BIJU – Learning Processes, Educational Careers, and Psychosocial Development in Adolescence and Young Adulthood Study

The BIJU project assesses the development of adolescents and young adults placing a focus on the development of specific, particularly school-related contexts.

  • The study mainly focuses on four components:

    • Ascertainment of institutional and individual data for the integration of education systems in the old and the new federal states. Description of structural change in the new federal states and its effects on central personality dimensions.
    • Analyses of general and domain-specific school educational processes in the context of psychosocial development and in their dependence on varying school and instructional conditions.
    • Long-term effects of school-based education and socialization processes on cognitive psychosocial development in adolescence and early adulthood.
    • Transitions and characteristics of vocational and academic career paths as interplay between individual resources, school and instructional characteristics, and labor market conditions.

    To allow the investigation of these components, the BIJU study is based on a longitudinal multi-cohort design. The population comprises students from the seventh and tenth grade, from four different federal states (Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Berlin, East and West, and North-Rhine Westphalia). The first assessment point of the BIJU study was in the academic year of 1991/92, the seventh wave took place in 2010. At present, data of this final assessment round are being processed and relevant publications are in preparation.

  • Becker, M., Lüdtke, O., Trautwein, U., Köller, O. & Baumert, J. (2012). The differential effects of school tracking on psychometric intelligence: Do academic-track schools make students smarter? Journal of Educational Psychology, 104, 682-699. Doi: 10.1037/a0027608.

  • The BIJU study is a co-operation project of DIPF (Prof. Kai Maaz) and Max-Planck Institute for Human Development (MPIB Berlin, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Baumert).

  • Status:
    Current project
    Area of Focus Differential Educational Conditions and Educational Trajectories
    Department: Educational Governance
    Unit: Educational Structures and Reforms
    Education Sectors: Extracurricular Learning, Primary and Secondary Education
    Duration:
    11/2013 – 12/2024
    Funding:
    External funding
    Contact: Prof. Dr. Michael Becker, Research Fellow