Collegium for Prerequisites, Education and Results

Within this collegium, which is run by the research environment FUR, the focus is on relationships between education's prerequisites, organization and results. They are seen as interdependent and the collegium's interest lies in understanding these interdependencies. Investigations of equity and equality in education and in the transition to working life characterize the research questions within the collegium. For this reason, the collegium's research is characterized by quantitative inquiries, often in the form of large-scale studies based on random samples, register data, questionnaires and samples, but also randomized intervention studies on a smaller scale. Databases have been built up for longitudinal surveys of nationally representative samples, as well as around international comparative studies, for example PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS. A common theme is also that multivariate statistical methods are used. With these methods, many explanatory variables can be analyzed simultaneously, and it is possible to work with non-directly observable variables, such as attitudes, motivation, knowledge and skills. Furthermore, it is possible to simultaneously analyze data at several observation levels, for example at individual, group and system levels. One of the collegium's purposes is to problematize and discuss issues, methodological approaches and results in the field of education. We also strive for a broad and outward-looking debate on current research in the field.