Looking for new Inspiration
After the Telepanel adventure and the concentration of the long term measurement project, it was time for Willem to see what other methodologists are concerned with at the moment. Using his earlier contacts with German researchers like Peter Schmidt of ZUMA and Max Kaase from the Wissenschaft Zentrum in Berlin (WZB) he asked them whether he could stay with them for a while. From both he got an invitation. We would visit the ZUMA during one month during the summer 1995 while Max Kaase invited us to stay three months during the spring of 1996 at the WZB.
The ZUMA in Mannheim
Peter Schmidt offered us the use of his flat because he would not be there. We accepted his offer assuming that the flat would be well equiped. However, when we arrived we detected that the flat was completely empty except for two chairs and a table in the kitchen and a matrass on the floor of the sleeping room and a lamp. Fortunately it was summer time and it was nice weather therefore we were able to be outside most of the time. We had a nice time going around. It may surprise some people but we liked the town.
Peter Schmidt offered us the use of his flat because he would not be there. We accepted his offer assuming that the flat would be well equiped. However, when we arrived we detected that the flat was completely empty except for two chairs and a table in the kitchen and a matrass on the floor of the sleeping room and a lamp. Fortunately it was summer time and it was nice weather therefore we were able to be outside most of the time. We had a nice time going around. It may surprise some people but we liked the town.
We both made a presentation of our work at ZUMA and discussed the issues we presented with our colleagues. Unfortunately Peter Schmidt was not there but we had lots of discussions with Rolf Steyer and Peter Mohler. The discussions were concentrated on data collection by survey research and data analysis using SEM. There was little interest for text analysis.
We had a nice time but we did not get new ideas. To our surprise Peter Mohler, the director of ZUMA, gave us a considerable amount of money for the presentations we had made. Irmtraud looked around in Mannheim and suggested that we should spend that money on a nice new tableware with Naïve Art paintings on the plates and pots. We both liked it a lot. That was the most important thing we took with us from Manheim.
We had a nice time but we did not get new ideas. To our surprise Peter Mohler, the director of ZUMA, gave us a considerable amount of money for the presentations we had made. Irmtraud looked around in Mannheim and suggested that we should spend that money on a nice new tableware with Naïve Art paintings on the plates and pots. We both liked it a lot. That was the most important thing we took with us from Manheim.
The WZB in Berlin
In Berlin they had reserved a big flat in the town for us in a nice area. The WZB was in the center of the town, a combination of an old and a new building. Max Kaase organized a room for us to work and a student assistant and we could ask the secretary of the Social Science department for help. Max invited me to join a research project which he did for the Eurobarometer survey research group of the EU. This research group was responsible for the yearly research with the Eurobarometer using personal interviewing. Now they wanted to start a “flash survey” as they called it. It was a monthly survey by telephone by which they would be able to report results on a monthly basis. Given that I was involved in the telepanel that produces survey reports on a weekly basis, this was not a very new and inspiring research. However the problem of the comparability of the results of different data collection methods was an interesting issue.
In Berlin they had reserved a big flat in the town for us in a nice area. The WZB was in the center of the town, a combination of an old and a new building. Max Kaase organized a room for us to work and a student assistant and we could ask the secretary of the Social Science department for help. Max invited me to join a research project which he did for the Eurobarometer survey research group of the EU. This research group was responsible for the yearly research with the Eurobarometer using personal interviewing. Now they wanted to start a “flash survey” as they called it. It was a monthly survey by telephone by which they would be able to report results on a monthly basis. Given that I was involved in the telepanel that produces survey reports on a weekly basis, this was not a very new and inspiring research. However the problem of the comparability of the results of different data collection methods was an interesting issue.
The market research organization FORSA offered to collect the same data for the Eurobarometer 41 by telephone as the company INRA would do by personal interviews. This allowed to observe the differences between the results with the two methods. The table shows the large difference in France for the two data collection modes even for a simple question like “Did your country benefit from the membership of the EU?
There are several different reasons for these differences: the sampling procedure, the coverage of a telephone in the selected households, the nonresponse and the effect of mode of data collection itself. In order to disentangle these different effects FORSA has collected in three countries data starting in the normal way with a personal interview but in that interview they asked whether the people had a telephone and if so, these people were contacted a week later by telephone and were asked some questions of the Eurobarometer again. With this design the effects of the different possible causes of differences in the responses could be studied.
This was a very interesting topic that I studied with the people of FORSA and the WZB during these three months. With Max Kaase I edited an extra issue of the ZUMA Nachrichten Spezial Band 2 in 1997 with the titel: Eurobarometer. Measurement instruments for Opinions in Europe.
Many researchers contributed to this book with respect to different issues. It leads too far to go in details but we could really determine the different effects and show that it was possible to reproduce the face to face results from the telephone data which is an important issue when an organization changes from one mode of data collection to another. In this way one could prevent incomparability of data before and after such a change in the mode of data collection. Personally I was also excited about the fact that this transformation could be formulated in a very elegant way in matrix notation.
The scientific cooperation with Max Kaase has played an important role in my later participation in the scientific research group that prepared the European Social Survey and later coordinated this big European project.
Many researchers contributed to this book with respect to different issues. It leads too far to go in details but we could really determine the different effects and show that it was possible to reproduce the face to face results from the telephone data which is an important issue when an organization changes from one mode of data collection to another. In this way one could prevent incomparability of data before and after such a change in the mode of data collection. Personally I was also excited about the fact that this transformation could be formulated in a very elegant way in matrix notation.
The scientific cooperation with Max Kaase has played an important role in my later participation in the scientific research group that prepared the European Social Survey and later coordinated this big European project.
Berlin also was exciting
We didn´t work all the time. In fact we have never gone so much to theaters, concert houses and museums as in Berlin. But let me start with the most important issue for me. I also wanted to skate in Berlin and I knew that they had a skating rink where yearly speed skating championship were organized. The skating rink was in the Sport Forum a facility for different sports that was established in the time of the DDR. I went there and asked at the entrance whether I could skate there. That confused the people a lot because it seemed that they expected only skaters that were members of official clubs or local or national teams, no individual skaters, let alone a foreigner. It took some time before they allowed me to skate there free of charge because there was no rule for this. That meant that I could skate with the training group of age 15 or less as long as I wanted. That was fun. Later I went there once more with Irmtraud to show her the facilities the DDR had created for the sport to compete internationally.
We didn´t work all the time. In fact we have never gone so much to theaters, concert houses and museums as in Berlin. But let me start with the most important issue for me. I also wanted to skate in Berlin and I knew that they had a skating rink where yearly speed skating championship were organized. The skating rink was in the Sport Forum a facility for different sports that was established in the time of the DDR. I went there and asked at the entrance whether I could skate there. That confused the people a lot because it seemed that they expected only skaters that were members of official clubs or local or national teams, no individual skaters, let alone a foreigner. It took some time before they allowed me to skate there free of charge because there was no rule for this. That meant that I could skate with the training group of age 15 or less as long as I wanted. That was fun. Later I went there once more with Irmtraud to show her the facilities the DDR had created for the sport to compete internationally.
Another special East German place was the area called Oranienburg that was occupied by artists and squatters. This area was recommended to us by Dutch youngsters but it was at that time a terrible mess. This was very much in contrast with the concert hall at the Gendarmenmarkt in East Berlin which was restored in its old glory and the concerts were excellent. We went also to classical plays like "Nathan der Weise" which was very impressive. In the Netherland we didn´t go, already for a long time, to plays because we did not like them. In fact the only play we didn`t like in Berlin was of a Dutch theater group. There we left at the pause as we normally did in the Netherlands.
We visited the Museum quarter and were especially impressed by the Assyrian wall decorations. The last week in Berlin we went each evening to another cultural event with the most impressive performances: The "Magic Flute" by Mozart and the "Creation" by Haydn. By the latter one we were so impessed that we went to a second performance of the Creation in Amsterdam, the first week when were were back. The music was again beautiful but they projected next to it videos which were so terrible that we left again at the break.
When we visited the Jeroen Bosch exhibition in Madrid I made a video with music of the Creation. I am still impressed if I look at this video (see below).
We visited the Museum quarter and were especially impressed by the Assyrian wall decorations. The last week in Berlin we went each evening to another cultural event with the most impressive performances: The "Magic Flute" by Mozart and the "Creation" by Haydn. By the latter one we were so impessed that we went to a second performance of the Creation in Amsterdam, the first week when were were back. The music was again beautiful but they projected next to it videos which were so terrible that we left again at the break.
When we visited the Jeroen Bosch exhibition in Madrid I made a video with music of the Creation. I am still impressed if I look at this video (see below).