History education frequently aims at developing active citizenship by using the past to orientate to the present and the future. A pedagogy for pursuing this aim is making connections between the past and the present by means of comparing cases of an enduring human issue. To examine the feasibility and desirability of this case-comparison teaching approach, students (N = 444) and teachers (N = 15) who participated in an implementation study conducted in the Netherlands were questioned about their experiences and views. Results show that both students and teachers felt that case-comparison in the context of an enduring human issue is feasible and not more complex than the usual history teaching in which topics are studied separately without explicitly making comparisons between past and present, even if some students thought that taking account of episodes from different historical periods concurrently required an extra learning effort. Both students and teachers believed that connecting past and present in history teaching enhances engagement and meaning making. They suggested a curriculum combining the case-comparison approach with the type of history teaching they were accustomed to. Mixed methods were used for data collection. Implications for further research on case-comparison learning in history are being discussed.
Amsterdam as a lab. That is what Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences' three fieldlabs and its many partners have in mind. Functional illiteracy, debts, learning deficiencies or problems caused by extreme precipitation: the city contains plenty of tough issues, demanding novel approaches in which co-creation and participation by residents, social organizations and knowledge institutions are basic principles.In the fieldlabs, people try to change current practices by working with, instead of for or on behalf of those whom it concerns. But how to achieve effective learning environments between parties? How to encourage stakeholder participation in complex issues? And how to build new relations and roles?
This thesis presents an exploration of ‘how entrepreneurship education pedagogy can enhance undergraduate business students’ autonomous motivation for self-directed learning’. It has twin, equally valuable, purposes: to make an original theoretical contribution and to improve professional practice in this area. The work addresses the lack of pedagogical research in entrepreneurship education that focuses on learner development, with a specific aim at development of self-directed learning skills for lifelong learning. The research is approached with a concurrent, mixed methods design, comparing pre- and a post-EE, self-assessment survey results from 245 students, enrolled in a Young Enterprise venture creation programme, and a control group at a Dutch university. With the use of open-question surveys among the same population, during and after the EE modules, as well as from focus group discussions with a selection of participating students and teachers, explanation was sought for the observations drawn from the quantitative study. Significant relationships were found between students’ self-reported maturity of autonomy, self-efficacy, and motivation for learning, and in how these relate to self-directed learning readiness. Entrepreneurship education was found to significantly moderate the relationship between the learning characteristics and self-directed learning, and to strengthen of the students’ perceived readiness for self-directed learning. Explanation for the impact of EE were found to be related to the stage-wise, mixed pedagogy approach to learning, that combines authentic learning with a hierarchical approach to competence development, and supportive team dynamics. The research contributes to practice with a proposed conceptual framework for understanding how to prepare for self-directed learning readiness and a teaching-learning framework for its development in formal educational settings. It contributes to knowledge with its deeper understanding of how students experience learning in EE and how that affects their willingness to pursue learning opportunities.
MULTIFILE
