News archive 2013

The Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences (GESIS), the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi), and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) are together conducting one of the world’s first internationally comparable long-term studies on competencies in adults and their significance over the life course.

Education research from early childhood to late adulthood–when Bavarian State Minister of Sciences, Research, and the Arts Dr. Wolfgang Heubisch came to visit the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) on Thursday, September 12, he gained a first-hand impression of this motto.

From August 21-23, 2013, Dr. Jung-Seung Yang of the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education & Training (KRIVET) informed himself thoroughly about the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) during a workshop.

Dr. Ebrahim Talaee, Assistant Professor of Educational Research at the Faculty of Humanities of Tarbiat Modares University Tehran, visited the NEPS from July 22 to August 11, 2013.

From July 30-31, 2013, Dr. Poldi Kuhl and Aleksander Kocaj from the Institute of Quality Development in the Education System (IQB) in Berlin visited NEPS in Bamberg. During their stay, the two colleagues from the data research center at IQB were informed about aspects of the metadata editor and the NEPSplorer of the NEPS Data Center. In addition, there was an intensive exchange of ideas with the competence pillar (NEPS Pillar 1) and with the field of special schools.

On July 26, 2013, the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) introduced itself at the Science Day of the European Metropolitan Region Nuremberg. For the seventh time, the event, which was hosted by Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts and by the City of Coburg this year, brought together representatives from the fields of science, economy, politics, education, and the media.

The 5th conference of the European Survey Research Association convened from July 15 to 19, 2013, in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Overall, over 700 scientists were in attendance in over 160 sessions with up to five presentations based on the topic of survey research.

On July 8, 2013, Prof. Dr. Johannes Hartig gave a workshop entitled “Introduction to IRT Scaling With Conquest” on the premises of the National Educational Panel Study in Bamberg. Johannes Hartig is Professor for Educational Measurement at the German Institute for International Educational Research (Deutsches Institut für Internationale Pädagogische Forschung, DIPF) in Frankfurt and is an acclaimed expert on methods of item response theory.

By invitation of Project Leader Prof. Dr. Hans-Günther Roßbach, a meeting of the Upper Franconian Foundation (Oberfrankenstiftung) took place on the premises of the National Education Panel Study (NEPS) on July 9, 2013. Before the Foundation went into a closed meeting, the members of the Foundation Council and of the branch office of the Oberfrankenstiftung were informed about the University of Bamberg project NEPS and the current state of institutionalizing it as a Leibniz Institute.

Following the decision by the Joint Science Conference (Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz, GWK), the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) will be admitted to the joint research promotion of the German Government and the Federal States. Therefore, the way has now been cleared for NEPS to become a member of the Leibniz Association (Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, WGL). Only 5 years after its foundation as a temporary research project, NEPS will develop into an infrastructure facility with permanent funding within the scope of promotion by the German Federal Government and the Länder.

On June 21, 2013, Melanie Olczyk and Gisela Will introduced the National Educational Panel Study to students of the Fachakademie* for Social Education and discussed the extent and reasons for social and ethnic inequalities in education.

At the invitation of the Director of the Bavarian State Institute for School Quality and Educational Research, Thomas Sachsenröder, more than 20 members of federal institutes met at management level to take part in a workshop in Upper Franconia from June 12 to 14. In the context of this workshop participants had the opportunity to learn more about the NEPS on-site in Bamberg on June 13.

On June 10 and 11, Dr. Corinna Kleinert and Dr. Jan Skopek presented the NEPS and its data at the IAB workshop “Data from the National Educational Panel Study, Official Statistics, and the IAB“ in Nuremberg. The workshop was hosted by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in cooperation with the University of Bamberg (NEPS, BAGSS), the Research Data Centers of the Statistical Offices of the Länder, and the German Society for Social Scientific Labor Market Research (Deutsche Vereinigung für Sozialwissenschaftliche Arbeitsmarktforschung e.V., SAMF).

Together with the Austrian Institute for Family Studies (AIF) at the University of Vienna and the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), the State Institute for Family Research at the University of Bamberg (ifb) cohosted the annual European Congress on Family Science from July 6 to 8. In their lectures, cofounder and former Managing Director of NEPS, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Hans-Peter Blossfeld, and Operational Manager of the NEPS Data Center, Dr. Jan Skopek, revealed a process-oriented, sociological perspective on processes of family formation and the interplay of family structures and educational choices.

International workshop promotes the collaboration of two large-scale projects

On May 13 and 14, 2013, Dr. Tenko Raykov, Michigan State University, held a 2-day workshop on the subject of “Longitudinal Data Analysis: A Pragmatic Approach” at the NEPS in Bamberg.

Prof. Dr. Frank Kalter from the University of Mannheim and Benjamin Schulz, Research Assistant at the Mannheim Center for European Social Research, are drawing on NEPS data for their research as part of DFG-funded projects “Ethnical networks and migrants' acquisition of education over the life course” and “Social networks and ethnical identification of adolescent migrants”.

On April 4, 2013, Operational Manager of the NEPS Data Center, Dr. Jan Skopek, held a user-training workshop at the Polish Educational Research Institute (IBE, Instytut Badań Edukacyjnych) in Warsaw.

NEPS congratulates the Association for Empirical Educational Research (GEBF) on its successful first conference on March 11-13, 2013, in Kiel.

During their visit at the NEPS in Bamberg, members of Bavarian State Parliament Melanie Huml and Heinrich Rudrof learned about the structure and the aims of the National Educational Panel Study. Another important topic was the current stage of the institutionalization process.

The National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) was invited to give a presentation at the second network convention of the funding area “Cooperation of Primary and Elementary Level (Kooperation von Primar- und Elementarbereich, Koop)” of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the Gustav Stresemann Institute in Bonn on January 28 and 29, 2013.

Dr. Jutta von Maurice presented the NEPS study at a meeting of the Bavarian Student Council at the Bavarian State Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs.

As part of a scientific workshop on January 11 in Warsaw, a second exchange of information between members of the NEPS and of the IBE took place.

German President Joachim Gauck has awarded NEPS staff member Wolfgang Hoderlein the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. On December 20, 2012,  Bavarian State Minister of the Interior Joachim Herrmann presented him with the award.