Research

At this site you can find information on running research projects. For more information we structured our research in different ways:

• running projects,
• running PhD projects, and
• completed PhD projects.

The central question of research is how people learn and become a professional at work and for work, and how that can be fostered. All projects deal with professional development in vocational education and training or informal learning at work, at different levels: individual, team and/or organizational / system level. We investigate in all kinds of domains, such as nursing, elder care, consultancy, IT, insurance companies, industry, education, and in some cases focusing on specific groups such as older workers.
These projects focus at individual level at the development of innovative work behaviour, informal learning activities, reflection, motivation, competences, at work and in Vocational Education and Training (VET). In addition we investigate what the effects are of potential triggers of learning for employees' development, such as feedback, errors, characteristics of work tasks (e.g. autonomy, complexity).
At team level we investigate team learning processes, team mental models, shared cognition, the role of communication and emotions in team learning, diversity in teams and leadership. In addition, a topic is the development and evaluation of instruction in VET.
At organizational/system level topics of research concern all aspects of learning organizations, innovations and diffusion in organizations and in VET, analyses of education and training systems at national level (Human Resource Development system, international comparison of teacher education system). Next to investigating the consequences of VET systems for research in this domain, (the use of) research methods are of our interest: the development of measurement instruments (e.g. feedback culture, innovative work behaviour, team learning), and methods for research on Human Resource Development and professional development (Vignette Technique, Critical Incident Technique, Structural Equation Modeling).