‚Teachers in Adult Education – A Panel Study’ is a longitudinal study with randomised field experiments. The thematic emphasis of this study over six years is on the educational staff and teachers in adult and continuing education. The overarching question is: What are causal factors and contextual conditions in the professionalisation of teaching staff in continuing education and in context with this: How can competences of teachers in adult and continuing education be systematically and sustainably promoted?

As basic research the results will hopefully provide an evidence base on what are the determining factors in the professionalisation of teaching staff in adult education. The results may also be used in the educational reporting on continuing education. 

The research design combines two components: a standardised panel survey with three waves at two-year intervals and three randomised intervention studies. The standardised survey will record socio-economic standards, employment biography, qualification, competences and attitudes over time, thus enabling questions on employment and income opportunities and their dependence on competence development and professionalism to be answered.

The combination of the standardized panel survey and the intervention studies increases the external validity of the intervention studies, reduces their selection bias, improves their power and makes it possible to capture longer-term effects of the treatments even in broader contexts of the panel survey.