Ongoing technological and economic developments lead to the need of lifelong learning for all employees. For lifelong learning specific competencies have to be acquired. Important is that students acquire these before entering the labour market, in vocational education. The central question here is: ‘What characteristics of learning environments lead to the development of competencies for lifelong learning?’ Based on ideas of constructivism and situated learning, learning environments are developed, according the principles of Design-Based Research. The basis for these complex learning environments is twofold: the development of students is the central issue, and authentic tasks of the future jobs are part of the training. These learning environments are evaluated, with an experiment-control design, using questionnaires filled out by students (N=107). With T-Tests, correlation and regression analyses the data are analysed. Preliminary results show that motivation is positively influenced by these complex learning environments, and that there is a relation between work identity and characteristics of these learning environments. In this paper the effects of the characteristics of the complex learning environments (called ‘job task learning environments’) on acquiring competencies will be elaborated on.  

Ongoing technological and economic developments lead to the need for lifelong learning for all employees. Therefore adequate job preparation has to consist of acquiring required competencies for lifelong learning. Students have to acquire these before they enter the labour market, especially in vocational education. Studies on effects of secondary vocational education pay attention to different kind of problems in this domain, as for instance the discrepancies between on-the-job training and of-the-job training (e.g. De Bruijn, 1998; Sloane, 2004). In this paper we focus on the effects between complex learning environments on acquiring competencies.

These competencies are required for adequate job performance and lifelong learning. It is important to state that competencies are required for being able to carry out job specific activities and solving (job)problems in complex job situations (e.g. Ellström, 1997). Competencies are defined here as the combination of knowledge, skills and attitude, in relation to one another and in relation to (future) jobs (Mulder & Baumann, 2005). Competencies are a personal capacity. Here we distinguish between occupational (or vocational) competencies, social communicative competencies and metacognitive competencies (cf. Sonntag, 1992). The assumption is that students need these groups of competencies for adequate job performance as well as for lifelong learning.

The central question of this paper is: ‘What characteristics of learning environments lead to the development of competencies for lifelong learning?’ The theoretical framework of this study consists of an instructional model, based on ideas of constructivism and situated learning (e.g. Savery & Duffy, 1995; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Learning is defined as an active, constructive and reconstructive process, and depends on the characteristics of the context. The development of the students as well as the job specific practice, are the basic elements in these learning environments. The assumption of this theoretical model is that learning environments lead to all required competencies for lifelong learning when the different component of learning environments, namely ‘content’, ‘form’, ‘assessment’, ‘teacher behaviour’ and ‘the context’ are consistent, and fit perfectly (Mulder, 2005).

An example of a characteristic of complex learning environments in accordance with this theoretical framework is that it has to consist of authentic tasks that have to challenge the students. Teachers have to coach the students and scaffold them in solving the authentic tasks. In accordance with the assumption that acquiring competencies can be improved by social negotiation, it is important that students learn and work in a cooperative setting. In addition, assessment should fit the content of the tasks and the goals of the learning environment. This means that assessment focuses on the competencies of students, namely on those that they need in professional life.

In one vocational college complex learning environments are developed in accordance with this theoretical framework. Therefore we used a development strategy in accordance with the method of Design-Based Research (e.g. Brown, 1992; Collins, 1992). Teachers of this school developed the learning environments together with the students, school board, and other relevant actors. Researchers’ role is to participate in the development, as well as take care of objective and systematic data collection, in order to be able to improve the design already during the development period. These data have to be analysed adequately in order to derive successful characteristics of learning environments for other contexts.

Data was collected in this vocational college. These (‘job task’) learning environments are evaluated, with an experiment-control group design. Three different groups of students with similar educational background participated. The first (control) group joins training on- and off-the-job. The second one is participating in the treatment. And the third (control) group consists of one class participating in a traditional form of education, only off-the-job.

With questionnaires background characteristics, motivation, and characteristics of learning environments are measured, before, during and at the end of school year 2005-2006 (total N=107). For assessing competencies cases are developed and filled out by the students. T-Tests, correlation and regression analyses are carried out.

Adequate scales are found for the components of the learning environments. Relations between various characteristics of these complex learning environments are found on motivation (Messmann, 2006) and work identity (Mulder, et al, 2006). In this contribution the theoretical framework, the characteristics of the intervention as well the research method will be elaborated on. Furthermore the effects of the characteristics of the learning environments on acquiring competencies for lifelong learning will be presented.

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