Empirical Educational Research

Cooperation and International News

In various (joint) projects, some of which have been mentioned above, the members of the ZeB are working with universities and research institutions not only in Germany but also internationally.

To strengthen networking between the members of the ZeB and also with external scientists in their work, a research colloquium is held during the semester at which external scientists present their current research findings. In 2014 and 2015, the members of different faculties invited around 30 guest speakers to take part. At PhD level an interdisciplinary doctoral colloquium encourages exchange and networking with other faculties from an early stage of the doctoral students’ academic career. The ZeB also supports the members of the main research area in inviting guest speakers for longer periods of time. In 2014, the renowned research methodology expert Prof. William Boone (Miami University, USA) and Prof. Amber Daily, Director of the Excellence Center for Learning and Teaching (Park University, USA), were both guests of the UDE. The science education expert Prof. Dr. Jonathan Osborne (Stanford University, USA) spent around two weeks at the University in October 2015.

For the first time, a project cluster as part of a cooperation between the Centre for Teacher Training (ZLB) and the Centre for Empirical Educational Research (ZeB) was announced in 2014. In “research today – teach tomorrow”, eight projects for training-related research and subsequent further development of teacher training at universities in research at individual, teaching and system level are being financed with funds from the NRW Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research. The aim is to achieve research-based further development of study formats and study content and their implementation in teaching via corresponding prototypes.

In order to support the training of PhD students of various faculties, experts from the UDE and external lecturers have provided many methodology workshops in empirical educational research in recent years.