Suchergebnisse

Using paradata to modify design features during fieldwork is the earmark of responsive designs (Groves &
Heeringa, 2006). One objective of responsive approaches is to improve the composition of the final sample by
gaining the participation of nonrespondents. A simple but innovative attempt at realizing such a response
intervention was undertaken during the fieldwork of PIAAC Germany 2012. Different groups of
nonrespondents were identified for follow-up efforts. With a view to the outcome measures of PIAAC, basic
skills of the adult population, two groups were focused: Non-nationals and sample persons with low
educational attainment. To identify these groups, different sources of auxiliary data were used (sampling
frame, interviewer observations, and a commercial vendor database). Non-nationals were identified using
information from the sampling frame. The challenge was to identify sample persons with (presumably) low
levels of education. This was achieved by selecting a set of auxiliary variables, and subsequently using
classification trees to model and predict sample persons with low levels of education. The sample persons
were sent carefully crafted tailored letters during the re-issue phase. Overall, the cost-benefit balance of this
intervention is rather disproportionate: A high level of effort with little apparent impact on the final sample
composition. Nevertheless, this explorative endeavour was worthwhile and informative. In particular, the
model-based prediction of different types of sample persons can be regarded as a promising approach.

"Nonresponse is of concern for the quality of survey data, because it may introduce bias into the collected sample. To date, only few studies deal with nonresponse in skills or educational surveys. This paper aims at contributing to this field by identifying the main factors that influenced participation in the first wave of PIAAC Germany, a survey assessing skills of the adult population, conducted in 2011/ 2012. Using bi- and multivariate analyses, we found that age, citizenship, the level of education, the type of house the sampled persons live in, and municipality size were the main factors influencing response to PIAAC Germany. Our findings suggest that, for the effective reduction of nonresponse in skills or education studies, researchers should target persons with a low level of education, foreigners, those living in larger housing units, and big-city dwellers by using appropriate measures at the different stages of the survey process." (author's abstract)

In öffentlichen und medialen Debatten spielt die Verknüpfung von Religion und Gender eine prominente und problematische Rolle. Religiöse Erfahrungen und Praktiken sind ohne Beachtung der Diversität der betroffenen und agierenden Subjekte nicht adäquat zu verstehen. Dennoch ist eine gendersensible Religionswissenschaft immer noch nicht selbstverständlich. Aktuelle und historische Fallstudien zum Zusammenhang zwischen Religion und Diversität nehmen verschiedene Religionen wie den Islam sowie westliches und orthodoxes Christentum in den Blick und behandeln zudem eine Vielfalt an Medien, wie Erzählungen, Filme, Serien oder Reality-TV.

In öffentlichen und medialen Debatten spielt die Verknüpfung von Religion und Gender eine prominente und problematische Rolle. Religiöse Erfahrungen und Praktiken sind ohne Beachtung der Diversität der betroffenen und agierenden Subjekte nicht adäquat zu verstehen. Dennoch ist eine gendersensible Religionswissenschaft immer noch nicht selbstverständlich. Aktuelle und historische Fallstudien zum Zusammenhang zwischen Religion und Diversität nehmen verschiedene Religionen wie den Islam sowie westliches und orthodoxes Christentum in den Blick und behandeln zudem eine Vielfalt an Medien, wie Erzählungen, Filme, Serien oder Reality-TV.

To examine the relationship between the Big Five and cognitive ability, we investigated whether we could replicate in a heterogeneous population sample the positive association between cognitive ability and Openness and Emotional Stability and its negative association with Conscientiousness. Besides analyzing the pure associations, we shed further light on sources of these associations by investigating potential moderating effects of education and labor force participation. Our results clearly replicate the previously found positive association between cognitive ability and Emotional Stability and Openness and the negative relationship between Conscientiousness and cognitive ability. The correlation between cognitive ability and Openness was found to be moderated by educational attainment, the negative association between Conscientiousness and cognitive ability was moderated by labor force participation.

"In PIAAC, each participating country was required to attain a response rate of at least 50 percent, as long as evidence was provided that there was either no or only low nonresponse bias in the data. Achieving 50 percent is a challenge for face-to-face surveys in most Western countries and also in Germany. Previous research showed that the use of incentives is an effective tool to increase response rates in different kinds of surveys. However, incentives may have differential effects on certain socio-demographic groups, because the perceived benefits of an incentive are subjective. To assess the effects of incentives on response rate and nonresponse bias, an experiment with three incentive treatments (10 Euro-coin, 25 Euro and 50 Euro in cash) was implemented in the German PIAAC field test. Results show that response rates increased as the incentive increased. With regard to nonresponse bias, the results are less explicit. According to logistic regressions, the main factors for participation in the 50 Euro condition are age, citizenship, and municipality size and in the 25 Euro condition, only municipality size. Bivariate analyses put these results into perspective. For all treatment groups, a low potential for bias is visible, and there is no statistical evidence that response distributions of the realized sample across treatments are different." (author's abstract)

European countries, and especially Germany, are currently very much affected by human migration flows, with the result that the task of integration has become a challenge. Only very little empirical evidence on topics such as labor market participation and processes of social integration of migrant subpopulations is available to date from large-scale population surveys. The present paper provides an overview of the representation of the migrant population in the German Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) sample and evaluates reasons for the under-coverage of this population. We examine outcome rates and reasons for nonresponse among the migrant population based on sampling frame data, and we also examine para data from the interviewers' contact protocols to evaluate time patterns for the successful contacting of migrants.
This is the first time that results of this kind have been presented for a large-scale assessment in educational research. These results are also discussed in the context of future PIAAC cycles. Overall, they confirm the expectations in the literature that factors such as language problems result in lower contact and response rates among migrants.