Interview with Professor Hermann Dülmer

About Third LCSR Summer School

The Third LCSR Summer School has recently finished in Zelenogorsk. Professor Hermann Dülmer, the key lecturer of the School, told us about his impressions about the event in his interview.

A.D.: Professor Dülmer, please tell us about your impressions of our School.

H.D.: I think that the Summer School is very well organized. The methodological concept of the Summer School follows a clear logic: the first Summer School in 2011 was about multilevel analysis, the second in 2012 was on structural equation modeling, and the Summer School this year was on multilevel structural equation modeling (ML SEM), a technique that combines the approaches of the former years and that becomes increasingly attractive for researchers interested in cross-cultural comparisons. The more substantive part of the Summer School was dedicated to presentations of Summer School participants. The subsequent discussions were target-oriented, constructive and characterized by the intention of helping to improve the paper and/or finding solutions to remaining problems. For me this is a main purpose of such discussions. I'm pretty convinced that a number of the presented papers deserve to be published in highly visible international journals. Last but not least, the free-time activities mainly organized by Tatiana Karabchuk contributed to create an atmosphere where everybody felt good.

A.D.:  Did you enjoy teaching at this school?

H.D.: Yes, of course. A general experience with Summer Schools is that the participants are highly motivated to learn new things and to improve their knowledge. They frequently have clear theoretical ideas and want to become (more) familiar with statistical tools that allow them to carry out the required analyses in a highly sophisticated way. And this might eventually turn out to become the basis for better or even new insights - or in other words: for progress on research.

A.D.: What were the most difficult things to communicate to the participants? Were you satisfied with their progress during the school?

H.D.: Well, basically I do not believe that there are things that are more difficult than others to communicate. The reality is that there is always some heterogeneity with respect to the level of existing knowledge. This, however, can be handled during the exercises. Here the support of my Summer School assistant, Kirill Zhirkov, was really helpful. At the end of the course the participants had the opportunity to present the first models they estimated in the area of their own research interest. It was nice to see how well they managed their task - even thought new insights sometimes also raise new questions. So, all in all I'm highly satisfied with the learning progress during the Summer School.

A.D.: What is your impression about the projects of the LCSR research network members that you have seen?

H.D.: The presentations of the participants covered a number of different topics ranging from social and cultural change to political sociology. Besides progress reports there were also some presentations on new projects. Since a number of topics also covered my personal substantive interests, I was looking forward to the results of the presentations. I'm also pretty sure that by providing the opportunity to discuss similar topics the Summer School will stimulate (closer) cooperation between participants in common projects, which eventually will strengthen networks between researchers.

A.D.: How would you characterize the level of organization of the school? Have the organizers managed to create a productive atmosphere?

H.D.: All in all, this question has to be answered definitely with a clear 'yes'.

A.D.: Thank you very much for your answers, Professor Dülmer!

by Alexey Domanov