At the end of August, the Society for Longitudinal and Lifecourse Studies (SLLS) Summer School brought 21 early career researchers from 12 countries to Bamberg for a week of intensive study of data analysis methods in longitudinal research. The SLLS Summer School was organized at and by LIfBi in cooperation with the Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences (BAGSS).

The LIfBi was delighted to welcome the international participants from a wide range of scientific disciplines to Bamberg for the SLLS Summer School. The five-day program introduced them to the most important theories and methods of longitudinal and life course research and included lectures, workshops and discussions led by experienced researchers.

During the week, methods of multilevel analysis, sequence analysis, event analysis, psychometric scaling and the handling of missing values in statistical analyses were covered. The Research Data Center's model for free data access in science was also explained to the participants in more detail.

"We would like to thank all lecturers for their commitment, which made the successful implementation of the SLLS Summer School in cooperation with the BAGSS possible," said Prof. Dr Christian Aßmann, Head of Department 3 at LIfBi, who was in charge of organizing the Summer School.

Life course research is an interdisciplinary field of study. It is characterized by theoretical approaches that reflect and inform different fields such as sociology, demography, epidemiology, economics, psychology and social biology. Typically, quantitative cross-disciplinary research methods such as event history analysis, multilevel modeling, structural equation modeling and sequence analysis are used.

Program