Why studying student agency? • Prepare students for lifelong learning. (Biesta & Tedder, 2007;OECD, 2018) • Agency fosters motivation, which could enhance performance. (Bandura, 2018; Ryan & Deci, 2020) • More flexibility in higher education, but not all students can handle this. (De Bruin & Verkoeijen, 2022; Van Casteren e.a., 2021)
Abstract The main purpose of this intervention was to measure student’s motivation in English Literature before and after an intervention based Zoltán Dörnyei’s Motivational Self System (2009) and Michael Magid’s (2011) application of the same theory in schools in Singapore. The present intervention was adapted to the students of the Dutch secondary school CLV (Christian Lyceum Veenendaal) in Veenendaal using fragments of English Literature (books, films, poems and songs). The intervention was carried out during eight lessons of fifty minutes where students had to participate in a variety of activities, all registered in a workbook assigned to each student at the beginning of the research project. Prior to and after the intervention, students filled in a questionnaire on motivation and English Literature. The results of these questionnaires were analysed with SPSS running descriptive statistical analysis. Along with these analyses, the timelines and life trees made by the students during the lessons and students’ answers given to the exercises on the workbooks were evaluated and compared. One of the most important conclusions of the intervention was that female students were more motivated, could make action plans and set goals easier and more detailed than male students. Another important result was that students in general had no interest in English Literature, although they realised it can be influential in their future life. The affective attitude of students to- wards the teacher and materials increased after the intervention, as well as students’ confidence in their own effort during class. However, the construct validity between the quantitative and qualitative data could not be established due to the fact that gender was not included as variable in the questionnaire. Gender relevancy became visible after the analyses of the workbooks. Therefore, future research will have to focus on including gender as a variable in the questionnaire in order to establish solid relations between quantitative and qualitative data. Another interesting research question for future interventions could be how to adapt English Literature and the materials that are being used in a way that both female and male students can tap into their own intrinsic motivational current.
To find, design and create solutions to global challenges, 21st century engineering professionals work in multi-disciplinary and international teams that are expected to work effectively, efficiently and innovatively. Universities are following this trend, as they acknowledge the importance of soft skills for employability. The integration of soft skills in higher education curricula is not straightforward, especially in engineering education. At our university, soft skills courses score low in student satisfaction surveys. This is the reason why we study the motivation, attitude and anxiety of computer engineering students toward learning soft skills. To do so, we performed a quantitative study using an online survey based on the mini-AMBT. Overall, our data indicate that computer engineering students have a positive motivation and attitude toward learning soft skills from both an integrative and an instrumental perspective. The obtained results do not give clear insights as to what causes the low satisfaction scores for soft skill courses. All of the above calls for further, qualitative research. We studied the motivation and attitude of computer engineering students in a Dutch university of applied sciences; the motivation and attitude of students in other disciplines and countries may differ and should be studied separately. Full text for members of IEEE : https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8363231/
Energy transition is key to achieving a sustainable future. In this transition, an often neglected pillar is raising awareness and educating youth on the benefits, complexities, and urgency of renewable energy supply and energy efficiency. The Master Energy for Society, and particularly the course “Society in Transition”, aims at providing a first overview on the urgency and complexities of the energy transition. However, educating on the energy transition brings challenges: it is a complex topic to understand for students, especially when they have diverse backgrounds. In the last years we have seen a growing interest in the use of gamification approaches in higher institutions. While most practices have been related to digital gaming approaches, there is a new trend: escape rooms. The intended output and proposed innovation is therefore the development and application of an escape room on energy transition to increase knowledge and raise motivation among our students by addressing both hard and soft skills in an innovative and original way. This project is interdisciplinary, multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary due to the complexity of the topic; it consists of three different stages, including evaluation, and requires the involvement of students and colleagues from the master program. We are confident that this proposed innovation can lead to an improvement, based on relevant literature and previous experiences in other institutions, and has the potential to be successfully implemented in other higher education institutions in The Netherlands.
Physical rehabilitation programs revolve around the repetitive execution of exercises since it has been proven to lead to better rehabilitation results. Although beginning the motor (re)learning process early is paramount to obtain good recovery outcomes, patients do not normally see/experience any short-term improvement, which has a toll on their motivation. Therefore, patients find it difficult to stay engaged in seemingly mundane exercises, not only in terms of adhering to the rehabilitation program, but also in terms of proper execution of the movements. One way in which this motivation problem has been tackled is to employ games in the rehabilitation process. These games are designed to reward patients for performing the exercises correctly or regularly. The rewards can take many forms, for instance providing an experience that is engaging (fun), one that is aesthetically pleasing (appealing visual and aural feedback), or one that employs gamification elements such as points, badges, or achievements. However, even though some of these serious game systems are designed together with physiotherapists and with the patients’ needs in mind, many of them end up not being used consistently during physical rehabilitation past the first few sessions (i.e. novelty effect). Thus, in this project, we aim to 1) Identify, by means of literature reviews, focus groups, and interviews with the involved stakeholders, why this is happening, 2) Develop a set of guidelines for the successful deployment of serious games for rehabilitation, and 3) Develop an initial implementation process and ideas for potential serious games. In a follow-up application, we intend to build on this knowledge and apply it in the design of a (set of) serious game for rehabilitation to be deployed at one of the partners centers and conduct a longitudinal evaluation to measure the success of the application of the deployment guidelines.
Het DIEET project onderzocht hoe de eerstelijns diëtetiek effectief en toekomstbestendig zou kunnen zijn: meetbaar en stuurbaar. In het project is onderzocht wat de succes- en faalfactoren zijn in het handelen van de diëtist tijdens het eerste consult met een patiënt. Door observaties van 605 consulten bij 237 diëtistenpraktijken in heel Nederland zijn potentiele predictoren in kaart gebracht. Op basis van deze predictoren (zoals bijv. een directieve houding van de dietist tijdens het consult) en het vaststellen van een effectieve behandeling na 9 maanden is een model ontwikkeld. Het model bleek echter minder eenvoudig dan gedacht, en de verklaring daarvoor is eigenlijk wel eenvoudig: diëtetiek is MAATWERK. Zo bleek bijvoorbeeld dat bij oudere mannen de directieve houding van de diëtist wel samen gaat met een effectieve behandeling, bij jonge vrouwen werkt motivational interviewing beter. Dit is voor de diëtetiek (en volgens onze voorzichtige inschatting ook andere beroepsgroepen) volstrekt unieke informatie. Deze resultaten hebben we nog een keer kwalitatief met de Stuurgroep van het RAAK-MKB project DIEET besproken en unaniem besloten dat de impact van dit product (model) voor de praktijk heel groot is. Deze nieuwe inzichten zullen ook verwerkt worden in de nieuwe druk van het boek (landelijk lesmateriaal diëtetiek opleidingen) dat is ontwikkeld (Neelemaat F, Ozturk H, Weijs P. Kritisch Redeneren in de Diëtetiek; bol.com). Het ontwikkelde model bleek door het maatwerk fors ingewikkelder dan vooraf ingeschat. Dit model kan echter in een web-based applicatie worden ingebouwd en de predictoren kunnen worden ingevoerd. Met deze applicatie kan bij elke diëtetiek (paramedische) stage en bij elke diëtist professional een scan worden gedaan op effectief handelen. Bij de studenten zal een relatie worden gelegd met het stagecijfer en bij de professionals met de effectieve behandeling na 9 maanden. Implementatie van de webbased applicatie in de eerstelijns diëtetiek praktijk zal meteen breed worden ingezet. Echter onderdeel van deze aanvraag is een interventie en controle groep, waarbij de interventie groep wel feedback krijgt op basis van de score en de controle groep niet. De snelle feedback (na het consult en niet pas na 9 maanden) is namelijk de sleutel tot succes. Top-up subsidie is nodig om voor het bestaande model een web-based tool te ontwikkelen en ontsluiting naar onderwijs en beroepspraktijk te bevorderen. Om in de toekomst goed gebruik van de tool door professionals, onderzoekers, studenten en docenten mogelijk te maken, is een geïntegreerde web-versie van de tool wenselijk waarin nieuwe updates eenvoudig kunnen worden doorgevoerd. Tot slot kan met Top-up de tool beter ontsloten worden voor de praktijk en voor inzet in het onderwijs door het maken van enkele goede casus beschrijvingen en het presenteren van de tool door middel van bijvoorbeeld workshops. Door Top-Up op deze manier in te zetten krijgt de doorwerking van de resultaten van het RAAK-project een flinke extra impuls.
