Bram De Wever

Ghent University | UGhent · Department of Educational Studies

Evidence has emerged on the importance of emotions for students’ problem-solving. Despite the convincing evidence on the role of emotions, there has not been much discussion on how the emergence of different kinds of emotions is related to IT students’ problem-solving as well as the challenges of retention and dropout rates. We measure emotions in...

Low-educated adults participate less in adult education than higher-educated adults. In this study, we analyze psychosocial barriers to learning while acknowledging that barriers for low-educated adults may be different from those of medium- and high-educated adults. An extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior is used to study training in...

This paper has investigated the importance of explicit instruction and collaborative writing on (a) argumentative writing performance and (b) self-efficacy for writing of secondary school students. This intervention study additionally aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of alternating between individual and collaborative writing throughout the writ...

It is well established that students' motivation for writing is a key predictor of their writing performance. The aim of the current study is to study and map the relations underlying different motivational constructs (i.e., implicit theories, achievement goals, self-efficacy, and writing motives) and to investigate how these contribute to students...

Low-educated adults do not often engage in lifelong learning. The current study examines whether and how psychosocial beliefs about lifelong learning differ between adults with different levels of educational attainment. The Theory of Planned Behaviour, which focuses on three specific psychosocial beliefs (related to Perceived Behavioural Control,...

Dodona (dodona.ugent.be) is an intelligent tutoring system for computer programming. It bridges the gap between assessment and learning by providing real-time data and feedback to help students learn better, teachers teach better and educational technology become more effective. We demonstrate how Dodona can be used as a virtual co-teacher to stimu...

The aim of this study is twofold: (1) to distinguish writer profiles on the basis of students’ cognitive processes and motives for argumentative writing and (2) to study differences in the distribution of students’ background characteristics and in students’ writing outcomes across writer profiles. Participants were students who are enrolled in the...

Blended learning is door de Corona pandemie niet meer weg te denken uit het onderwijs. Ook het Vlaams secundair onderwijs schakelde noodgedwongen over op blended learning. Terwijl blended learning in eerste instantie werd geïmplementeerd vanuit noodzaak, willen sommige scholen blended learning ook structureel implementeren. Een eerste doel van het...

Tijdens de eerste lockdown ten gevolge van de Covid-19-pandemie schakelden scholen over op nood-afstandsonderwijs.1 Bij aanvang van de tweede lockdown, in het najaar van 2020, werd door onze secundaire scholen vaak een vorm van blended learning georganiseerd.2 Hierbij werden zowel face-to-face (F2F) als online onderwijsleeractiviteiten ontworpen. V...

As a growing number of educational institutions are offering online programs, teachers need to be competent in this new way of teaching. This is especially the case for synchronous online learning through videoconferencing technology, an emergent and so far understudied form of online education. Based on a systematic literature review of 30 studies...

Assessing argumentative writing skills is not a straightforward task, as multiple elements need to be considered. In function of providing feedback to students and keeping track of their progress, evaluating argumentative texts in a suitable, valid and efficient way is important. In this state-of-the-art exploratory study, 130 argumentative texts w...

This study focuses on the problem solving skills in technology-rich environments of teachers. PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) data on adults’ (n = 11,294) competencies, is used to investigate how problem solving skills of teachers are associated with sociodemographic, work-related, and everyday-life related...

The shift to a knowledge society has transformed the way we live and work, which is especially challenging to adults with low education levels. Adult education could be the answer, but low-educated adults participate least in adult education. The present study uses data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies to in...

Abstract A collaboration script is a set of instructions used to improve collaborative learning among students in technology-enhanced environments. Previously, university students’ perspective has been under-represented in the study on collaboration scripts. In this article, we focus on understanding students’ experiences in a scripted collaborativ...

This study investigates the impact of providing teacher feedback on answers to guiding questions in the online environment of a flipped classroom setting. Participants were second year bachelor students enrolled in the “Invertebrates” courses (N = 104) at the School of Education in CanTho University (Vietnam), and were randomly assigned to two rese...

Background This case reports on a teacher education course that aimed to support adult learners with a vocational education background to accomplish open-ended tasks. Conjecture mapping was used to identify the most salient design features, and to test if, how, and why these course features supported learners. Methods: Inspired by ethnographic appr...

This study investigates the impact of providing teacher feedback on answers to guiding questions in the online environment of a flipped classroom setting. Participants were second year bachelor students enrolled in the “Invertebrates” courses (N = 104) at the School of Education in CanTho University (Vietnam), and were randomly assigned to two rese...

Even though studies have shown that the impact of professional development on inquiry-based learning (IBL) tends to remain limited when it fails to consider teachers’ beliefs, there is little known about how these beliefs influence teachers’ adoption of IBL. In answer to this issue, the present study offers a framework that explains teachers’ use o...

The evolving technological landscape in the digital era has a crucial influence on lifelong learning and the demand for problem‐solving skills. In this paper, we identify associations between formal, non‐formal and informal learning with sufficient problem‐solving skills in technology‐rich environments (TRE). We focus on adults' problem‐solving ski...

The International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET) is a double blind peer-reviewed journal for VET-related research. This journal provides full open electronic access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the science community and the public supports a greater global exchange of k...

In deze praktijkbijdrage beschrijven we een tweejarig project waarbij blended leren werd geïmplementeerd in de lerarenopleiding van de Universiteit Gent. Bij de implementatie van dit blended leren zijn docenten en opleidingsonderdelen uit verschillende faculteiten betrokken. In deze bijdrage schetsen we enkele praktijkvoorbeelden, belichten we het...

In this study, we introduce new insights into prosodic analyses as an emerging method to study teacher talk. We claim that the prosodic aspects (features of speech such as intonation, volume, and pace) of talk are important, but under-represented in the learning sciences. These prosodic aspects may be used to complement, intensify or even reverse t...

Dit boek stelt de belangrijkste bevindingen van het strategisch basisonderzoek (sbo) ‘Adult Learners Online! Online and Blended Learning in Adult Education and Training’ (ALO!) voor. Deze bevindingen komen voort uit een vierjarige samenwerking tussen drie universiteiten (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, KU Leuven en Universiteit Gent) en drie centra voo...

The ever-evolving technological landscape is challenging adults’ problem-solving skills. The central goal of higher education (HE) is to guarantee a high level of know-how, which is in line with the changing demands of technology at work and in everyday life. This study builds on European data from the Programme for the International Assessment of...

Collaborative synchronous writing tools like Google Docs and Etherpad let multiple users edit the same document and see each others edits in near real-time to simplify collaboration and avoid merge-conflicts. These tools are used extensively across many domains, including education, in both research and industry. The very nature of needing to const...

Professional development on inquiry-based learning (IBL) generally draws heavily on the principle of providing instruction in line with what teachers are expected to do in their classroom. So far, however, relatively little is known about how this impacts teachers’ educational beliefs, even though these beliefs ultimately determine their classroom...

Due to an error on the publisher’s side, the authors’ corrections to the proofs were unfortunately not incorporated into the original article. As a result, all references to the authors’ own work remained blinded, and minor textual errors went unattended. © 2018 Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisboa, Portugal and Springer Science+Busine...

Future workplaces require collaboration skills in which members of different work communities use technologies to solve complex problems. Vocational education and training (VET) programs need to meet the challenge to prepare students to be part of a competent workforce. Particularly initial vocational education is under pressure to develop learners...

The implementation of blended learning in higher education is increasing, often with the aim to offer flexibility in terms of time and place to a diverse student population. However, specific attention for the diversity of this group, and how to cater individual needs, is still scarce. Therefore, this study explores instructors’ strategies for and...

Criticizing the common approach of supporting peer assessment through providing assessors with an explication of assessment criteria, recent insights on peer assessment call for support focusing on assessees, who often assume a passive role of receivers of feedback. Feedback requests, which require assessees to formulate their specific needs for fe...

Adopting a differentiated and domain-specific view of educational technology, the present study focusses on the case of school history. It argues that, in this particular context, one of technology’s main assets is its ability to support inquiry-based learning activities, during which students interpret the past through historical reasoning. As lit...

Purpose Research has shown that the problem-solving skills of adults with a vocational education and training (VET) background in technology-rich environments (TREs) are often inadequate. However, some adults with a VET background do have sound problem-solving skills. The present study aims to provide insight into the socio-demographic, work-relate...

The design of blended learning environments brings with it four key challenges: (1) incorporating flexibility, (2) stimulating interaction, (3) facilitating students’ learning processes, and (4) fostering an affective learning climate. Seeing that attempts to resolve these challenges are fragmented across the literature, a systematic review was per...

The present study investigates a training program aimed at preparing pre-service history teachers for organizing inquiry-based learning (IBL) in class. This program consisted of a workshop and an assignment during the teaching internship period. Pre- and posttests indicate that the workshop had a significant effect on self-efficacy and attitude tow...

The present study explores secondary school history teachers’ knowledge of inquiry methods. To do so, a process model, outlining five core cognitive processes of inquiry in the history classroom, was developed based on a review of the literature. This process model was then used to analyze think-aloud protocols of 20 teachers’ reasoning during an i...

The present study examines the differential impact of studying in a Flipped Classroom (FC) setting, as compared to a Blended Learning (BL), a Traditional Learning (TL), and an E-Learning (EL) setting on learning performance, self-efficacy beliefs, intrinsic motivation, and perceived flexibility. Participants were second year undergraduate students...

This is the rst report in a series of studies concerning student teachers’ readiness-for-the-job, de ned by a framework of 11 international teacher competences (ITCs). Attaining readiness-for- the-job is connected to four characteristics of teacher education, namely; (1) employing the ITCs in day-to-day teaching in initial teacher education, (2) in...

The present study focuses on scaffolding inquiry practices in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment. The context of this study is a teacher education programme for adult learners with a background in vocational education and training (VET). Nine adult learners worked in four collaborative groups on a complex problem-solving assign...

This research study focuses on how supportive teaching practices in adult education can be predicted because supportive teaching practices are argued to improve learning. More in particular, we investigate the teacher- and institutional-level characteristics that affect teaching practices. To this end, we implement the conceptual framework of Self-...

Opportunities for collaborative work can support the process of information problem solving, although this is not a guaranteed outcome of collaborative work. Strong metacognitive regulation is necessary for successful web-based inquiry learning. In the light of these issues, the present study was intended to investigate the regulatory processes tha...

The present study provides a comprehensive picture of history teachers' conceptions of inquiry-based-learning (IBL), based on interviews with 22 secondary school teachers. The results indicate that, although most teachers' beliefs about the nature of history were conducive to teaching historical reasoning, their conceptions of IBL often remained li...

Learning paths have the potential to change the teaching and learning interaction between teachers and students in a computer-supported learning environment. However, empirical research about learning paths is scarce. Previous studies showed that the low adoption of learning paths can be linked to the lack of knowledge on the part of teachers about...

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study (carried out between 2011 and 2013) about the adoption and implementation of learning paths within a Learning Management System (LMS). Sixteen secondary school biology teachers of the GO! Network in Flanders (an urbanized region in Belgium) were involved in the study and questioned via semi-...

In this article, we address the issue of participation in adult education building on the cultural capital framework. This theoretical framework suggests that (educational) practices are affected by one’s social background and, more precisely, by the cultural resources handed down in the family context. To examine the validity of this theoretical f...

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study (carried out between 2011 and 2013) about the adoption and implementation of learning paths within a Learning Management System (LMS). Sixteen secondary school biology teachers of the GO! Network in Flanders (an urbanized region in Belgium) were involved in the study and questioned via semi-...

Educational quality is at the center of debates worldwide. In all these debates, teachers are considered as the critical actors determining to a large extent the quality of our educational systems. At the same time, doubts are expressed related to teachers’ quality as well as to the education or training of teachers. In this context, policy debates...

The present study examines the added value of structuring the peer assessment process, by providing students with a peer feedback template with a varying structuring degree, for the peer feedback content quality in a wiki environment in higher education. The present study took place in the 1st year of a university course in Instructional Sciences (...

The rapidly-advancing technological landscape in the European workplace is challenging adults' problem-solving skills. Workers with vocational education and training need flexible abilities to solve problems in technology-rich work settings. This study builds on Finnish PIAAC data to understand adults' (N = 4503) skills for solving problems in tech...

In Flanders (Belgium), the rising popularity of online and blended learning in adult education requires a scientifically validated approach to the issue of quality of online and blended learning. In this research, we will focus on the teaching process in these environments, and how teacher and institutional factors affect teaching practices. Based...

This study investigates how an instructional intervention focused on engaging both the assessor and assessee in the peer feedback process can be advantageous for the quality of students' peer feedback and written product in a wiki-based computer-supported collaborative learning environment in the first year of higher education. The main aim was to...

This study investigates the differential impact of blended learning (BL), face-to-face (F2F) and eLearning (EL) on learning performance (LP), also considering the effect of particular variables (self-efficacy (SE), intrinsic motivation(IM) and flexibility). Students were randomly allocated to one of the four experimental conditions (n F2F=22, n BL1...

This study investigates how an instructional intervention focused on engaging both the assessor and assessee in the peer feedback process can be advantageous for the quality of students' peer feedback and written product in a wiki-based computer-supported collaborative learning environment in the first year of higher education. The main aim was to...

Deze paper beschrijft vier studies die werden uitgevoerd in het kader van een doctoraatsonderzoek naar de ontwerp-en implementatiekenmerken van leerpaden binnen een ELO (Elektronische Leeromgeving). De eerste studie, een technologieacceptatie onderzoek, stelde vast dat leerkrachten secundair onderwijs hun ELO weinig gebruiken en dat ze zich meestal...

Oliver and Trigwell (2005) argue that the term blended learning remains unclear and ill-defined. It means different things to different people, which illustrates its widely untapped potential (Driscoll, 2002). Despite this, of the above described definitions, perhaps the most common interpretation is the one about the blend of online and offline le...

In problem-based learning, a tutor, the quality of the problems and group functioning play a central role in stimulating student learning. This study is conducted in a hybrid medical curriculum where problem-based learning is one of the pedagogical approaches. The aim of this study was to examine which tutor tasks are the most important during the...

In order to optimize students' peer feedback processes, this study investigates how an instructional intervention in the peer assessment process can have a beneficial effect on students' performance in a wiki environment in first-year higher education. The main aim was to study the effect of integrating a peer feedback template with a varying struc...

On game forums, players often discuss the positive impact of video games on their lives. We collected 964 messages from top ranked game forums (via Alexa.com) and analyzed them using a coding scheme based on an existing taxonomy about the impact of the arts. This directed qualitative content analysis resulted in an exploration of how players’ talk...

This article describes the performance of a laboratory exercise, the Slug Mucosal Irritation (SMI) assay, carried out by third year undergraduate students, to investigate the local tolerance of an ethanolic plant extract. The plant extract, Spilanthes acmella, contains various bio-active compounds, such as the N-alkylamide spilanthol. After adminis...

Developing authentic learning environments in higher education calls for pedagogical approaches to foster online collaborative learning. The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a collaboration script for a wiki task. A collaboration script is a set of instructions to improve collaboration between learning partners. Participants...

Learning analytics has been as used a tool to improve the learning process mainly at the micro-level (courses and activities). However, another of the key promises of Learning Analytics research is to create tools that could help educational institutions at the meso- and macro-level to gain a better insight of the inner workings of their programs,...