For many years integral approaches of curriculum development have been popular. The complaint was that school subjects were too isolated, universities suffered from overspecialisation and fragmentation, and that interdisciplinary education was badly needed. Examples of interdisciplinary approaches were social science in secondary and world orientation in elementary education. New subjects like beta and technology and design and research are more recent examples. In higher education there is a lot of attention for interdisciplinarity as problems in reality do not present themselves according to disciplinary lines. There are even a very limited higher education study programs which can be named mono-disciplinary. However, the empirical foundation of the pedagogy of interdisciplinary education is lacking. Elsbeth Spelt was among the first researchers who noted that. She started to study pedagogical rules for interdisciplinary education. Her first publication Teaching and learning in interdisciplinary higher education: A systematic review (Elisabeth JH Spelt, Harm JA Biemans, Hilde Tobi, Pieternel A Luning, Martin Mulder) (2009). Educational Psychology Review. Volume 21, Issue 4, Pages 365-378, investigated research on this issue, and concluded with a model for interdisciplinary education analysis. We are waiting to see more from her since she has analysed a course on Food Quality Management at Wageningen University. From this research it is expected that the efficacy of design rules for interdisciplinary education are tested.
Author: mmulder
Martin Mulder is Emeritus Professor of Education and Director-Owner of MM Consultancy for Education and Training. He published widely with his colleagues and students about issue related to competence development, vocational and professional education, higher education, teacher education, and learning technology.
Wageningen University best university in the Netherlands – again!
For the 8th time in a row Wageningen University has been chosen the best university of the Netherlands by the Study Guide Higher Education of Elsevier. The programs in the social sciences which score at the first and second place nationally, are the following:
1st place: Applied Communication Science (82/100 points)
1st place: International Development Studies (72/100 points)
Shared 1st place: Health & Society (78/100 points)
2nd place: Economy & Policy (70/100 points)
2nd place Management and Consumer Studies (66/100 points)
All who are involved: congratulations!
Martin Mulder appointed in Scientific Advisory Board of the ITB of the University of Bremen
Martin Mulder is appointed in the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute Technik und Bildung (ITB) of the University of Bremen.
The ITB (itb.uni-bremen.de/index.php) is an education and research institute within the University of Bremen. The institute offers Bachelor and Master degrees in science and technology teaching and conducts research in the field of 1. labour related learning processes, 2. job performance processes and vocational education, 3. international vocational education, innovation, and industry culture, and 4. learning, teaching and organisation. The ITB is the leading research institute in the field of technology and vocational education in the German language area and runs various international research and development programmes in the field of vocational education.
Education in Finland
Finnish education ranks #1 in Europe. Teachers not only in secondary but also in primary education need university education. The profession of teacher is appreciated very much and there are many more applicants for teacher education than there are places. This is what Erno Lehtinen explained in the VPRO TV programme Tegenlicht. Teacher education is embedded in the university and teachers get a university degree. There is no educational inspectorate. Teachers are autonomous, of course within national regulations.
Jury of dissertation of Travis Turnbow Toulouse
On November 30, 2012, Travis Turnbow successfully defended his dissertation called ‘Forecasting and Competence Management Maturity: Their Relationship, Measurement, and Practical Implementation. A Study at EADS Airbus’. Competence Management Maturity is a quite new concept, and reflects the quality and integrative nature of competence management systems in organisations. According to the study competence management maturity is related to competence forecasting and competence planning. Continue reading Jury of dissertation of Travis Turnbow Toulouse
Kenya project management representatives visited ECS and Hortifair – November 1+2 2013
ECS supports curriculum development for JKUAT and HPTC in Kenya . The Kenyan management project representatives visited ECS and the Hortifair.
ECS Excursion to Twente October 25, 2012
ECS Excursion to Twente October 25, 2012
Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intentions
The paper ‘The Role of Entrepreneurship Education in Developing Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions’ by Saeid Karimi, Harm Biemans, Thomas Lans, Martin Mulder and Mohammad Chizari (September 27, 2012) (available at SSRN – the Social Science Research Network as: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2152944 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2152944), made it to the top 10 most downloaded papers in its specialisation. Congratulations Saeid Karimi.
Vacancy Personal Professor Life Science Education Research
There is a vacancy in my group for a Personal Professor Life Science Education Research. For further information see:
Continue reading Vacancy Personal Professor Life Science Education Research
Research review Vocational Education and Training presented
On September 18 I presented the first research review on vocational education and training. It is based on the papers of the VETNET program at the ECER in 2011, and various selected journal articles which appeared in the same year. Eline Roelofs did the basic work for the review.
Based on the review and extensive experience with VET research we can say that VET research has grown and that colleagues in European VET research are in a vibrant community and in a collective learning process.
Despite attempts to thematically structure VET research, it is still to a large extent fragmented. There is little convergence of theories and there are many mini-theories, there is little consensus about definitions, little operationalization of concepts in the direction of practice, research results are not binding for practice, and there is a huge divide between research technical quality and relevance of VET research.
Until now there is no literature that addresses the main components of VET in a comprehensive way, amongst which the VET system, VET administration, VET policy, management and organization of VET schools and training sites, VET curriculum development, learning and instruction in VET contexts, VET media and testing, and VET teacher education and professional development.
Research priorities we see are aimed at improving VET vocational teacher education and professional development, reaching demotivated youth in VET, prevent drop-out of VET, HRM in VET, competence modelling and assessment in VET, entrepreneurship and education provided by VET, innovation education in VET, and the relationships between the corporate, national and individual perspective on VET.
In terms of research policy development and general VET research planning we strongly believe that research should address pressing and relevant problems in educational practice, and practical, policy-oriented and fundamental research studies should be combined to solve these problems. It would be quite detrimental for both research and practice if the field of VET research would continue to be fragmented.
The paper can be ordered by sending an email to me. The suggested citation is: Mulder, M. and E. Roelofs (2012). A Review of Vocational Education and Training Research and Suggestions for the Research Agenda. Paper presented at the ECER Conference, 18 September, Cádiz, Spain.