Open Modules

For the autumn survey of the fifth FReDA wave (W5B) in 2025, we gave you the opportunity to submit your own suggestions for modules or individual questions. The submission deadline for this expired on 31 May 2024. We would like to thank you very much for the numerous submissions. The FReDA committees will now select suitable items in a multi-stage process. We will inform you in good time which of the submitted modules will ultimately be included in the FReDA survey.

If you missed this year's call: no problem, the call for open modules will be repeated regularly. The next call for open modules will then take place again in spring 2025. We will inform you in good time on our website about the next call and the corresponding submission deadlines.

What are open modules at FReDA?

There are so-called open modules within the FReDA question programme: These are sections in the questionnaires whose content is not designed by those responsible for FReDA. This gives other researchers the opportunity to have their own questions included in the FReDA context. These can then be analysed together with all other information from the fixed programme.

With the open modules, FReDA offers researchers the opportunity to have their own questions included in the FReDA context. A total of 3 minutes of questioning time is available, which can be filled either by one module or by several shorter submissions from different applicants.

Call is repeated regularly

The open modules are an integral part of FReDA's question programme and are advertised regularly. However, as the FReDA questionnaire is the same as the GGS questionnaire every three years and no additions or deviations are possible for reasons of compatibility, no open modules can be integrated into the survey every third year. In 2021 and 2022, we therefore gave the scientific community the opportunity to submit their own suggestions for modules or individual questions. In 2023, however, there was no call for reasons of compatibility with the GGS. In 2024 and 2025, it will again be possible to submit your own questions or modules.

As the FReDA questionnaire coincides with the GGS questionnaire every three years and no additions or deviations are possible for reasons of compatibility, no open modules can be integrated into the survey in every third year. In 2021 and 2022, we therefore gave the scientific community the opportunity to submit their own suggestions for modules or individual questions. In 2023, however, there was no call for reasons of compatibility with the GGS. In 2024 and 2025, there will be another opportunity to submit your own questions or modules.

Open modules - short and to the point:

FReDA offers the scientific community the opportunity to integrate their own questions or modules into the survey.
Around 3 minutes of interview time are available for this almost every year.
The call for the "Open Modules" is announced in good time on the project website and in the FReDA newsletter.
The "open modules" are integrated into the respective fall survey in the following year
(Example: The first call took place in spring 2021, the submitted modules were included in the fall 2022 survey)
As FReDA adopts the GGS questionnaire every 3 years, no modules can be included in every third year for reasons of compatibility. This applies to the years 2024, 2027, 2030 etc. No modules are surveyed in these years. Accordingly, there is no call for "open modules" in the years 2023, 2026, 2029, etc.

You can download the Style Guide for Open Modules here.

Call from spring 2022

We also called for proposals for modules or individual questions for the fall survey of the third FReDA wave (W3B) in 2023.

The following modules or questions were integrated and asked in the fall survey of the third FReDA wave (W3B):

Uncertainties and resilience
Prof. Dr Gunnar Anderson and Prof. Dr Gerda Neyer (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Demographic change and political behaviour
Prof. Dr Dr Anette Eva Fasang and Prof. Dr Heike Klüver (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
Sexual satisfaction and equity in couples’ relationships
Prof. Dr Nicola Döring (Technische Universität Ilmenau) and Prof. Dr Peer Briken (Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE))
What are we eating today? Eating styles in families and couples
Prof. Dr Jutta Mata, Vanessa Knobl and Ira Herwig (University of Mannheim)

If submitted proposals could not be considered in this survey wave, this is by no means due to the quality of the submitted modules, but to the limited survey time, which requires a selection.

Call from spring 2021

In spring 2021, we issued the first call for open modules and gave researchers the opportunity to submit their own questions in the FReDA context. The submission deadline ended on June 30, 2021 - and the response to the call was very good: a total of 27 proposals were submitted. As we unfortunately only have around three minutes of survey time available for the W2B wave for the submissions, we had to make a selection from the proposals, all of which were very exciting.

The following modules will be integrated and asked in the fall module of the second FReDA wave (W2B) in 2022:

Transnational families in Germany
Prof. Dr Magdalena Nowicka and Dr David Schiefer (both from the Deutsches Zentrum für Integrations- und Migrationsforschung (DeZIM-Institut))
Capturing affective touching behaviours among couples
Prof. Dr Ilona Croy (Friedrich Schiller University Jena), Dr hab. Prof. UWr Agnieszka Sorokowska (University of Wroclaw, Poland) and Prof. Shu-Chen Li, Ph.D. (Technische Universität Dresden)
Survey of sexual orientation
Two teams with a very similar approach to this topic have been selected:
a) Lisa de Vries (University of Bielefeld) and Dr Mirjam Fischer (University of Cologne)
b) Dr Melanie Fischer (Heidelberg University Medical Centre), Magdalena Siegel (University of Vienna, Austria), Prof. Dr Beate Ditzen (Heidelberg University Medical Centre), Prof. Dr Martina Zemp (University of Vienna, Austria) and Dr phil. Nathalie Meuwly (University of Freiburg/Fribourg, Switzerland)
Fertility Awareness - Knowledge about fertility in life course
Prof. Arthur L. Greil (Alfred University, USA) and Prof. Julia McQuillan (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA)