Herman Adèr was born on the 20th of May, 1940, in Amsterdam. He studied at the University of Amsterdam and holds a bacholor’s degrees in general psychology and in social science methods and a masters degree is in Numerical Mathematics. His PhD thesis concerns formal representation of Methodological knowledge (Adèr, 1995) that can be used for the implementation of expert systems.
He worked at VU University from 1971 until 2005, first at the Faculty of Psychology, and from 1993–2005 at the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics of the VU University medical center.
Herman J. Adèr has been an advisor on methodological and statistical matters for many years.
Publications of a general methodological nature include Adèr, Kuik, Hoeksma, and Mellenbergh (2002) on methodological modelling and Mellenbergh et al. (2003) and Mellenbergh and Adèr (2003) on Research Methodology as a separate field. Adèr, The, and Pasman (2003) and Adèr, Pasman, and The (2004) discuss the use of diagrams to represent results of qualitative research and de Vet, Adèr, Terwee, and Pouwer (2005) investigate the applicability of Factor Analysis in medical research.
In this PhD thesis a formal system to represent methodological knowledge was described (Adèr, 1995). From this, a graphical representation method was derived called Functional notation (or F-notation, for short) (Adèr, 1999b; Adèr, 1999a).
The recurring leitmotiv in his work is ‘implications of the methodological perspective in empirical research’.
Together with Gideon J. Mellenbergh (University of Amsterdam), he has been the editor of a book on research methodology ‘Research Methods in the social, behavioral and life sciences’ which appeared July, 1999 (Adèr & Mellenbergh, 1999).
Based on this book, a colloquium funded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) was held in January, 2000.
A second workshop on research methodology, RM 2003, was held in 25–27 june, 2003 at Free University, Amsterdam. Mellenbergh and Adèr were responsible for the general organisation. They also edited the proceedings (Adèr et al., 2003).
On the occasion of his retirement, a symposium on the Research methodology was held on his 65st birthday. An account of that day and some insight in his activities the last few years at the VU, can be found at: Herman’s account of the RM 2005 symposium.
In March 2007, another KNAW funded Colloquium entitled ‘Advising on Research Methods’ was organized by Adèr and Mellenbergh in Amsterdam.
A book with the same title as the colloquium appeared early 2008 (Adèr, Mellenbergh, & Hand, 2008). The book has its own website: www.jvank.nl/ARMHome.
The proceedings of this colloquium appeared Fall, 2008 (See Adèr & Mellenbergh, 2008). It contains newly written contributions by Janice Derr, Gerald van Belle, Robert Pool, Jules Ellis, Bo Lu and Marijtje van Duijn and Herman Adèr loosely based on presentations given at the colloquium. Victor van Daal and Hilde Tobi who functioned as discussants during the colloquium also extended their comments to full contributions.
This book also has its own website: www.jvank.nl/ARMProcs.
From 2003 onwards, courses based on the contents of this book are being organized at the University of Amsterdam, Leiden and Utrecht.
The last four years (2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014), student papers have been collected in booklets entitled Advising on research methods: Selected topics (Adèr & Mellenbergh, 2012; Adèr & Mellenbergh, 2013). These booklets each have their own website with more information on their content: ARM Selected 2011, ARM Selected 2012, ARM Selected 2013 and ARM Selected 2014.
The 2011 and the 2012 booklet are also available as an e-book (see the respective websites).
This the official publication date of the 2014 booklet is February 6, 2015.
Here you can download handouts of lectures held at various occasions and some gray and white papers that are difficult to come by.
Invited lectures at University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economy, Odense, Denmark (2000):
A presentation for at the NOSMO ‘methodologendag’ (2001) resulted in a, never published paper: How to…draw a diagram (478 KB)
Contributed paper at the International workshop on statistical modelling, July 2002, Crete, Greece: Methodological aspects of statistical modelling (161 KB)
Presentation at the ‘Workshop On High-Dimensional Data’ (Leiden, 2002): Parallel supervised model search for Cox regression (165 KB)
Presentation at the RM 2003 conference, June 2003: Diagramming basic notions in qualitative research (678 KB)
Handout of a lecture on temporal issues at the 2007 ‘Advising on research methods’ KNAW Colloquium: Handout temporal issues
Handouts of lectures held in 2006 at the University of Stavanger, Norway:
Handouts of lectures held during courses on the ARM book:
Handout of a lecture held in 2010 during a meeting of the social science section of the Dutch statistical society VVS Untractable statistical assumptions and Content robustness. (686 KB)
Memo (written together with Roel Hobo, Danone Research) on the calculation of the statistics related to an interim analysis in a clinical trial:
Handout of a presentation (in Dutch) given at the symposium of the Dutch association of Workplace Hygiene, 13 April 2011 in Zeist: Hoe ontwerp je een virtuele arbeidshygiënist? (579 KB) Gray paper written in the context of the Depression initiative at the Trimbos Institute, Utrecht, The Netherlands, to clarify the use and applicability of a composite score that combines the states of response and remission in a useful way: A composite score that combines response and remission (49 KB)
For most publications of Herman Adèr (181 at the moment of writing), please refer to his page at Research Gate .
Publications, mentioned in the text:
Adèr, H. J. (1995). Methodological knowledge: Notation and implementation in expert systems. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Adèr, H. J. (1999a). Graphical representation of a research design. In B. P. L. M. den Brinker, P. J. Beek, A. N. Brand, F. J. Maarse, & L. J. M. Mulder (Eds.), Cognitive ergnonomics, clinical assessment and computer-assisted learning. Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Adèr, H. J. (1999b). Graphical representation of methodological concepts. In H. J. Adèr & G. J. Mellenbergh (Eds.), Research methodology in the social, behavioural & life sciences (pp. 13–37). London: Sage.
Adèr, H. J., Kuik, D. J., Hoeksma, J. B., & Mellenbergh, G. J. (2002). Methodological aspects of statistical modelling: Some new perspectives. In M. Stasinopoulos & G. Touloumi (Eds.), Statistical modelling in society. Proceedings of the 17th international workshop on statistical modelling (pp. 59–68). Athens, Greece: National & Kapodistrian University of Athens and University of North London.
Adèr, H. J., & Mellenbergh, G. J. (Eds.). (1999). Research methodology in the social, behavioural & life sciences. London: Sage.
Adèr, H. J., & Mellenbergh, G. J. (Eds.). (2012). Advising on research methods: Selected topics 2011. Huizen, The Netherlands: van Kessel.
Adèr, H. J., & Mellenbergh, G. J. (Eds.). (2013). Advising on research methods: Selected topics 2012. Huizen, The Netherlands: van Kessel.
Adèr, H. J., Mellenbergh, G. J., & Hand, D. J. (2008). Advising on research methods: A consultant’s companion. Huizen, The Netherlands: Johannes van Kessel. (ISBN 978-90-79418-01-5)
Adèr, H. J., Pasman, H. R. W., & The, B. A. (2004). Generating new research hypotheses from a result diagram. In A. Blackwell, K. Marriott, & A. Shimojima (Eds.), Diagrammatic Representation and Inference. Third International Conference, Diagrams 2004. Cambridge, UK, March 2004, Proceedings (pp. 329–332). Berlin: Springer.
Adèr, H. J., The, B. A., & Pasman, H. R. W. (2003). Diagramming basic notions in qualitative research. In H. J. Adèr & G. J. Mellenbergh (Eds.), RM 2003 : Proceedings of the second workshop on research methodology (pp. 69–76). Amsterdam: Intitute for Research in Extramural Medicine (EMGO Institute).
Adèr, H. J., & Mellenbergh, G. J. (Eds.). (2008). Advising on research methods: Proceedings of the 2007 KNAW colloquium. Huizen, The Netherlands: Johannes van Kessel. (ISBN 978-90-79418-03-9)
de Vet, H. C. W., Adèr, H. J., Terwee, C. B., & Pouwer, F. (2005). Are factor analytical techniques used appropriately in the validation of status questionnaires? A systematic review on the quality of factor analysis of the SF-36. Quality of Life Research, 14, 1203–1218.
Mellenbergh, G. J., & Adèr, H. J. (2003). Research Methodology (RM) topics. In RM 2003: Proceedings of the second workshop on research methodology, June 25–27, 2003, VU University, Amsterdam (p. 207-212). Amsterdam: Intitute for research in extramural medicine.
Mellenbergh, G. J., Adèr, H. J., Baird, D., Berger, M. P. F., Cornell, J. E., Hagenaars, J. A. P., et al. (2003). Conceptual issues of research methodology in the behavioural, life, and social sciences. The Statistician(2), 211–218.
— Updated: December 26, 2014 —