http://hdl.handle.net/1820/1159 Search the Channel search http://dspace.ou.nl/simple-search http://hdl.handle.net/1820/3417 Title: Toward Self-Regulated Learning in Vocational Education: Difficulties and Opportunities<br/><br/>Authors: Jossberger, Helen<br/><br/>Abstract: In this dissertation, the focus is on learning in workplace simulations and the quest toward self-regulation in vocational education. The main aim was to gain understanding in the kind of difficulties and success factors students and teachers experience in workplace simulations, identify and explore self-regulated actions and to seek ways to support students’ self-regulated learning skills in the instructional design and feedback. One theoretical article and 4 empirical studies were conducted and are described in detail.<br/><br/>Description: Jossberger, H. (2011). Toward Self-Regulated Learning in Vocational Education: Difficulties and Opportunities. Doctoral Thesis. June, 24, 2011, Heerlen, The Netherlands: Open Universiteit in the Netherlands. http://hdl.handle.net/1820/3411 Title: The Mind's Eye on Personal Profiles - How to inform trustworthiness assessments in virtual project teams<br/><br/>Authors: Rusman, Ellen<br/><br/>Abstract: The central research question of this thesis is:How to inform trustworthiness assessments of virtual project team members in the initial phase of collaboration?; There is common agreement that the availability of personal information and the possibility to interact informally at the start of a project accelerates the trust formation process. This goes for face-to-face as well as for virtual project teams. However, there is no shared understanding as to what information is critical for this acceleration and why it is so. Acceleration of the trust formation process is beneficial, as interpersonal trust is one of the key factors influencing performance in face-to-face as well as virtual teams. When little or no trust exists within a team, serious collaboration problems are bound to occur. Virtual project teams experience more problems with interpersonal trust formation than face-to-face teams. This is likely to be due to the diminished availability of information and its computer-mediated character. Once we know what information is important for trustworthiness assessments and why it is so, we could use it for the design of measures to accelerate the formation of interpersonal trust. To investigate the central research question we combined a theoretical (top-down) with a practical, design-oriented (bottom-up) research approach. We concluded our research with an evaluation.<br/><br/>Description: Rusman, E. (2011). The Mind's Eye on Personal Profiles - How to inform trustworthiness assessments in virtual project teams (Doctoral dissertation). June, 17, 2011, Open University in the Netherlands (CELSTEC), Heerlen, The Netherlands. http://hdl.handle.net/1820/3403 Title: Contextualised Mobile Media for Learning<br/><br/>Authors: De Jong, Tim<br/><br/>Description: De Jong, T. (2011). Contextualised Mobile Media for Learning. June, 10, 2011, Heerlen, The Netherlands: Open University in the Netherlands, CELSTEC. SIKS Dissertation Series No. 2011-09. ISBN 978 90 79447 47 3 http://hdl.handle.net/1820/3379 Title: Improving sustainable assessment skills in vocational education<br/><br/>Authors: Fastré, Greet<br/><br/>Abstract: In educational practice, assessment criteria are often formulated on a holistic level, not describing the desired performance students must be able to show. Above that, in schools for secondary vocational education students are often expected to select themselves the appropriate criteria for the learning tasks they are working on from a long list with all possibly relevant criteria. The question arises if students in senior vocational education, and especially novice students, are able to use these broadly formulated assessment criteria and to select the criteria that are applicable to particular learning tasks. This dissertation examines what kind of assessment criteria novice students in the domain of Nursing and Care need in order to develop sustainable assessment skills and to become competent professionals.<br/><br/>Description: Fastré, G. (2011). Improving sustainable assessment skills in vocational education. Doctoral Thesis. March, 11, 2011, Heerlen, The Netherlands: Open University in the Netherlands. http://hdl.handle.net/1820/2957 Title: On the role of self-assessment and task-selection in self-regulated learning<br/><br/>Authors: Kostons, Danny<br/><br/>Abstract: Effective self-regulated learning, in which students have to select their own learning tasks, is difficult for students. They need to be able to self-assess their own performance and subsequently select a new learning task based on that assessment. The research in this dissertation first investigates difficulties students have with accurately self-assessing their performance and selecting learning tasks appropriate to their learning needs. Students seem to have difficulties in monitoring their own performance, lack knowledge of criteria and standards to accurately assess their performance, and do not know which aspects of a task are important to consider when selecting a learning task. Second, this dissertation investigates the effectiveness of training students’ self-assessment and task-selection skills on the accuracy of these skills, as well as effects of such training on learning outcomes with self-regulated learning. Training, either through worked examples or instruction with practice, increased self-assessment and task-selection accuracy, and led to higher learning outcomes with self-regulated learning.<br/><br/>Description: Kostons, D. (2010). On the role of self-assessment and task-selection in self-regulated learning. Doctoral Thesis. Heerlen, The Netherlands: Open University of the Netherlands. http://hdl.handle.net/1820/2750 Title: Paving the Way for Lifelong Learning. Facilitating competence development through a learning path specification<br/><br/>Authors: Janssen, José<br/><br/>Abstract: Efficient and effective lifelong learning requires that learners can make well informed decisions regarding the selection of a learning path, i.e. a set of learning actions that help attain particular learning goals. In recent decades a strong emphasis on lifelong learning has led educational provision to expand and to become more varied and flexible. Besides, the role of informal learning has become increasingly acknowledged. In light of these developments this thesis addresses the question: How to support learners in finding their way through all available options and selecting a learning path that best fit their needs? The thesis describes two different approaches regarding the provision of way finding support, which can be considered complementary. The first, inductive approach proposes to provide recommendations based on indirect social interaction: analysing the paths followed by other learners and feeding this information back as advice to learners facing navigational decisions. The second, prescriptive approach proposes to use a learning path specification to describe both the contents and the structure of any learning path in a formal and uniform way. This facilitates comparison and selection of learning paths across institutions and systems, but also enables automated provision of way finding support for a chosen learning path. Moreover, it facilitates automated personalisation of a learning path, i.e. adapting the learning path to the needs of a particular learner.Following the first approach a recommender system was developed and tested in an experimental setting. Results showed use of the system significantly enhanced effectiveness of learning. In line with the second approach a learning path specification was developed and validated in three successive evaluations. Firstly, an investigation of lifelong learners’ information needs. Secondly, an evaluation of the specification through a reference (sample) implementation: a tool to describe learning paths according to the specification. Finally, an evaluation of the use and purpose of this tool involving prospective end-users: study advisors and learning designers. Following the various evaluations the Learning Path Specification underwent some changes over time. Results described in this thesis show that the proposed approach of the Learning Path Specification and the reference implementation were well received by end-users.<br/><br/>Description: Janssen, J. (2010). Paving the Way for Lifelong Learning. Facilitating competence development through a learning path specification. September, 17, 2010, Heerlen, The Netherlands: Open University of the Netherlands, CELSTEC. SIKS Dissertation Series No. 2010-36. ISBN 978-90-79447-43-5 http://hdl.handle.net/1820/2393 Title: Learning law. Expertise differences and the effect of instructional support<br/><br/>Authors: Nievelstein, Fleurie<br/><br/>Abstract: One of the main aims of law education in both the Civil (European-Continental) law and Common (Anglo-Saxon) law systems is to teach students to reason about cases. As reviewed in Chapter 1, students experience serious difficulties in learning to reason about cases, which seem to arise from the complexity of the domain, the way in which knowledge is acquired in complex domains, as well as the instructional approach widely used in law schools. This approach often consists of ‘learning by doing’, which means that students have to reason about lots of cases throughout their study by using information sources that professionals also use. The studies presented in Chapters 2 to 4 were designed to gain more insight in the kind of difficulties and the underlying causes that students with differing levels of expertise have when they learn to reason about cases in law school, as well as to investigate the requirements for effective instructional approaches that provide more support and might help to diminish or overcome the experienced difficulties.<br/><br/>Description: Nievelstein, F. (2009). Learning law. Expertise differences and the effect of instructional support. Doctoral thesis. September, 18, 2009, Heerlen, Nederland: Open Universiteit. http://hdl.handle.net/1820/2392 Title: Individualised strategies for prior knowledge activation<br/><br/>Authors: Wetzels, Sandra<br/><br/>Abstract: This dissertation investigates how prior knowledge activation can be tailored to learners’ level of prior knowledge in order to increase the beneficial effects of prior knowledge activation on subsequent learning. A theoretical framework for prompting prior knowledge activation and reinforcing the activation process in the science domain is presented. This framework provides more insights in how pictures, animations, mobilisation, perspective taking, and retrieval-directed note taking can be used to support prior knowledge activation. Pictures and animations are assumed to be suitable prompts for activating prior knowledge in the science domain. In addition, mobilisation and perspective taking are considered suitable strategies for activating learners’ prior knowledge. Furthermore, retrieval-directed note taking (i.e., note taking during prior knowledge activation) is assumed to reinforce the activation process. Finally, it is argued that the strength of these prompting and reinforcing effects is influenced by learners’ level of prior domain knowledge. These assumptions are investigated in three studies. The results of these studies show that prior knowledge activation has beneficial effects on learning, especially if it is tailored to learners’ level of prior domain knowledge. Retrieval-directed note taking can reinforce the activation process but only for learners who have prior knowledge that can be externally represented but that has not yet developed into a coherent organised structure. Second, the strategy used to activate learners’ prior knowledge should also be aligned to how much learners already know about a certain domain. Bottom-up oriented strategies such as mobilisation are especially suitable for learners with lower levels of prior knowledge, whereas top-down oriented strategies such as perspective taking result in more effective prior knowledge activation for learners with higher levels of prior knowledge. Finally, representations used to prompt prior knowledge activation should also be tailored to learners’ prior knowledge, where verbal-only representations are most suitable at lower levels of prior knowledge, and animations and pictures are most suitable at higher levels of prior knowledge.<br/><br/>Description: Wetzels, S. (2009). Individualised strategiesfor prior knowledge activation. Doctoral thesis. December, 18, 2009, Heerlen, Nederland: Open Universiteit Nederland. http://hdl.handle.net/1820/2391 Title: United Brains for Complex Learning. A cognitive-load approach to collaborative learning efficiency<br/><br/>Authors: Kirschner, Femke<br/><br/>Description: Kirschner, F. C. (2009). United Brains for Complex Learning. A cognitive-load approach to collaborative learning efficiency. Doctoral Dissertation, Open Universiteit, The Netherlands. http://hdl.handle.net/1820/2184 Title: Tags and self-organisation: a metadata ecology for learning resources in a multilingual context<br/><br/>Authors: Vuorikari, Riina<br/><br/>Abstract: This thesis studies social tagging of learning resources in a multilingual context. Social tagging and its end products, tags, are regarded as part of the learning resources metadata ecology. The term “metadata ecology” is used to mean the interrelation of conventional metadata and social tags, and their interaction with the environment, which can be understood as the repository in the large sense (resources, metadata, interfaces and underlying technology) and its community of users.The main hypothesis is that the self-organisation aspect of a social tagging system on a learning resource portal helps users discover learning resources more efficiently. Moreover, user-generated tags make the system, which operates in a multilingual context, more robust and flexible.Social tags offer an interesting aspect to study learning resources, its metadata and how users interact with them in a multilingual context. Tags, as opposed to conventional metadata description such as Learning Object Metadata (LOM), are free, non-hierarchical keywords that end-users associate with a digital artefact, e.g. a learning resource. Tags are formed by a triple of (user,item,tag).Tags and the resulting networks, folksonomies, are commonly modelled as tri-partite hypergraphs. This ternary relational structure gives rise to a number of novel relations to better understand, capture and model contextual information.This thesis first provides two exploratory studies to better understand how users tag learning resources in a multilingual context and to find evidence on the “cross-boundary use” of learning resources. The term cross-boundary use means that the user and the resource come from different countries and that the language of the resource is different from that of the user’s mother tongue. The second part introduces a trilogy of studies focusing on self-organisation, flexibility and robustness of a social tagging system using empirical, behavioural data captured from log-files and user’s attention metadata trails on a number of learning resource portals and platforms in amultilingual context.<br/><br/>Description: Vuorikari, R. (2009). Tags and self-organisation: a metadata ecology for learning resources in a multilingual context. Doctoral thesis. November, 13, 2009, Heerlen, The Netherlands: Open University of the Netherlands, CELSTEC.