Psychological Methods Division

The Professorship of Psychological Methodology develops and teaches methods with which human experience and behaviour can be recorded in a reliable, valid and theoretically sound manner. It sees methodology as an independent basic subject and at the same time as a central link between all other areas|fields of Psychology.

The professorship's research profile focuses on five closely related areas:

Psychometrics: development and extension of latent variable models for measuring psychological constructs, especially taking measurement errors into account,
methodological effects and heterogeneity.

Longitudinal analyses: Analysis of psychological change processes in panel and experience sampling data using structural equation models, multilevel models and Bayesian methods.

Multimethod data: Integration of classic survey data with modern data sources such as wearables, mobile sensing, digital behavioural traces or multirater data.

Causal inference: Development and application of methods for defining, identifying and estimating causal effects in complex longitudinal models.

Meta-science and formal theories: Research on reproducibility, meta-analytic structural equation modelling and formal methodological theories.

The professorship combines basic psychometric research with modern statistical methods and application-orientated psychological research. The aim is to measure psychological processes more precisely across people, situations and contexts, methods and time, to model them better and to provide a more well-founded declaration.