Teaching

Topics

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

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

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

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

Zeppelin-Universität Friedrichshafen

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

Over the last couple of semesters I taught the following courses at the 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

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

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

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
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