Research

The research projects of the section Professional Learning & Technology focus on how to support the learning and development of (future) professionals. Lifelong learning has been embraced as the key to employability, economic success, and dealing with the continuous changes the workforce is nowadays facing. For example, the energy transition, the digital transformation, the increasing complexity of health care, as well as large-scale technological innovations: all require people to keep on learning and developing themselves. This does not only take place at the individual level but also in increasingly multidisciplinary teams and across organizational boundaries, with more and more novel ways of organizing and working together emerging on the organizational landscape (e.g., learning communities or living labs).  

In our research, we study these developments from various angles and perspectives, including individual and team learning processes, leadership, innovation, organizational change, new forms of organizing, collaboration, and professional identity development. We draw from various scholarly communities to do so, such as Educational Sciences, Business Administration, Organization Studies, and Communication Science. Our research ranges from advanced statistical analyses and measurements with bodily sensors to highly embedded, ethnographic, and interpretative approaches. What always stands central for us is processuality: We choose longitudinal designs and processual analyses over one-time-measurements, driven by an interest in understanding how processes unfold and evolve over time. We also increasingly experiment with action research and co-creation set-ups, seeking to strengthen our contributions to practice.  

In many of our research projects, technology plays a major role in several ways: to measure learning processes and outcomes (e.g., sensors, apps, or physiological measurements), to support learning (e.g., through virtual reality, digital learning environments, or mobile applications), and as a context in which learning, innovation, and collaboration take place (e.g., learning to work on or with technological innovations). We closely collaborate with the BMS-Lab in our projects. 

Our research is funded by NWO, NWA, TechYourFuture, the European Commission, and several partners in the health, technology, and education sectors. A complete overview of our research projects can be found here

Are you interested in collaborating or joining our research team? Contact the head of the section, Prof. dr. Maaike Endedijk or click here for more information on how we collaborate with the field.