ERC Workshops and Seminars

• Submitting author: Falk Brese, International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)
• Speakers: Nurullah Eryilmaz, IEA; Andrés Strello, IEA; Rolf Strietholt, IEA, TU Dortmund University

International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) have long been a cornerstone of comparative education research, offering valuable insights into trends in achievement and equity across countries. Yet, their cross-sectional nature has limited the ability to study the students’ learning progress over time. The TIMSS 2023 Longitudinal Study introduces panel data, that is, reassessing the same students one year later to capture individual learning gains in mathematics and science, marking a major innovation within major ILSAs.

This workshop introduces this open-access international dataset, which provides new opportunities for researchers to study learning growth and its contextual determinants. Participants will gain an overview of the study design, including its panel structure, and contextual data from students, teachers, parents, and principals. The session will demonstrate how the data can be used to address questions about learning gains, classroom effects, and educational equity

The workshop will include:

• An overview of available open-source materials and datasets provided by the IEA;
• A guided introduction to the design and variables of the TIMSS 2023 Longitudinal Study;
• A review on the limitations of cross-sectional data and the possibilities opened by analyzing longitudinal data;
• Hands-on guidance on how to access and analyze the data using freely available software tools;
• Discussion of potential research questions and publication opportunities for early-career researchers.

By engaging with this new resource, participants will discover how the TIMSS Longitudinal dataset can expand the boundaries of international educational research—identifying learning determinants thanks to the new longitudinal data, moving beyond simple comparisons between countries and cycles.

• Submitting author: Antonios Kafa, Open University of Cyprus
• Speaker: Antonios Kafa, Open Univeristy of Cyprus

This workshop, organized by NW26 “Educational Leadership” invites emerging researchers to understand the aspect of crises in school organizations and explore how artificial intelligence (AI) tools can support school leaders’ role in addressing crisis incidents.

The concept of crisis in the field of educational leadership has emerged more prominently than ever, particularly since 2020, when the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, in today’s world of complexity and uncertainty, school organizations are facing challenges and crises, including health crises, natural disasters, and human-made crises such as wars, the influx of migrants, natural hazards, shootings, and other disruptions, in which school leadership is the most important element in supporting and addressing these kinds of crises.

Additionally, AI tools can enhance school leaders’ decision-making, as the focus shifts from traditional processes toward the use of cutting-edge AI technologies such as ChatGPT, to support their leadership in school organizations.

Based on the above, this workshop will:

• Introduce emerging researchers to the key concepts of crisis in school organizations.
• Present the use of AI tool to assist school leaders in managing and supporting crises.
• Discuss ethical and moral dimensions of AI tools use during crises in school organizations.
• Engage emerging researchers to an interactive simulation exercise (using the AI tool ChatGPT from their phones/ devices) to address a school crisis incident and use an AI tool to support their leadership practice.
• Engage in discussion/ exchange of ideas and reflect on the future use of AI tools to support school leaders’ practice in addressing crisis incidents in school organizations.

• Submitting Author: Prof Shosh Lesham
• Speaker: Prof Shosh Lesham, Kibbutzim College of Education, Israel

Thinking is pretty much invisible. Mostly, thinking happens under the hood, within the marvelous engine of our mind-brain. The characteristics of ‘thinking like a researcherC can be developed in candidates throughout their doctoral journey and exhibited in their thesis. However, thinking must be visible, explicit and accounted for in the text of the thesis, so that scholarship of the thesis can be acknowledged by examiners. Exhibiting high level thinking is dependent upon possessing understanding and having the capability to apply that understanding in the approach to research and defense that includes conceptual grasp. In this way supervisors and candidates ensure that a thesis explicitly demonstrates the characteristics expected of doctoral researchers and they are worthy of the award of a doctorate.

Some of the issues that will be discussed in the workshop are: The nature of doctorateness and what examiners look for in a thesis, levels of thinking in the process of doing research, the nature of conceptual frameworks and how to design them, conclusions and contribution to knowledge, practical strategies to audit the process of research to ensure that it demonstrates methodological rigour and scholarship.

The workshop will illustrate how to approach research in a scholarly manner moving from the descriptive to the conceptual by considering critical factors that represent the high quality that doctoral research should demonstrate. It will show how candidates can raise their level of thinking and exhibit in their thesis that they are ‘thinking like researchers’ by:

• Identifying the features in theses where high level thinking is required;
• Illustrating how examiners review and assess these features through specific sets of questions;
• Using examples from theses and examiners’ reports that point to ‘good’ or ‘bad’ aspects of doctoral writing;
• Providing strategies and models for candidates to adopt in writing their thesis;
• Allowing participants to discuss some of these issues in small groups guided by assigned question/tasks.

• Submitting author: Christian Ydesen, University of Zurich
• Speakers: Christian Ydesen, University of Zurich and Kirsten Sivesind, University of Oslo

The European Educational Research Journal (EERJ) is a leading international outlet for critical and interdisciplinary scholarship in education with a distinctive focus on the European research arena. Over the past two decades, EERJ has established a strong publication record that examines how education policy, governance, and practice shape social, cultural, and political life across Europe and beyond. The journal promotes theoretically robust and methodologically rigorous contributions that engage with major contemporary debates concerning the purposes of education, the role of the state, transnational policy dynamics, equity, and democratic participation. It welcomes scholarship that interrogates the political nature of education, speaks to diverse European audiences, mobilizes heterogeneous epistemological and methodological approaches, and advances gender parity and inclusivity in academic publishing.

This seminar introduces participants to the journal’s mission, scope, and standards. The two Chief Editors, Christian Ydesen and Kirsten Sivesind, will outline EERJ’s commitment to addressing pressing education issues across local, national, regional, and global scales. Particular attention is given to the unique positioning of EERJ as a platform bridging European discourses with international scholarship in order to shape the future of educational research. The seminar highlights the key elements editors and reviewers consider in assessing manuscripts, including argumentative quality, relevance to European and international concerns, originality of insights, and clear engagement with existing scholarship, especially work published in EERJ.

The session further provides practical guidance on the full publication process from idea conception to successful dissemination. Topics include selecting an appropriate journal, crafting a compelling title and abstract, ensuring methodological transparency, aligning keywords for enhanced discoverability, and responding constructively to peer review. Different genres of research articles are discussed, encompassing empirical studies, theoretical contributions, methodological advances, literature reviews, and case-based analyses. The editors underscore the importance of clear scholarly purpose by encouraging authors to define their intended audience and the contribution they aim to make to ongoing debates or practices.

Participants will be invited into discussion on how to navigate the broader research communication landscape, which involves balancing intrinsic academic curiosity with external expectations related to legitimacy, accountability, open access mandates, and societal engagement. By foregrounding both strategic and intellectual aspects of publishing, the seminar supports researchers in positioning their work for maximum visibility, readership, and impact. The goal is to empower authors to contribute confidently and effectively to critical and innovative scholarship that advances education research in Europe.