Very excited that the printed version of the Handbook of Vocational Education and Training is published!

Many thanks for my co-lead-editors, section editors, authors, and publishers!

I am happy to share that the ‘Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension; Competence for Communication and Rural Innovation’ (JAEE) got included in the Social Science Citation Index this week. The first (2018) Impact Factor is 1.388, which places it in the middle range of the journals listed in the category Education and Educational Research. Needless to say that this is the result of many years of hard and concentrated work, of the past and present editorial teams, publishers, reviewers, and above all, the authors. Thank you all very much for your efforts! I am stepping down as Editor-in-Chief at the end of the year, and wish Kristin Davis and Laurens Klerkx a lot of success with the further development of the journal. Establishing top quality agricultural education and extension throughout the globe will contribute to the quality of life.

The article of Dr Worku Birru et al on competence for export performance is published in issue 3 of volume 57 of the Journal of Small Business Management. We would like to congratulate Dr Birru with this achievement.

Continue reading Research on Competence for Export Performance published

On May 24, 2019, Nienke Woldman successfully defended her dissertation entitled “Competence development of Temporary Agency Workers. Understanding the complexities of a triangular employment relationship”. Why can better conditions for competence development contribute to increasing the performance of the organization and the career development of the indivual? Is more regulation desirable? If neglected, lack of competence development of flex workers, including independent entrepeneurs without employees, will at the end of the day result in high societal costs because of growing skills gaps and mis-matches.

Continue reading Nienke Woldman succesfully defended her dissertation

On May 21, Zainun Misbah defended his dissertation ‘Teacher-Student Interaction in Competence-Based Vocational Education in Indonesia’. His statement was that the implementation of CBE necessitates a change in the relationship between teachers and students. He showed that this relationship is complicated.

Thanks Dr. Judith Gulikers for the daily supervision, Prof. Eveline Wuttke, Prof. Michael Gessler, Prof. Jan Vermunt, and Prof. Arnold Bregt for the assessment of the thesis and opposition during the defence, and Prof. Tiny van Boekel for chairing the defence as Deputy Rector Magnificus, and Eko Nugroho and Megawanti for serving as paranymphs.

Hans Moerbeek successfully defended his Master thesis on promoting the principles of learning organizations within the Surveillance and Security Department of the Ministry of Defence (DBBO).  Using theories of the learning organisation Hans mapped measures introduced before and their effects on working processes and results. Subsequently a critical incident method was used to describe the learning processes which take place within work processes. Several barriers were found to really achieve an open learning mindset in this action-oriented organization. A selection was made of these barriers, and interventions which were going on were improved and the efficacy of these interventions for working processes and results was studied. Further research is necessary to further develop targeted interventions to collectively grow to an organization in which reflection on action is practiced in full. Congratulations to Hans, and thanks to Dr. Joachim Wetterling for the assessment of the thesis.

Myrthe Randsdorp successfully defended her Master thesis on ownership in elementary education. Using theories of ownership, she distinguished various dimensions of learning processes that can be ‘owned’ by pupils. That is, they can regulate certain aspects of the learning process by themselves. Via a Delphi-study for establishing agreement on the practical meaning of ownership by pupils, and an quasi-experiment to show the efficacy of principles of promoting ownership, a positive effect could be shown. Further research needs to be conducted to show wether the results are sufficiently robust. Congratulations to Myrthe, and thanks to Dr. Joachim Wetterling for assessing the thesis.

 

 

Open access publication on stimulating team performance now has Volume, Issue, and Page numbers:

Bouwmans, M., P. Runhaar, R. Wesselink, & M. Mulder (2019). Stimulating teachers’ team performance through team-oriented HR practices: the roles of affective team commitment and information processing, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 30(5), 856-878, DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2017.1322626. Download from here: 2019 Bouwmans et al – Team Performance

Just published: Mulder, M. (2019). The Global Need for Competence: Competence-based VET and Implications for Policy and Practice.  In: A. Bahl and A. Dietzen (Eds.). Work-based Learning as a Pathway to Competence-based Education. Bonn: Unevoc Network, 44-65.

As promised, the abstract of the article of Yared Demssie in the Journal of Cleaner Production on sustainability competencies in developing countries is posted here.

Continue reading What sustainability competencies do developing countries need?