DPU

Aarhus Universitets segl

RN2 Members

Research Network 2 "Workplace Learning"

Members are listed in alphabetical order by country.

Research Network Coordinator: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Lynne Chisholm

Lynne Chisholm, Professor of Education and Generation at the University of Innsbruck (Austria), is an international specialist in education, training and youth research in comparative and intercultural context. She coordinates the university's Research Centre on Education, Generation and Life-course, where she leads research projects focusing on competence development in non-formal learning contexts, especially social and intercultural competences. She is regularly involved in undertaking European and international studies and reports in these fields; in addition, she is a member of the Austrian Research Funding Council (FWF), the Austrian Council of Universities of Applied Sciences (FHR) and is Chair of the Governing Council of the Carinthia University College of Education; concurrently, she is Visiting Professor at the University of Oslo (for education and citizenship).


Prof. Dr. Annette Ostendorf, Innsbruck University, School of Management, Austria

Annette Ostendorf is the chair for business education at Innsbruck University, School of Management since 2006. From 1989 to 2005, she worked as an assistant professor at the University of Munich (LMU). She wrote her thesis on knowledge management discourse at the University of Munich, School of Management. Her current research interests are related to workplace learning, cross-border learning, poststructuralist educational theory, development of vocational competences, portfolio work and textbook research. Her teaching experiences include seminars and lectures in vocational didactics, business education theory and research, management of educational organizations, human resource development and intercultural learning.


Kathrin Helling, M.A., University of Innsbruck, Austria

Kathrin Helling is Research Officer at the University of Innsbruck, Institute for Educational Science. She works closely with Lynne Chisholm and is responsible for communication flow within the network, but has also been working on the data analysis for the Austrian national survey and the RN2 comparative survey of employees’ perceptions and experiences of workplace learning and work-related learning. She previously gathered experience in several European projects on this topic, with a focus on computer-supported workplace learning and communities of practice, in a lifelong learning context. From summer 2011, she will be in North America on study leave for nine months in the United States.


Helmut Fennes, Institute of Educational Science, University of Innsbruck

Helmut Fennes is a researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Educational Science, University of Innsbruck (https://www.uibk.ac.at/ezwi/) with special focus on non-formal education/learning, intercultural education, citizenship education/learning and youth affaires. He is an internationally recognised expert in international youth work and for European-level training and training of trainers in the youth field, including at the Council of Europe’s Directorate of Youth and Sports and as former Director of the Intercultural Centre in Vienna (National Agency of the European Union’s youth programmes). His experience includes the development and implementation of numerous national and international research projects in the field of on citizenship education and non-formal education/learning as well as seminars and training courses for teachers, youth workers, youth leaders and trainers in non-formal education in Europe and in the Middle East.
For further details see https://www.uibk.ac.at/ezwi/mitarbeiterinnen/univ.-ass.-ezw/
and https://www.uibk.ac.at/ezwi/mitarbeiterinnen/univ.-ass.-ezw/helmut_fennes/about.html.

helmut.fennes@uibk.ac.at

Prof. Dr. Jian-Min Sun, Renmin University of China

Jian-Min Sun is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the School of Labour and Human Resources and the School of Business at Renmin University of China (People’s University of China) in Beijing. He was a Fulbright visiting scholar in the College of Business Administration at University of Florida in 2007-2008 and received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Beijing Normal University. His research focuses on personality and performance, leadership, human resource management, and cross-cultural differences in the business field. His works appear in journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Leadership and Organizational Development Journal, Sociological Review, Journal of Social Psychology and Management World. He is a member of the International Association of Applied Psychology, the Academy of Management and the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.


Prof. Dr. Milan Pol, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic

Milan Pol is Professor of Education and Chair of the Department of Educational Sciences in the Faculty of Arts at Masaryk University in Brno. In his research, education and development activities he focuses on the development of schools as institutions, specific organisations and communities. His recent research projects concern school culture, democracy at schools and life and professional paths of school leaders.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Petr Novotný, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic

Petr Novotný is Assistant Professor at the Department of Educational Sciences in the Faculty of Arts at Masaryk University in Brno. His main fields of research are learning, work and innovation. His focus is divided between andragogy (including the elaboration of the subject of workplace learning) and methodology of educational research. He has co-directed several research studies on school development (Czech School Culture and the Strategies of its Development, Democracy in Czech Schools, Czech School Head-teachers and their Life and Professional Careers, Teachers and Innovation). Recent publications include Workplace Learning. Possibilities to apply the concept of workplace learning in the Czech environment (in Czech) and an edited volume entitled Workplaces as learning spaces (in Czech and in English), whose contributions are authored by members of Research Network 2.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Linda Kragelund, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark

Linda Kragelund is Associate Professor in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning at the National Centre of Competence Development at the Copenhagen campus ofAarhus University, where the Danish School of Education is located. In her research, she focuses on workplace learning and competence development in the nursing profession, hospital wards as learning environments and on concept development in relation to learning in practice.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bent B. Andresen, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark

Bent B. Andresen is Associate Professor in the Danish School of Education at Aarhus University’s Copenhagen campus. He is also member of the IFIP working group on lifelong learning. His research interests include teaching and learning throughout life and under different circumstances, pedagogical choices, the application of digital technologies in education, and methods of research and assessment. He has written several books, contributed to others and written numerous articles and conference papers.


Prof. Dr. Valérie Cohen-Scali, University of Caen-Lower Normandy, France

Valérie Cohen-Scali is a social psychologist and Professor of Adult Education at the University of Caen-Lower Normandy in northern France. She also contributes to the work of the university’s Research Centre in Educational Sciences and co-directs her department’s research group on professional identity in adult education. In addition, she is Associate Researcher at the Laboratory of School and Career Counselling, which is part of the National Institute of Studies on Work and Career Counselling in Paris, and associate editor of the journal L’Orientation Scolaire et Professionnelle [School and Vocational Guidance]. Her research interests concern the development of professional identity of young adults who work while studying, organisational socialization, and the evolution of identity and competences of training, counselling and social work professionals.


Dr. Gábor Erdei, University of Debrecen, Hungary

Gábor Erdei is Research Fellow in the Department of Andragogy and Cultural Studies at the University of Debrecen’s Institute of Educational Sciences. Having completed his Ph.D. on the role of companies in adult learning in Hungary’s Northern Great Plain Region, his research and publications focus on workplace learning and include regional and social development and adult education, cultural institutes and adult learning, leisure time and learning time in adulthood. In addition, he has participated in a number of EU research projects funded under the Erasmus, Grundtvig and Leonardo chapters of the Lifelong Learning Programme as well as under the Interreg programme.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kenji Hirata, Toyo University, Japan

Kenji Hirata is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Psychology at Toyo University in Tokyo. He received his first degree from Waseda University and his doctorate from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He is a specialist in ‘expert science’, which studies the acquisition, assessment and management of knowledge, ability, skill and competence from the viewpoints of both psychometrics and informatics. Before moving into academic life, he spent 17 years as a training and e-learning developer in a management consultancy company , during which time he also acted as a consultant for organisational development and human resource management. He now continues with his consultancy work from his university base, particularly for workplace learning issues. He has also contributed as national delegate to the development of ISO-based training standards, in this context also serving as Vice-President of the Society for Human Resources and on the standards committees for Mark-up Language, Embedded Technology Skills, IT Skills and Bio-Tech Industry Skills. He chairs the Skills Management section of the Object Management Group and the Working Group on Quality Management in the Asian e-Learning Network.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Elina Maslo, University of Latvia

Elina Maslo is an educational scientist and has taught Danish as a foreign language at the University of Latvia in Riga since 1994, where she holds an associate professorship. In 2003, she completed her doctorate on young people learning Danish as a second language, and currently works at the National Library of Education at the Copenhagen campus of Aarhus University, where the Danish School of Education is located, as well as teaching Danish as a foreign language for adults. Her research interests focus on transformative learning processes and identifying teaching/learning methods that make these successful in formal, non-formal and informal learning environments. Workplaces are key learning contexts for adults, including for language learning, which accounts for her interest in RN2.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Daiva Bukantaite, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

Daiva Bukantaite works both as Associate Professor in the Music Academy and in the Department of Education at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, and as Senior Specialist in the university’s Project Management Office. In addition, she participates in research activities at the university-linked Centre of Vocational Education and Research. She received her Ph.D. in learning networks organisations from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Vytautas Magnus University in 2005 and her areas of research interest cover education management, learning organisations, organisational networks and cultures, emotions in organisations and educational marketing; she is currently on leave of absence from her university.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ruhizan Mohammad Yasin, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Ruhizan Mohammad Yasin is Deputy Dean for Research and Community Affairs and Associate Professor in in the Faculty of Education at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia) in Kuala Lumpur, specialising in sustainable education and Science, Technology and Vocational Education (TVET) curriculum and evaluation. She has also collaborated with universities in China, Germany and Ireland in the EU Asia Link’s DCCD (Design and Implementation of Curriculum on Curriculum Development) project.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nor Aishah Buang, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Nor Aishah Buang is Associate Professor in educational science at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (National University of Malaysia), where she has worked since 1988 after earning first and second degrees in the USA (B.A. in Economics at California State University and M.A. in Education at the University of Minnesota, Duluth). She returned to the USA to complete a Ph.D. in Education at Indiana State University, Bloomington in 1994, specialising in curriculum and instruction, following this up with a second M.A. in Business Administration 1999 from her home university. She is a visiting member of the academic staff at Malaysia’s Multimedia University and Bandar Utama College; she additionally works as a training and research consultant for the Multimedia Development Corporation, the Technopreneur Development Centre, INSKEN (Institut Keusahawanan Negara) and KOPERTIS (Centre for Private Universities in Sumatera) in Indonesia.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Theo van Dellen, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Theo van Dellen is Associate Professor in the Department of Pedagogy and Educational Sciences at the Faculty of Behavioural and Societal Sciences, University of Groningen, where he has worked since completing his Ph.D. in psychology there in 1987. His doctoral research was in the field of experimental psychology, looking at children’s motor skills, but his research interests then moved to human resource development with a specific focus on adult training and development. Between 1996 and 2005 he was extensively involved in the provision of advice and consultancy services to external training organisations, typically on HRD issues such as management development, the professionalism of adult trainers, and motivation and motion in adult learning and development. Currently, he is particularly interested in emotion, motivation and adult learning (adult learning theory), the professional role of teachers, trainers and coaches in adult learning process and the organisation learning climate.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Patcharawalai Wongboonsin, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Patcharawalai Wongboonsin is Associate Professor at the College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, specialising in globalisation, labour migration and demography in Asia, and is member of the Executive Board of the university’s Institute of Asian Studies. She completed her postgraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania (USA) and her Ph.D. at Kyushu University in Japan. An expert of international standing in her field, she is equally Deputy Director of the Thai European Studies Centre, member of the East Asian Economic Cooperation Council and the East Asian Economic Cooperation Council and she represents Thailand in the East Asian Network Think Tank. In addition, she is chief editor of the Asian Review and Asia Trend journals.


Areeya Rojvithee, Thailand

Areeya Rojvithee now works as a consultant to the ILO on Skills for Green Jobs, following a long and distinguished career in the Thai government service, rising to become Deputy Director General in the Department of Skill Development at the Ministry of Labour. She holds an M.P.A. from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and a Diploma in Social Planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK). She joined the Thai civil service in 1973 and spent four decades working in labour relations, skill development and international affairs before her retirement from active government service in 2009. Throughout her career, she remained active in vocational training policy research, with particular interests in gender issues and regional development in Asia. She was a founding member of the ASEM-LLL Advisory Board and has been an active member of its workplace learning research network since its inception.


Prof. Dr. Karen Evans, University of London Institute of Education, UK

Karen Evans is Professor for Lifelong Learning at the Institute of Education University of London and Co-Director of the WLE Centre. She was previously Professor of Post-Compulsory Education and Director of the Post-graduate Centre for Professional and Adult Learning at the University of Surrey. Her main fields of research are learning in life and work transitions, and learning in and through the workplace. She has directed 16 major studies of learning and the world of work in Britain and internationally. Books include Learning, Work and Social Responsibility (2009); Improving Workplace Learning (2006); Reconnection: Countering Social Exclusion through Situated Learning (2004); Working to Learn (2002); Learning and Work in the Risk Society (2000). She is also joint editor of COMPARE, the Journal of Comparative and International Education.


Research Network 2: Associate Members

Katharina Lunardon, University of Innsbruck, Austria

Katharina Lunardon worked as anchor person for the RN2 network at the University of Innsbruck between 2008 and 2010, and in this context helped to coordinate the network’s comparative survey on workplace learning. Her interests focus on transitions from educational institutions to working life and vice-versa, and on the links between teaching and research as a means of strengthening the links between students' interests and the realities of universities as organisations. She is also working on her M.A. thesis about work ethics.


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Guibin Mu, Hebei University, PR China

Guibin Mu is Associate Professor at Hebei University School of Educatiion’s Department of Psychology in Baoding in northern China. He began his career as an information and educational technologist before completing his Ph.D. in human resources development at Renmin University of China, since which time he has collaborated and published together with Jian-Min Sun. His research interests lie in learning in organizations and working life, human resource development and knowledge management.


Dr. Magdolna Benke, National Institute for Vocational and Adult Education, Hungary

Magdolna Benke is Senior Researcher at the National Institute for Vocational and Adult Education (NIVE) in Budapest and concurrently Associate Professor for Human Resource Management at King Sigismund College, a private higher education institution located in Budapest . She received her Ph.D. in Economics and Social Studies from the Corvinus University of Economics, Budapest and has subsequently directed a range of projects in the vocational education and training (VET) field, including at European level (Research Framework Programme and for CEDEFOP, the EU’s vocational training agency). These projects and their resulting reports and publications have focused on European comparative study of the role of the social partners in VET, company training systems in Hungary, work experience as a VET strategy and the analysis of skills needs. A regular contributor to international specialist conferences in her field, she is also a board member of the European Vocational Education and Training Network (VETNET) and an active member of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) since 2006.


Zoltán Tozsér, University of Debrecen, Hungary

Zoltán Tozsér is a Ph.D. student working closely with his supervisor Gábor Erdei at the University of Debrecen, including on the Hungarian national survey within the RN2 comparative project. His main research and publication fields are adult education, vocational education and training and workplace learning.


Aija Perš?vica, Univeristy of Latvia

Aija Perš?vica is pursuing her doctorate on teacher job satisfaction at the Institute of Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Latvia in Riga, using data collected as part of the RN2 comparative survey. With a particular interest in the quality of education, she participated in the preparation of the Latvian national report for the network’s workplace learning study.


Dmitrijs Ku?šs, University of Latvia

Dmitrijs Ku?šs is a Ph.D. student at the University of Latvia. His main interest in research is adult learning in the context of lifelong learning. He has contributed to the Latvian policy in this field and devotes his work for closer cooperation between policy makers and researchers.


Ludmila Babajeva, University of Latvia

Ludmila Babajeva is currently preparing a doctoral thesis on workplace learning for personal development under the supervision of Professor Tatjana Koke at the University of Latvia’s Institute of Pedagogical Sciences in Riga, using data collected as part of the RN2 comparative survey. Her core research interests are lifelong learning, adult education, learning theories and workplace learning.


Dr. Natasha Kersh, University of London Institute of Education, UK

Natasha Kersh is Research Officer in the ESRC Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies Research Centre (LLAKES), where she is working on literacy and adult learning, and she also teaches in the Faculty of Policy and Society at the University of London Institute of Education. Her doctoral research in comparative and international education was supported through a Soros Scholarship; subsequently, her research work has focused on workplace learning, employability and post-compulsory education. She has been involved in a number of national and international projects –for example, the EU-funded project Approval of Modules in Vocational Training and the ESRC-funded project Improving Incentives to Workplace Learning.