From the article: "Various programs in higher education feel a need to teach project management skills to students. Measuring the effect of education is a challenge especially when focused on behavioral skills. Research on learning gains usually turns to the method of Students Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG), which can be questioned on reliability. This article constructs five design criteria for an improved Students Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG): measure satisfaction, use pre- and posttests, use perceived ability, account for learning stage one and account for attrition. A first test on a semester of a professional master in project management yields ambiguous results. The second test with a 360 degrees measurement is performed on the same semester with different students. The post test is scheduled for June 2014, results will be reported at the World Congress."
MULTIFILE
Educational policies in the Netherlands reveal that the current mainstream participatory approach to citizenship education jeopardises students’ autonomy. Especially in Dutch post-secondary vocational education, citizenship education has been shown to be mainly aimed at socialization: initiating students into tradition, internalising rules, societal norms and values. This article reports on the findings of a research project, which is grounded in the assumption that integrating Bildung, citizenship education and critical thinking is a promising way to grapple with the perceived overemphasis on socialization strategies. We justify the interrelationship of critical thinking, Bildung, citizenship education, and professional training from two perspectives – historical and contemporary. It is only by combining these concepts, we contend, that educational professionals can create teaching materials more geared to developing autonomy, and prepare students in vocational training to navigate the political and societal dilemma’s on the work floor. Furthermore, we also clarify our perspective by offering three educational principles, used in our project to guide the design of teaching materials, that form a context for integrating citizenship, critical thinking, and Bildung in vocational education. A practical illustration is subsequently discussed.
