Summer Course 2025

Contemporary Evaluation of Interventions:
Mobile, Digital, and Pragmatic

Join us for an exciting program featuring expert keynotes, Ph.D. student presentations, interactive workshops, and much more. The Summer Course will take place from Tuesday, June 3rd to Thursday, June 5th, 2025. In addition to the academic program, there will be multiple networking opportunities to connect and engage in deeper conversations around the topic.

The detailed program and registration link will be available shortly.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Summer Course 2025!

Keynotes

Dr. Jan Boehnke, University of Dundee, UK
Evidence-Based Professional Practice and Randomised Controlled Trials: Methodological Reflections on RCTs in Educational and Mental Health Research

Dr. Mirjam Stieger, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland
Can Digital Interventions Change Our Personality? Empirical Evidence from Three Longitudinal Studies

Workshops

Workshop 1
Designing Practice-Facing Impact Evaluations
Dr. Jan Boehnke

Professional evidence-based practice integrates various types of evidence, strategically combining them to suit specific contexts and professional considerations. Randomised studies play a crucial role in evaluating the causal effects of interventions. This workshop will outline the key elements and practical steps involved in planning, developing, conducting, and reporting such studies, with a particular focus on psychosocial interventions and between-group causal effects in pragmatic trials. We will briefly revisit the core logic and statistical reasoning behind randomised studies of interventions to clarify when such studies are appropriate and which type fits a given research question best. The main part of the workshop will focus on how to plan, design, and report such a study, including support resources such as international guidelines and formal requirements like trial registrations, protocols, and statistical analysis plans. Participants will engage in group tasks throughout the workshop, applying these concepts to their own research fields and experiences. By the end of the workshop, participants will have the necessary tools to critically assess published randomised studies on psychosocial interventions, and the knowledge to design and develop their own rigorous studies.

Workshop 2
Designing and Evaluating App-Based Interventions: From Concept to Effectiveness Testing
Dr. Mirjam Stieger

Digital interventions are increasingly transforming the way we approach behavior change. This interactive workshop provides participants with the opportunity to design their own app-based intervention and develop a scientifically sound approach to evaluating its effectiveness. The session will begin with a brief introduction to the key principles of app-based interventions. Participants will then work in small groups to create a concept for an intervention relevant to their own research interests. In the second part of the workshop, methods for evaluating intervention effectiveness will be explored, including experimental and longitudinal study designs. The goal of the workshop is to equip participants with not only practical knowledge of digital interventions but also actionable evaluation strategies that can be integrated into future research projects.

Date and time:

Tuesday, June 3, 13:30h - 17:30h
Wednesday, June 4, 10:00h - 17:30h
Thursday, June 5, 09:30h - 14:00h

Venue:

University of Bern, Unitobler, Lerchenweg 36, CH-3012 Bern

Requirements:

PhD students should prepare and present their research.

Credits

3 ECTS

Registration

Registration is open until 18th of May 2025. Register as soon as possible here or copy URL https://psyunibe.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8q8tyf9reDbT9lQ