GRADUATION TALK ▼

SOME INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS MATTER LESS THAN ANGRY CROWDS WANT US TO BELIEVE

AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHANNA SOPHIE QUIS

?  In an interview Johanna Sophie Quis talks about what drew her to her dissertation topic, shares important lessons learned and gives us a brief insight into the findings of her thesis.

// What drew you to your dissertation topic and what interests you most about it?

   J.S.Q. Even before starting my dissertation, I was interested in health and education. During my dissertation I then set my focus on the interrelationship between institutional factors, competences and health. My cumulative dissertation contains four separate studies. Each of them analyses a question about school children’s competences or health.

// What was an important lesson you learned in the process of your research and writing your dissertation?

    J.S.Q. Being an Economist by training, the interdisciplinary environment at the Graduate School taught me to change perspectives in my research frequently. More than once I was able to profit from methods that are not conventional in Economics, but improved the quality of my analyses substantially.

// Can you give us a small sneak peek about the findings of your thesis?

   J.S.Q. I find that some institutional factors matter less than angry crowds in the streets want us to believe. We find no effects of the switch to daylight saving time in spring on school childrens’ test performance in the week after the switch. We find negative health effects of the German reforms which shortened school duration. However these effects seem to be transitory.

// What is the next step in your career?

J.S.Q. I will stay in Bamberg for the first part of my postdoc.

Image Credits: ? Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences