the fourth phase, Archive & Share, GESIS promotes scientific transparency in line with the FAIR principles: F(indable) A(ccessible) I(nteroperable) and R(e-usable).
At GESIS, researchers can find repositories and services to archive, register, and share their data and publications over the long term.

The services offered for the research process are based on our own continuous and interdisciplinary research in the four areas of Survey Methodology, Research Data Management, Current Societal Issues, and Applied Informatics, as well as within their intersections.

Data Archive for the Social Sciences (DAS)
The department Data Archive for the Social Sciences (DAS) is Germany’s central infrastructure for the registration, documentation and digital archiving of quantitative research data which can be used to analyze societal developments from a national, internationally comparative or historical perspective.

Research Data Center
The Research Data Centers (RDC) at GESIS offer a special service for a number of survey programs for which GESIS partially participate in the data collection or permanently take over the tasks of data processing, archiving and delivery

One of GESIS’ most important research areas is education research. GESIS is involved in significant German, European, and international projects: Within PIAAC, GESIS is part of the PIAAC Consortium, which is the board responsible for planning and controlling. GESIS is also responsible for the German project management. An enhancement is PIAAC-L, a project that is implemented together with LIfBi and SOEP. It is the first internationally comparable long-term study worldwide for competencies in adulthood. Further selected GESIS projects within the area of educational research are:

  • CIDER – College for Interdisciplinary Education Research for the support of talented junior researchers in interdisciplinary context
  • Feasibility study for the Baden-Württemberg-Panel to generate progress data on the transfer from education at school and vocational training
  • CAMCES – Computer-Assisted Measurement and Coding of Educational Qualifications in surveys to make the internationally greatly varying survey tools for education comparable in survey data.

German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW)

DZHW provides applied empirical research in the field of higher education and science studies. As research institution of the Federal State and the Länder (Bund-Länder-Einrichtung) it works nationally and internationally as a partner of the scientific community and both higher education and science policies. Committed to politically independent and excellent research DZHW develops and elaborates innovative, socially and politically relevant issues regarding tertiary education and science. The research and service tasks of DZHW are organized in four research units:

Educational Careers and Graduate Employment
Longitudinal studies regarding educational and occupational trajectories, returns to education, in particular regarding decision to study, progress of studying, occupational and scientific careers.

Research System and Science Dynamics
Examinations of the development of the system of research and science in the international context and of the interactions of different structures of governance, funding, and promotion.

Governance in Higher Education and Science
Studies with respect to indicator systems of universities and scientific organizations, regarding the structures of governance of scientific continuing education at universities and examinations of structures and processes of governance with an organization-sociological perspective.

Research Infrastructure and Methods
Provision of research infrastructure, data sets, databases, buildup of the research data centre. The Research Data Centre for Higher Education and Science Studies (RDC-DZHW) archives quantitative and qualitative data from the field of higher education research and science studies and makes them available to researchers and teaching staff for secondary use.

Important work and services:

  • Longitudinal studies on persons with university entrance qualifications, students (e.g., social surveys of students since 1951, eurostudent), graduates, PhD students and PHD graduates;
  • NEPS 1: From Higher Education to the Labor Market (NEPS Starting Cohort 5 „First-Year Students“)
    The DZHW is in the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) responsible for the Starting Cohort 5 (First-Year Students) which following up a cohort of first-year students throughout their studies and into their careers. Particular attention will be paid to investigating educational decisions, the development of competencies, the returns to higher education, and the transition to the labor market;
  • NEPS 2: Panel of Teacher Education Students
    The DZHW examines the study progress and success and the career start of teacher education students (additional sample of NEPS Starting Cohort 5) as well as potential differences in interests, occupational orientation and previous educational biographies compared to other students;
  • NEPS 3: Returns to Education Across the Life Course;
    The DZHW examines as member of pillar 5 “Returns to Education Across the Life Course” of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) the non-monetary returns to education like health, deviance and social and political participation;
  • Educational monitoring and reporting (contributions to „National Report on Education” or ”National Report on Junior Scholars”;
  • Competence Centre for Bibliometrics for the evaluation of research performance;
  • RCD-DZHW with data sets of higher education research and science studies;
  • Services for Federal State and State (Länder) administrations, universities, commissions and boards, science organisations and researchers. More information can be found here (in German).

DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education

The DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education provides a central information infrastructure for and about education in Germany, expanding scientific foundations by conducting research in its own right. As a national centre for educational research, DIPF investigates education from systemic, institutional, individual and historical perspectives. Accordingly, it critically reflects on existing concepts for quality, governance and improvement. DIPF delivers theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions, connecting fundamental research with innovative developmental work and applications for the benefit of society. Owing to its diversity of disciplines, long-term experience in co-ordinating large-scale projects, national and international networking and positioning as a competence centre for knowledge communication and research on education, the Institute is particularly well equipped to react flexibly with respect to complex demands and diverse developments in education, and to provide incentives for the further development of education systems.

Important work and services:

  • DIPF holds a leading role in national educational reporting, commissioned by the federal government (Bund) and states (Länder).
  • DIPF continually takes on relevant tasks in the context of large-scale OECD studies on education (PISA, PIAAC).
  • In co-operation with Goethe-University Frankfurt and the Sigmund-Freud Institute (in German), DIPF runs the interdisciplinary centre for research on individual development processes in children and adaptive instructional design, IDeA.
  • The German Education Server is a central guide to education on the web. Jointly funded by the federal government (Bund) and the federal states (Länder), it is co-ordinated at DIPF.
  • The Research Data Centre for Education provides observation data (e.g., lesson videos) and interview data and related material. Questionnaires and individually indexed scales (item batteries) are also openly accessible. Registered users can download available anonymized transcripts, coding and descriptions
  • The Institute provides the German Education Portal (in German), the central access point to scientific information for educational researchers, educational scientists and pedagogical practice.
  • The interdisciplinary area of “Technology Based Assessment” is concerned with researching and developing new procedures in computer-based educational measurement.
  • The DIPF department “Research Library for the History of Education” is a centre for education historical research; it is the largest specialised pedagogical library in Germany.