Empirical Educational Research

Since publication of international large-scale assessment studies such as TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) revealed that the quality of the German educational system falls short of national and international expectations, the University of Duisburg-Essen has intensified its research in this field. Its Main Research Area of Educational Research, which has been coordinated by the Centre for Empirical Educational Research (ZeB) since December 2007, marks the University of Duisburg-Essen's contribution to improving the German educational system.

The ZeB brings together the working groups at the university which are conducting empirical studies in schools or other institutions within the educational system. Presently around 60 researchers from the UDE and a number of external colleagues, mainly from science education but also from educational science and the humanities, are working on 25 projects funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with a focus on the research field of education.