Publications

Since the 2000s, the digitization of bibliometric infrastructure has accelerated at a rapid pace. In this article, we analyse how these developments in evaluative bibliometrics have contributed to an extension of indicator-based research evaluation towards data-driven research analytics. Drawing on empirical material from blogs and websites as well as from research and policy papers, we discuss how interoperability, scalability, and flexibility as material specificities of digital infrastructures generate new ways of data production and their assessment, which affect the possibilities of how academic performance can be understood and (e)valuated.

The EUROSTUDENT project collects and analyses comparable data on the social dimension of European higher education. A wide range of topics related to students’ social and economic conditions are covered. The project strives to provide reliable and insightful cross-country comparisons. It does this through coupling a central coordination approach with a strong network of national partners in each participating country. In this way, an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the respective national frameworks in international comparison can be made. The main users of our findings are higher education policy-makers at national and European level, [...] Full abstract: https://doi.org/10.21249/DZHW:es7:2.0.0

The DZHW-Panel Study of School Leavers 2018 is part of the DZHW-Panel Study of School Leavers survey series, in which standardized multiple surveys are used to collect information on the post-school careers of school leavers with a (school) higher education entrance qualification. As a rule, several survey waves are conducted at different times before and after the acquisition of the higher education entrance qualification. Accordingly, this is a combined cohort-panel design. The panel 2018 is the 21st cohort of the survey series of which the data of the first survey wave will be published first. [...] Full abstract: https://doi.org/10.21249/DZHW:gsl2018:1.0.0

Non-traditional students in higher education drop out more often than traditional students. To understand this difference more clearly, this paper examines differences between the two groups with regard to sociodemographic characteristics, study contexts and life circumstances, as well as individual assessments of prospects of academic success and the costs and returns of studying. A decomposition analysis shows that student age and study context are two factors that have a particularly strong significance for the higher tendency of non-traditional students to drop out. This paper suggests ways in which theoretical models for explaining educational decisions could be adapted with regard to the special group of non-traditional students.

Providing access to higher education and establishing a conducive framework for lifelong learning are important goals of the European Higher Education Area. In the D-A-CH countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), the group of “non-traditional students” includes graduates of technical and vocational training without a school-based university entrance qualification, employees, family workers and “learners in later life”. Based on current data, and operating from the perspective of diversity and inequality theory, the papers in this issue examine university access regulations, students’ time budgets, the effects of care responsibility, and student dropouts, including during the Covid-19 pandemic.