Martin Mulder

On October 8, 2013, at 16:00 hours, Vitaliy Popov will defend his dissertation in the auditorium (Aula) of Wageningen University, Generaal Foulkesweg 1, 6703 BG Wageningen. Co-promotors of this dissertation are Dr. Harm J.A. Biemans from ECS and Prof. Andrei N. Kuznetsov from Russia. Opponents are: Prof. T. van Boekel, Prof. A. Weinberger, Prof. M. Valcke, and Prof. J.P.L.M. van Oudenhoven, who (since he had to apologize for absence) for the defence will be replaced by Dr. J.G.M. Jacobs.The topic of the dissertation is intercultural learning within higher education. Continue reading Intercultural learning in higher education

Stoas Vilentum opened it’s new three-story round green teacher education building, next to the campus of Wageningen University. It will give ample opportunities to enhance cooperation between the university and the teacher education college. Continue reading Ecological intelligence

The ECER conference in Istanbul was succesfully completed. The VETNET strand within EERA had a strong programme again, with interesting sessions, meetings and symposia. A new board was chosen, partly with the same persons, but also with new colleagues. all board members have assumed tasks. This will make the board more robust and will contribute to the further development of the network. The editors of the new eBook on Educational Design Research, Tjeerd Plomp and Nienke Nieveen, launched their enormous work, which is published online by the SLO, directed by Jan van den Akker. The chapters are for free, including the one David Kintu and I contributed on the validation of design rules of competence-based curriculum development. See http://international.slo.nl/publications/edr/contents/c41/ Continue reading ECER 2013 in Istanbul succesfully completed

The 21st bi-annual European Seminar on Extension Education (ESEE) in Antalya, Turkey, is successfully completed. Chaired by Prof. Orhan Özçatalbaş, around 50 papers were presented from just under 20 different countries from 4 continents. I have had the opportunity to present a paper on competence development in cooperatives and learned that cooperative organizations are very differently perceived in different regions around the world. We studied large cooperative organizations in a Western market-driven economy in which independent entrepreneurship is a key assett. Various members of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Agricultural Education (JAEE) were present at a board meeting, and I could present the journal at a plenary session of the conference. At the end of the conference it was decided that the 22nd edition of the ESEE will be held in Wageningen, on the same dates as the conference of the Association of International Agricultural Extension and Education, from April 28 to May 1st, 2015. More about this conference will be published in the JAEE and on the website of the journal.

Continue reading European Seminar on Extension Education in Antalya, Turkey, successfully completed

Cooperatives have unique features which enable competence development. A first concise explorative study shows that cooperatives have various facilities for competence development of members, board members and employees. The paper on this issue will be presented at the ESEE seminar (http://esee1973.org/) and the ECER conference, both in September in Turkey (http://www.eera-ecer.de/ecer2013/).

Torrence E. Sparkman is the winner of the Best Dissertation Award of the Special Interest Group (SIG) Workplace Learning  (WPL) of the American Educational Research Assocation (AERA). The title of his disseration is: Understanding the Leadership Development Experiences of Executive Church Denomination Leaders: A Phenomenological Approach. Dr Sparkman received his PhD from the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2012. His Doctoral Committee consisted of Professor K. Peter Kuchinke, Chair, Associate Professor Russell F. Korte, Associate Professor Assata Zerai and Professor David D. Daniels III. These findings of the research ‘…suggest that leadership development experiences for executive church leaders should include ministry venture creation, the use of relevant and real cases, and mentoring relationships’.

 

 

The AERA SIG Workplace Learning will have a Panel discussion with industry representatives in Philadelphia. This is the first time that this Special Interest Group organises an event outside the conference location as an off-site session.

Panel Discussion Participants:
Joseph P. Welsh, Esq. CEO of the Collegiate Consortium for Workforce and Economic Development (Moderator for the Panel)

Mike Giantomaso, Senior VP of Human Resources for Aker Philadelphia Shipbuilding

Dan Rhoads, President & CEO at Rhoads Industries

Jerry Parker, President of Delaware County Community College

Steve Hart, Assistant Vice President, Human Resources, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Katherine Rondeau-Fiore, Organizational Learning & Development Professional, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Martin Mulder, Professor and Head of the Chair Group of Education and Competence Studies at Wageningen University, the Netherlands (AERA Workplace Learning SIG)

Susanne Weber, Professor, Institute for Human Resource Education, University of Munich, Germany (AERA Workplace Learning SIG)

James Bartlett, Associate Professor, Workforce and Human Resource Education, North Carolina State University (AERA Workplace Learning SIG)

Different workplaces provide different opportunities for learning. This was clearly demonstrated in a study of Lans et al (2008), amongst 25 small-business owners. They create their own learning environment. Support, guidance, external interaction, internal communication, task characteristics and business opportunities are factors which make a difference in their learning.

Lans, T., Biemans, H., Verstegen, J. & Mulder, M. (2008). The Influence of the Work Environment on Entrepreneurial Learning of Small-business Owners. Management Learning, 39, 5, 597–613.

During the last week two members of my chair group have been working on a project pre-proposal on human capital development in organisations. While working with them on this proposal, I had to think back of my research on corporate training in the 1980s and 1990s. One of my studies was for the private training industry, who was interested in the results of tailor-made in-company training projects. We made a standardized questionnaire to enable large-scale surveys on this issue. We were able to analyze the results with a Lisrel-analysis, and could show relationships between the preparation of training projects, the implementation of them and the results at various levels. We distinguished training projects which were aimed at establishing 1. learning results; 2. job performance results; 3. organisational results. The Lisrel model we developed was adequate for training projects which were aimed at establishing learning results and job performance results. For training projects which were aimed at establishing organisational results the model was not appropriate. Thinking about further programming of our future research, I would be pleased if we can find an excellent quantitative researcher who is interested in doing a follow-up project in the field of the effectiveness of corporate training. Download the article here: 2001 Mulder – Customer Satisfaction with training programs – JEIT

This week I borrowed a book of Jonathan Winterton edited by John Raven and John Stephenson, called ‘Competence in the Learning Society’, published in 2001 by Lang, in the ‘Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education’, with contributions of George O. Klemp, Donald Schön, Richard E. Boyatzis, and David C. McClelland and many others. The book comprises 28 chapters. As far as I can see, there are 76 citations to the book in Publish or Perish. The conclusion at the end of the book may be a bit simple. It blames universities, university management, polititians and public servants for not having established a competent society. One may agree with this, but in my opinion and experience the ‘technology’ of competence modelling and measurement is by no means easy.