Department
of Psychology
Department
of Psychology
I grew up in Zell am Harmersbach, a small rural community in the Black Forest (Southwest Germany), proud of its hisory as the smallest free city state of the German Empire (ehemalige kleinste freie Reichsstadt im Deutschen Reich), and famous for its pottery (Georg Schmieder Manufaktur - "Hahn & Henn"), its "Storchenturm", and its traditional south-west German carnival (alemannische Fasnacht). In 1977, I graduated from an engineering high school (Technisches Gymnasium Hausach-Wolfach) and enrolled at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität-Freiburg to study Psychology. Inspired by the work of W. W. Wittmann, J. Fahrenberg, and U. Koch, I became interested in how behavioral scientists measure the things they study (measurement theory) and how they determine whether their prevention and intervention programs work (program evaluation). With the financial support of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and several graduate assistantships, I attended Northwestern University (1983-1988), where I had the opportunity to work with T. D. Cook, D. Cordray, and R. Boruch on various evaluation projects. In addition to my academic training in program evaluation, I was able to arrange internships at the Max-Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich (1984/85) and in the Program Evaluation Division of the U.S. General Accounting Office (1988).