As higher education quality assurance in many countries in Europe has become a mature activity, some agencies carrying out external quality assurance are developing beyond their core tasks and missions. The current study identifies new tasks taken up within quality assurance agencies and analyses the drivers behind such development. Based on an…

Most university-level engineering studies produce technically skilled engineers. However, typically students face several difficulties when working in multidisciplinary teams when they initiate their industrial careers. In a globalised world, it becomes increasingly important that engineers are capable of collaborating across disciplinary…

Networks aiming for fundamental changes bring together a variety of actors who are part and parcel of a problematic context. These system innovation projects need to be accompanied by a monitoring and evaluation approach that supports and maintains reflexivity to be able to deal with uncertainties and conflicts while challenging current practices…

Examined were the purposes and problems, as well as the present status and trends, of pre-school educational evaluation in seven European countries; Belgium, France, Germany (Federal Republic), Netherlands, Scandanavia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. These analysis required that national surveys be written which would first give brief…

The principal focus of this study was the assessment of mathematics in primary education within Realistic Mathematics Education (RME), a mathematics reform movement begun in The Netherlands in the 1960s. The book that resulted from this study is comprised of seven chapters, the first four of which constitute part 1 and are the core of the work.…

This overview of educational evaluation in the Netherlands provides background and details the state of the art in student, curriculum, and innovation evaluation. The role of international evaluation issues (such as evaluation criteria and the decision-making process) in evaluation theory and practice in The Netherlands is discussed. (BS)

A study carried out in the largest telecommunication organization in the Netherlands focused on-the-job training (OJT) as an effective training method. It also studied which variables explained OJT effectiveness and whether improvement of OJT effectiveness was possible through modification of training design. The objective was to improve trainee…

This paper summarizes the main results of a meta-evaluation of innovative education programs in Dutch education. Attention is focused on contextual influences, while a case is made for prudent and feasible ways of "rational reconstruction" and for an acitve evaluation policy aimed at overcoming contextual constraints. (LMO)

Educators from Holland and member countries of the Council of Europe attended a symposium on innovation in primary education in the Netherlands. Much of the discussion was based on the evaluation report, "Lessons from Practice: the Primary Education Act Reviewed." Participants evaluated initial, partial research results, and compared…

A study investigated the success of a project to create a more student-centered engineering curriculum at a Dutch technical university by assessing how faculty's conceptions of teaching related to their teaching practices. Results indicated that although faculty had strong commitment to student learning, they also had misconceptions about…

This paper analyzes a research project that maps implementation efforts of comprehensive and mandated change at the primary school level in The Netherlands. In examining this large-scale national reform program, the report deals with schools whose innovation efforts acquired funding from the central education department in return for their local…