Research focus areas
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The research of the department follows the empirical paradigm, whereby a number of different research approaches are chosen and constructively related to each other (mixed methods approach, variety of methods). On the one hand, objects of vocational training and development are to be explored, reconstructed and thus made scientifically comprehensible (e.g., changed work modes due to digitalization, motives for career choice and subjective theories underlying career choice). On the other hand, theoretically derived statements in the corresponding subject area are to be empirically tested (e.g., the connection between workplace characteristics and training conditions on the professional development of trainees and apprentices). As a theoretical starting point, approaches of expertise research as well as workplace learning are in the focus of the subject area.
A large part of vocational education, development and learning processes takes place in practice-based teaching-learning settings (e.g. in-company training; traineeships; internships; gainful employment; special teaching-learning arrangements such as school stations or trainee branches). In the context of such practice-based teaching-learning settings, learners are confronted with authentic challenges of the respective field of activity and can cognitively deal with the set problems and tasks as well as the experienced phenomena of the respective occupational domain through goal-oriented action, which is intended to trigger various learning processes. Despite the high social relevance as well as a certain omnipresence of practice-based learning processes, they are a rather neglected research area so far. In particular (empirically), there are still only insufficiently secured findings on conditional factors of learning processes in practice. Conditional factors in this context are on the one hand characteristics on the personal (i.e. concerning the employees themselves: e.g. personality facets, convictions) as well as on the situational (i.e. concerning the workplace, the superordinate work organization as well as further relevant socio-cultural contexts: e.g. quality and activity of the company training personnel) level which explain learning in practice. On the other hand, these also include design criteria of practice contexts which are suitable for promoting and stimulating practice-based learning processes (e.g. special teaching-learning arrangements and their design). The field is dedicated to the in-depth generation of knowledge in this area.
Social and technical developments have a direct influence on different spheres of work and life. The subject of this research focus of the field are corresponding developments due to prevalent digitization tendencies. A research deficit in this context is that it is unclear (a) how ongoing digitization changes occupational domains, (b) what effects this has or will have on the performance and organization of work, and (c) thus also on vocational education and training. These research desiderata are addressed by the field. One focus is on the questions of the extent to which informal learning processes in the context of occupational activity change in digitized work contexts and the extent to which formal educational contexts (especially vocational training) can or must respond to corresponding changes (in a compensatory manner).
There are still relatively few findings on the motivations (motives, subjective theories, anticipated framework conditions, experienced doubts) that lead people to decide for or against certain occupational profiles and on the relevance of these motivations for the further career development of employees. The focus of this research area is therefore, on the one hand, the empirical recording of the relevant motivations including the development of corresponding survey instruments and, on the other hand, the investigation of the connection of patterns of career choice behavior to individual-specific, company-specific and socially relevant dependent variables. In this context, a particular research interest lies in the question of how different patterns of career choice behavior affect the retention of individuals within the chosen occupation, the occupational satisfaction and salutogenesis of employees as well as their professional development with regard to their professional competence and maturity, their professional identity as well as their professional ethos. A focus also lies on the subject-related understanding of the emergence of motivations for or against remaining in a domain.
Nationally as well as internationally it has to be stated that the pedagogically oriented scientific community with its focus on professional teaching-learning as well as development processes only makes use of a limited repertoire of research methods for the investigation of its different questions. Compared to other scientific communities (e.g. psychology or organizational behavior), newer methodological developments are taken up only slowly or rarely. With this research focus, the department pursues the goal of exploring, adapting and establishing research methods that have so far only been used to a limited extent in its own scientific community. On the one hand, this is to be achieved by participating in research methodological discourses. On the other hand, innovative and hitherto little-established methods are to be increasingly used in own research projects to gain knowledge (e.g. Ecological Momentary Assessments, Eye Tracking, Q-method as well as subject-related longitudinal research oriented towards the methodology of Grounded Theory.