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Teaching
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Topics
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In this section you can find information about my teaching at various
academic institutions. By and large, my teaching experience includes the
following areas:
Political Sociology and Political Behaviour
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This is the substantial area about which I would dare say that I have
the most teaching experience, both from my earlier position at the
University of Mannheim and my current position at Zeppelin Universtity in
Friedrichshafen. Topics include:
- Electoral Behaviour
- Political Participation
- The Societal Foundation of Democracy
- Attitude Formation and Public Opinion
- Introduction to Political Sociology
Comparative Politics
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The comparative of western Europe is another area I could gain some
experience in teaching about, with topics such as:
- Post-War German Politics
- West European Politics
- Political Integration and the European Union
Social Science Research Methods
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In past and present, I have been teaching courses at various levels on
research methods in the social sciences. Generally, these have been
mainly "quantitative" methods, but I also gave some "qualitative"
methods courses. Courses I taught include:
- Case Study Design
- Content Analysis
- Data Analysis and Graphics with R
- Introduction to Empirical Political and Administrative Research
- Mathematical Tools for Social Scientists
- Multivariate Analysis: Factor Analysis and Structural Equations
Modelling
For more detailed information about what I tought where, please refer to
the menu links on the right-hand side of this page.
Institutions
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Zeppelin-Universität Friedrichshafen
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At Zeppelin University I am mainly responsible for modules in political
sociology, political behaviour and empirical political science methods.
In the field(s) of political sociology and political behaviour I taught:
- Introduction to the Study of Political Attitudes and Behaviour (BA)
- Politics and Society (MA)
- Democracy and Elections:
- The US Presidential Election of 2016
- The Bundestag Election of 2017
- Opinion Fromation and Public Opinion: Polarisation and Populism
I also taught the following general political science and comparative
politics courses:
- Polity, Policy, Politics (1st year BA)
- Parties and Party Systems (BA)
- National and Comparative Governance: The Political System of the UK
Finally, I taught the following methods courses:
- Empirical Research Design (BA)
- Social Science Reserach Methods (MA)
- Advanced Methods:
- Multivariate Data Analysis
- Causal Inference (Rubin-Holland approaches)
- Panel Analysis (econometric approaches)
- Structural Equation Modelling
Universität Konstanz
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Over the last couple of semesters I taught the following courses at the
`*Fachbereich Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaft* (Department of
Political and Administrative
Science) `__, University of Konstanz
- Comparative Case Studies and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) -
for BA,MA, and PhD Students (2 hrs - in English)
- Content Analysis - for BA,MA, and PhD Students (2 hrs - in English)
- Datenanalyse mit R (Data Analysis with R) - for BA Students (2 hrs -
in German)
- Data Analysis with R - for MA and PhD Students (2 hrs - in English)
- Datenanalyse mit Stata (Data Analysis with Stata) - for BA Students
(2 hrs - in German)
- Einführung in die Methoden der empirischen Politik- und
Verwaltungsforschung (Introduction to Empirical Research Methods in
Political and Administrative Science) - BA Lecture (4 hrs - in
German)
- Kolloquium für Examenskandidaten (1 hr - in German)
- Multivariate Analyseverfahren: Pfadanalyse, Faktorenanalyse und
Strukturgleichungen (Multivariate Data Analysis: Path Analysis,
Factor Analysis and Structural Equations) (2 hrs - in German)
- Preparatory Course: Empirical Research Methods (2 hrs - in English)
University Essex, Department of Government
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From academic years 2009/10 to 2011/12 I worked as a lecturer/DAAD-fellow
("DAAD Fachlektor") at the `Department of Government of the University of
Essex `__. There I was responsible for
and taught the following courses (or modules as they were called in Essex):
- GV102: Introduction to European Politics (lecture, 1st year in the BA
programmes)
- GV271: West European Politics (lecture, 2nd year in the BA
programmes)
- GV373: Political Integration and the European Union (seminar, 3rd
year in the BA programmes)
- GV383: Post-War German Politics (seminar, 3rd year in the BA
programmes)
Universität Mannheim
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From October 2000 to August 2009 I worked as lecturer at the Chair for Political
Science and International Comparative Social Research under supervision of
Professor Jan W. van Deth at the `University of Mannheim, Faculty of Social
Sciences `__.
During my time in Mannheim I taught a variety of courses in the fields
of Comparative Politics and Political Sociology, but also some applied
methods courses.
Courses that I taught several times include:
- The Political System of Germany in Comparative Perspective
("Grundseminar" for first-year students in the BA programme)
- Electoral Behaviour (undergraduate seminar)
- Political Participation (undergraduate seminar)
- Public Opinion and Political Attitudes (undergraduate seminar)
- The Societal Foundations of Democracy (undergraduate seminar)
- Quantitative Methods for Comparative Politics (practical course for
undergraduates)
- Survey Analysis using SPSS (practical course for undergraduates)
- "Bibliographierkurs" (course on working with academic literature for
undergraduates)
I also gave some courses on *R* for the `Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences
(GESS) `__. I did this the first time
while still working at Uni Mannheim and was later invited a couple of
times when I was already working at Uni Essex.
Essex Summer School in Data Analysis and Collection
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From 2006 I have been teaching a courses on *R* at the `Essex Summer
School for Social Science Data Analysis and
Collection `__. The title of the
course varied a bit through the years and I usually adapted the course
to the needs of the participants. From 2006 to 2009 it was a 1-week
course, which since 2010 has been expanded to a 2-week course.
In this course I cover the fundamentals of R, basic data analysis,
graphics, and data management, basic programming, some advanced
statistical methods, and some tricks of advanced programming.
GESIS - Mathematical Tools for Social Scientists
------------------------------------------------
From 2009 to 2017 I taught the course "Mathematical Tools for Social Scientists"
at the Cologne branch of `GESIS/Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
`__. The course aims to provide post-graduate students and
young scholars with a refresher of and introduction to some mathematical
foundations needed for understanding advanced methods of data analysis, as they
are taught at the GESIS Spring Seminars, the `Essex Summer School
`__, or the `ICPSR Summer Program
`__.
The course usually covers the following topical areas:
- Review of functions, their derivatives and integrals
- Probability distributions and foundations of statistical inference
- Algebra and geometry with vectors and matrices
- Multivariate calculus (derivatives and integrals of functions in
several variables) with an application to least-squares estimation
- Numeric solution of equations and optimisation of functions with an
application to maximum likelihood estimation in logistic regression
and other generalised linear models