Explaining roll call vote request in the European Parliament

This paper investigates determinants of roll call vote (RCV) request in the European Parliament (EP) since studies on voting behaviour based on the RCV sample have proved to be vulnerable to selection bias. At first I argue that party group leaders, who mainly initiate RCVs, cannot be regarded as parliamentary principals of MEPs who use the RCV to discipline their parliamentarians. Owing to the organisational structure of the board of political groups which mainly consists of leaders of (larger) national delegations, it is impossible to clearly differentiate between the party group leader and the leaders of national delegations. As the former do not possess instruments to enforce party group discipline they should not be considered as principals of MEPs but rather as their agents. Party group leaders, I argue, will therefore use RCVs only if they anticipate cohesion to express their group's policy position. Based on this assumption I develop and test a theoretical model of RCV request. Therefore I gathered data that comprise all votes from the first year of the sixth EP election period. The findings are in line with the theoretical expectations: RCV request is likely if the national delegations are united along the group line and group cohesion can be ensured. Moreover, the misconceptualisation of party group leaders as principals of MEPs and the structure of the RCV sample has led to overestimating the power of political groups in existing studies. My findings suggest that studies based on RCVs need to be interpreted with caution as they do not seem to represent the EP legislative process adequately.' (author's abstract

'Warum soll ich forschen?' - Wirkungen Forschenden Lernens bei Lehramtsstudierenden

Während Forschendes Lernen mit vielfätigen Zielen verbunden und in vielen Studiengängen etabliert ist, liegen kaum Studien vor, die kausale Aussagen über die Wirkungen dieser Lehr-Lern-Form ermöglichen. Dies gilt insbesondere für Forschendes Lernen im Lehramtsstudium. Hier setzt die vorliegende Studie an: Mittels eines quasi-experimentellen Paneldesigns werden Wirkungen Forschenden Lernens bei Lehramts- und Nicht-Lehramtsstudierenden an der Universität Oldenburg untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Lehramtsstudierende – im Gegensatz zu anderen Studierenden – im Hinblick auf die wahrgenommene Entwicklung von Forschungskompetenzen nicht vom Forschenden Lernen profitieren

Short digital-competence test based on DigComp2.1: Does digital competence support research competence in undergraduate students?

This article presents a ten-item short scale for measuring digital competence. The scale is based on the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens, DigComp2.1 (Carretero et al., 2017). For our surveys, we used five items from the DigCompSat study (Clifford et al., 2020) and created five new ones to address the competence areas defined by DigCom2.1. We tested the scale on a sample of 1416 students from four countries (Germany, Lithuania, Austria, UK), using the questionnaire in two languages (English, German). The scale proved to be reliable (Cronbach’s α of 0.87 and McDonald’s ωt of 0.88) and valid (construct and content validity). Using the scale, we replicated findings from previous studies on differences in digital literacy by gender, study subject, and level of study. Despite the inhomogeneous structure of items from five different competence areas (according to DigComp2.1) and of two different types (specific, general), the scale does not seem to be multifactorial. A detailed analysis of digital competence and undergraduate research in the context of the pandemic shows: digital competence seems to support research competence and may even support inclusion.Peer Reviewe

Explaining Roll Call Vote request in the European Parliament

This paper investigates determinants of roll call vote (RCV) request in the European Parliament (EP) since studies on voting behaviour based on the RCV sample have proved to be vulnerable to selection bias. At first I argue that party group leaders, who mainly initiate RCVs, cannot be regarded as parliamentary principals of MEPs who use the RCV to discipline their parliamentarians. Owing to the organisational structure of the board of political groups which mainly consists of leaders of (larger) national delegations, it is impossible to clearly differentiate between the party group leader and the leaders of national delegations. As the former do not possess instruments to enforce party group discipline they should not be considered as principals of MEPs but rather as their agents. Party group leaders, I argue, will therefore use RCVs only if they anticipate cohesion to express their group's policy position. Based on this assumption I develop and test a theoretical model of RCV request. Therefore I gathered data that comprise all votes from the first year of the sixth EP election period. The findings are in line with the theoretical expectations: RCV request is likely if the national delegations are united along the group line and group cohesion can be ensured. Moreover, the misconceptualisation of party group leaders as principals of MEPs and the structure of the RCV sample has led to overestimating the power of political groups in existing studies. My findings suggest that studies based on RCVs need to be interpreted with caution as they do not seem to represent the EP legislative process adequately

Explaining roll call vote request in the European parliament

This thesis has been performed at Clinical Chemistry at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg. The purpose of the project was to investigate new and alternative ways to determinate synthetic cannabinoids by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Currently, the possibilities to quantify synthetic cannabinoids are very limited. This can lead to an increased use of synthetic cannabinoids as the risk of detection is low, which may be known by drug users. The synthetic cannabinoids are sold mixed with different herbs and have varying names like Spice Gold, Spice Silver, K2, Smoke and Pot-pourri. The synthetic cannabinoids analyzed were JWH-018 and JWH-073, which are commonly found in seized Spice material. At intake of these drugs, usually through smoking, cannabis-like effects arise. This is because they bind to cannabinoid receptors in a similar way as THC does, which is the primary active cannabinoid of cannabis. For urine samples an analytical method would probably be the most sensitive if the major metabolite could be analyzed, as it is expected to be present in high concentrations in this sample type. Since information regarding the metabolism of synthetic cannabinoids is very limited there may be reasons to analyze the mother substance in urine. Further, in plasma and serum samples the mother substance is expected in high concentrations. Thus different ways to detect JWH-018 and JWH-073 directly were investigated in this project. Derivatization of JWH-018 and JWH-073 was the first step to get more selective and sensitive GC-MS analysis. Different derivatization-reagents were investigated, for example BSTFA and TFAA. The results show that the derivatization of JWH-018 with BSTFA after reduction and extraction was successful. To achieve this, samples had to be heated at 115°C for 1-3 hours, but still the samples were not completely derivatized. The results indicate that JWH-substances are difficult to derivatized, but they are possible to derivatize with BSTFA. This could mean that a GC-MS-method maybe could be established for these substances, preferably trough TFAA-derivatization