Paperbijdrage conferentie EARLI SIG 14, 11-14 september 2018, Genève Although professional performance at the workplace is essential in VET, little is known about what educators do when assessing students’ performance. This study aims to explore how workplace educators inform their judgements of students’ performance by looking at strategies and potentially influencing factors.
Symposiumbijdrage conferentie EARLI SIG 14, 11-14 september 2018, Genève Learning across the contexts of school and the workplace is highly relevant to the VET-sector. This contribution analyses these cross-contextual learning processes with three key issues in mind: (1) guidance by vocational educators, (2) assessment of students’ development and (3) design of VET-learning environments. Guidance, assessment and overarching VET-curriculum designs form the basis for constructive alignment as an approach to optimize conditions for high quality cross-contextual learning processes. We used the theoretical framework of boundary crossing to clarify the complex, multilevel nature of these key issues.
Dit artikel stelt dat beleidsverandering binnen de Europese Unie (EU) ook voortkomt uit besluitvorming op dagelijks niveau. Om veranderingen aan te kunnen wijzen en te verklaren dient de traditionele rationele keuzetheorie en de oriëntatie op instrumenteel-strategisch handelen te worden aangevuld met een constructivistische zienswijze op discours als bron van verandering. Met de inzichten van constructivisten en communicatiewetenschappers wordt in dit artikel gekeken naar de voorwaarden en het zich voordoen van deliberatie als discursief proces dat beleidsverandering op dagelijks niveau bevordert. In dat verband is onderzoek verricht naar een tweetal besluitvormingsprocessen op het gebied van EU-justitiesamenwerking. De ene betreft een casestudie omtrent de onderhandelingen over de totstandkoming van het Europees Bewijsverkrijgingsbevel van 2008. De ander gaat over de onderhandelingen over een Raadsbesluit betreffende de toegang van politie tot het Visa Informatie Systeem. Uit beide casestudies blijkt dat onder bepaalde omstandigheden deliberatie uitmondend in beleidsverandering zich feitelijk heeft voorgedaan. ABSTRACT This paper argues that, in addition to the practice of strategic bargaining, one may very well find in the day-to-day running of the EU decision-making instances where changes in policy outcome result from occurrences of deliberation. Occurrences have indeed been signalled in both the 'EEW' and 'VIS' cases where negotiating parties engaged in reasoned exchanges of views that resulted in position shifts and even agreements on certain issues. Analysis of both cases demonstrates that in settings where the conditions of 'insulation','intensity' or 'access of non-state actors' were prominently present, deliberation and ensuing progress towards a more reasoned understanding of the issue concerned was more likely to occur. Furthermore, a certain detachment from technical detail, yet sufficient proximity to subject matter, absence of agenda constraints and small-group dynamics made it more likely that discussants were inclined to engage in more open-minded exchanges of views based on reason and argument. On balance, clearly identifiable occurrences of deliberation-promoting progress in decisionmaking have been found in the institutionally quite diversified and multifaceted environment of the EU. They can certainly be regarded as representative of other decision-making processes operating under similar conditions, processes of which the institutionally dense EU is particularly rich. In a way, the occurrences of deliberation identified constitute a path of progressive understanding that is bound to extend beyond the temporal boundaries of a specific decision-making procedure. Reasoned understandings on certain issues achieved in either the EEW or VIS process were likely to provide a fertile basis on which further reasoned discussion can evolve into other, future decision-making processes. As such the deliberative instances found in the EEW and the VIS cases are of all periods, including the post-Lisbon period, and should be examined as alternative sources of policy change in the EU, irrespective of the timeframe.
Despite Dutch Hospitality industry’s significant economic value, employers struggle to attract and retain early career professionals at a time when tourism is forecasted to grow exponentially (Ruël, 2018). Universally, hospitality management graduates are shunning hospitality careers preferring other career paths; stimulating the Dutch Hospitality to find innovative ways of attracting and retaining early career professionals. Following calls from the Human Resource Management (HRM) community (Ehnert, 2009), we attribute this trend to personnel being depicted as rentable resources, driving profit’’ often at personal expense. For example, hotels primarily employ immigrants and students for a minimum wage suppressing salaries of local talent (Kusluvan, et al 2010, O’Relly and Pfeffer, 2010). Similarly, flattening organizational structures have eliminated management positions, placing responsibility on inexperienced shoulders, with vacancies commonly filled by pressured employees accepting unpaid overtime jeopardizing their work life balance (Davidson, et al 2010,). These HRM practices fuel attrition by exposing early career professionals to burnout (Baum et al, 2016, Goh et al, 2015, Deery and Jog, 2009). Collectively this has eroded the industry’s employer brand, now characterized by unsocial working hours, poor compensation, limited career opportunities, low professional standing, high turnover and substance abuse (Mooney et al, 2016, Gehrels and de Looij, 2011). In contrast, Sustainable HRM “enables an organizational goal achievement while simultaneously reproducing the human resource base over a long-lasting calendar time (Ehnert, 2009, p. 74).” Hence, to overcome this barrier we suggest embracing the ROC framework (Prins et al, 2014), which (R)espects internal stakeholders, embraces an (O)pen HRM approach while ensuring (C)ontinuity of economic and societal sustainability which could overcome this barrier. Accordingly, we will employ field research, narrative discourse, survey analysis and quarterly workshops with industry partners, employees, union representatives, hotel school students to develop sustainable HRM practices attracting and retaining career professionals to pursue Dutch hospitality careers.
GAMING HORIZONS is a multidisciplinary project that aims to expand the research and innovation agenda on serious gaming and gamification. The project is particularly interested in the use of games for learning and cultural development. Gamification - and gaming more broadly – are very important from a socio-economic point of view, but over the past few years they have been at the centre of critical and challenging debates, which highlighted issues such as gender and minority representation, and exploitative game mechanics. Our project’s key contention is that it is important for the European ICT community to engage with design trends and social themes that have affected profoundly the mainstream and ‘independent’ game development cultures over the past few years, especially because the boundaries between leisure and serious games are increasingly blurred. GAMING HORIZONS is a direct response to the official recognition by the H2020 programme of work that multidisciplinary research can help to advance the integration between Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and the Social Sciences and the Humanities (SSH). The project’s objective is to enable a higher uptake of socially responsible ICT-related research in relation to gaming. This objective will be achieved through a research-based exchange between communities of developers, policy makers, users and researchers. The methodology will involve innovative data collection activities and consultations with a range of stakeholders over a period of 14 months. We will interrogate the official ‘H2020 discourse’ on gamification – with a particular focus on ‘gamified learning’ - whilst engaging with experts, developers and critical commentators through interviews, events, workshops and systematic dialogue with an Advisory Board. Ultimately, GAMING HORIZONS will help identify future directions at the intersection of ethics, social research, and both the digital entertainment and serious games industries.EU FundingThe 14-month research project 'Gaming Horizons' was funded by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
