In vocational education, workplace simulations (WPS) have been implemented to ensure a better connection between the educational setting and the labour market. Moreover, WPS are supposed to motivate students and promote self-directed learning. So far, however, not much is known about the way students experience these WPS. The aim of the present…

In the field of aviation, air traffic controllers must be able to adapt to and act upon continuing changes in a highly advanced technological work environment. This position paper claims that explicit training of self-directed learning skills (i.e. the ability to: formulate own learning needs, set own learning goals, and identify learning tasks…

This study focuses on learning in three different hypermedia environments that either support autonomous learning, learner-controlled learning or system-controlled learning and explores the mediating role of academic self-regulation style (ASRS; i.e. a macro level of motivation) on learning. This research was performed to gain more insight in the…

Workplace simulations (WPS), authentic learning environments at school, are increasingly used in vocational education. This article provides a theoretical analysis and synthesis of requirements considering learner skills, characteristics of the learning environment and the role of the teacher that influence good functioning in WPS and foster…

This experimental study was designed to investigate whether supervision meetings, in which students receive specific advice on how to use a development portfolio to monitor their progress and plan their future learning, helps them to develop self-directed learning skills and improve their learning in the domain. In the first year of a hairdressing…

An intuitively appealing approach to increasing the flexibility of vocational education and training is to delegate choices on instruction, such as the selection of learning tasks, to students. However, empirical evidence shows that students often do not have sufficiently developed self-directed learning skills to select suitable tasks. This…

In on-demand education, students often experience problems with directing their own learning processes. A Structured Task Evaluation and Planning Portfolio (STEPP) was designed to help students develop 3 basic self-directed learning skills: Assessing the quality of own performance, formulating learning needs, and selecting future learning tasks. A…