Level-Up

Teresa Holfeld Development

About this app

The Level-Up app is the platform for the nationwide Level-Up study, which investigates how prospective high school graduates make their educational and career decisions and what role parents or guardians play in this process.

The transition from school to university or vocational training represents a crucial turning point in the lives of young people. The study aims to better understand decision-making processes within families, trace their development over time, and scientifically analyze key influencing factors.

The study pursues purely scientific research interests and is not intended to evaluate individuals, schools, or regions.

Who can participate?

The study is aimed at students in the graduating class of 2027 and at least one parent or guardian. Both participate in the surveys together, but separately.

For participation, we are raffling off various cash and in-kind prizes:

- 50 x €100 each after the initial survey in August 2026 among students and parents

- 50 x €100 each after the final survey in October 2027 among students and parents

- 10 iPads for students upon full participation

- 10 x €500 for parents upon full participation

- 3 x €5,000 for the student groups with the highest participation rate of student-parent pairs

In the app:

In addition to the surveys of the study, the Level-Up app includes supplementary
support services.

We offer everyone an AI chatbot as an easily accessible information service for career and study orientation. The chatbot is trained on the German job and study market using information from the Federal Employment Agency – thus minimizing misinformation (hallucinations).

We also provide skills training for personal development. These relate in particular to critical thinking, teamwork, and dealing with challenges.

Team:

The Level-Up Study is being conducted by educational researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics, the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT, the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies, and the RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research.

The study is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and by SchuleWirtschaft Deutschland (School-Business Germany).

Data Protection:

The protection of participants' data is of utmost importance. The study is conducted in strict accordance with applicable data protection regulations, specifically the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The surveys and the AI ​​chatbot are hosted on local servers of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT – no third-party cloud services are used.

The collected data will be used exclusively for scientific purposes and will not be shared with third parties outside the research context.