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"Students"

New requirements of the increasingly digitalized world of work have an impact on modern engineering training. In view of these considerations, the aim of the present work is to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) for error detection into existing practical exercises for product development, taking sustainability aspects into account. The basis of the concept is the use of the smart factory to convey technical content in its real function, control, maintenance and repair, as well as 3D printing with the introduction of AI to detect defects in the manufacturing process (using cameras). This article examines the following research question: What methodologies to foster students’ digital competences are needed to enable it to form the basis of interdisciplinary team project activities of engineering students. At the centre of this investigation is the synergy between traditional teaching approaches and modern technologies to create an interactive and practice-oriented learning environment. The application scenario is the use of AI to design work process descriptions with the recognition of their limits: the optical quality inspection. The aim is to develop and test the teaching/learning modules with a focus on Industry 4.0 and AI-supported generative manufacturing with sustainability-oriented quality assurance. COMET-based competence measurement is offered as an additional instrument for recording the competence of teachers. The expectation of the concept advertised here is to test the implementation of the measure in the modules for the teaching degree program in industrial-technical subjects (GTF) and to gather experience for implementation on a larger scale. The preliminary studies to date promise a successful approach to the research question of designing digital skills development. Further work, in particular trialing interdisciplinary group work and the integration of real-time learning settings, is required to improve the results to date. The integration of further AI-based learning tools can also be realized in future work. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

This study proposes the Critical Incident Technique as an empirical tool to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching entrepreneurship competencies within entrepreneurship courses by using the Comprehensive Entrepreneurship Competence Model as a theoretical framework. The study focuses on the perceptions and experiences of 15 teachers who introduced in parallel, during two semesters in 2022, the same teaching approach in 39 entrepreneurship courses offered in 5 universities in Estonia, Finland, Italy, Poland, and Portugal. The teachers were asked to describe in detail specific incidents encountered during their teaching experience, without any cognitive filter represented by pre-established items, categories, and elements of evaluation of the teaching process. Then, the incidents were sorted into categories based on similarities in the content and classified as relating to positive and negative outcomes. Our findings contribute to the design of new educational programmes aiming at fostering students’ entrepreneurship competencies, showing peculiarities that need to be considered. Moreover, the study emphasizes the importance of using a range of evaluation approaches when testing a new method and suggests that exploring the teaching process, in addition to learning outcomes, can provide useful insights to inform the design of the teaching. © 2024 Society for Research into Higher Education.

The combination of knowledge and skill sets from robotics and Artificial Intelligence has proven as a powerful catalyst for students’ learning experiences, when applying available resources and knowledge acquired through vocational training. Within the Department of IT at an Austrian vocational high school, our students actively engage in projects that combine robotics and AI. Our diploma theses extend beyond mere classroom theory, allowing interested students to apply their knowledge in authentic, real-world scenarios in the form of thesis projects which span different engineering and IT disciplines. Our goal is to emphasize hands-on experiences and encourage our students to design, construct and program robots, even with the addition of AI technology, such as image recognition and classification trained for specific tasks. Through this practical immersion, our students gain a deeper understanding of robotics and AI, disciplines that are at the forefront of today’s technological innovation. We worked with two groups of students on interdisciplinary projects bridging the gap between robotics and AI and based on our students’ feedback found an increase in motivation to learn not only about the fields themselves, but also about related fields, from mathematical theory to better understand the intricate workings of AI algorithms to electronics and working with microcontrollers. Personal interviews with involved students have also pointed toward an increased motivation through the intense cooperation between the team members as well as the teachers responsible for supporting the project teams through their thesis projects. Projects connecting robotics and AI empower students to become adaptable, creative problem-solvers which is a crucial foundation for success in the twenty-first century. By fostering collaboration and critical thinking, while enhancing students’ technical skills and equipping them with the adaptability and creativity they require, this educational approach prepares students to thrive in a rapidly changing world where both disciplines play pivotal roles. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

Purpose: In the evolving landscape of the 21st century, characterized by dynamic global challenges such as health crises, climate change, and rapid technological advancements, the imperative of lifelong learning has become more pronounced than ever. Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) plays a pivotal role in lifelong learning, involving independent, self-directed behaviors to enhance knowledge and skills. While the significance of SRL is widely acknowledged in the broader context of lifelong learning, its specific role in vocational schools is a critical aspect that requires careful investigation. In these specialized educational settings, effective SRL practices are not only integral to individual academic success but are also crucial for fostering the competencies essential for a thriving professional career. However, there is a need for a systematic analysis of how SRL is fostered within vocational schools. Despite its importance, the current best practices for promoting successful SRL in vocational schools remain underexplored. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically review intervention studies focused on changing educational practices related to SRL in vocational schools. Specifically, we addressed two key research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of intervention studies aimed at fostering SRL in vocational schools? and (2) What is the quality of these interventions in terms of their impact on promoting SRL? Methods: To address these questions, we conducted a systematic review of intervention studies focused on fostering SRL in the context of vocational education. Our review includes 11 studies, with 10 reporting positive effects of interventions promoting SRL. Findings: The findings highlight that collaborative and problem-solving approaches, along with learning environments emphasizing student autonomy, are effective methods for enhancing SRL. Additionally, the review underscores the importance of distinguishing between direct and indirect interventions to promote SRL in the classroom. The effectiveness of each approach is contingent on the specific context and student population. Conclusion: However, comparing and drawing conclusions from these studies presented challenges due to the limited similarity in outcome measures and variations in the quality of evidence. Future research should consider methodological adjustments to address the heterogeneity of intervention studies on SRL at the vocational school level, including the development of standardized assessment tools and more rigorous experimental designs to better evaluate the impact of SRL interventions. These adjustments are crucial for ensuring that vocational schools can effectively integrate SRL practices that not only align with academic goals but also prepare students for the demands of their professional careers. © 2025 European Research Network Vocational Education and Training. All rights reserved.

With the proliferation of disruptive technologies driving innovation, there arises an imperative for businesses to equip themselves with forward-looking skill sets. The stewards of higher education institutions (HEIs), who oversee the preparation of candidates with pertinent skills, bear a significant responsibility. The workforce is grappling with an expanding skill gap (SG) brought about by the rapid adoption of technology and the evolving landscape of job roles. Thus, academia finds itself presented with a pressing challenge—to bridge this growing divide. To address this concern, we propose the HEISG (higher education institution skill gap) framework, leveraging machine learning (ML) techniques to assess and quantify this SG. This framework calculates skill scores pertaining to both supply and demand by analyzing exit skill scores from HEIs and entry skill scores required by industries, respectively. By comparing the resulting student profiles from HEIs with job descriptions from industry, we compute a cosine similarity score that highlights the gap between the supply and demand skill vectors. This iterative process is aimed at narrowing the chasm between the skills demanded by the industry and those imparted by HEIs. Our proposal suggests updating curricula to align with industry needs. The application of ML algorithms and natural language processing aids in generating skill index (SI) with customizable threshold values, tailored to specific disciplines and sectors. This study contributes to a better understanding of the demand for various skill sets, ultimately ensuring that students are well-prepared for the industry, thanks to the implementation of this framework. © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Urmila Shrawankar and Prerna Mishra; individual chapters, the contributors.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the perspectives of supervisors from criminal justice organisations regarding student internships. It examines how supervisors perceive internships as a pathway for developing future professionals, fostering practical skills and improving understanding of the criminal justice system. Additionally, it investigates supervisors’ expectations of interns and the perceived impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the qualities displayed by student interns. Design/methodology/approach: This study draws on qualitative interviews with supervisors from criminal justice organisations in Melbourne, Australia, who oversaw student interns participating in RMIT University’s Criminology and Justice Studies internship course. Interviews explored supervisors’ perspectives on the role of internships, the qualities they value in interns and how these attributes have shifted post-COVID-19. Thematic analysis was employed to identify key themes related to expectations, perceptions and the evolving role of work-integrated learning (WIL) within the criminal justice field. Findings: Supervisors view internships as vital for student professional development and as an opportunity to identify future recruits. They expect interns to demonstrate professional skills, subject matter knowledge, interest in the field, resilience and confidence. To assist many host organisations, provide in-house training to interns to improve capabilities. Supervisors observed a decline in key attributes following the COVID-19 pandemic, citing challenges such as reduced resilience and confidence amongst interns. The findings highlight the value of internships for both host organisations and students whilst addressing post-pandemic challenges in preparing work-ready graduates. Originality/value: This study fills a gap in the literature by focusing on the perspectives of supervisors from criminal justice host organisations within Australia, which has not previously been explored. It contributes to understanding how internships support the professional development of criminal justice students whilst revealing challenges posed by the pandemic. The findings provide insights for universities to enhance WIL programmes and better prepare students for careers in the criminal justice field. © 2025, Jarryd Bartle, Michele Ruyters, Gregory Stratton, Monique Moffa, Alasdair Henry, Alyssa Sigamoney and Robin Cameron.

The articulation between Secondary Vocational School(SVS) and college, in China, is a relatively new reform, hoping to unlock the dead end of Vocational Education and Training(VET). Based on fieldwork conducted in two universities in Jiangsu Province in 2018–2019, this article reports on college experience for articulated students with a VET background. The findings demonstrate that both positive and negative consequences of social skills exist at college for those students. Prior vocational school experience was shown to have an academic shock on students who were also have a complex mentality as they easily became aware of their distinctive identity as opposed to that of their peers. Further, although better-performing students demonstrated academic resilience, they nevertheless felt uncertain about transitional status and eager to redeem themselves through academic ambition, whereas more poorly-performing students had an anxiety about academia that made them prey to a pattern of struggling and giving up. Finally, the policy implications of the findings are also discussed. © 2023 National Institute of Education, Singapore.

Self-assessment involves students making judgements about their own learning. Self-assessment is promoted widely due to its benefits for lifelong learning. However, students often find self-assessment mechanical, useless and redundant–indeed inauthentic. This may partly result from understanding self-assessment as an instrumental and acontextual practice. We take an alternative approach by focusing on the authenticity of self-assessment. We bring together two research areas that have rarely intersected: self-assessment and authentic assessment. How has research conceptualised authenticity with respect to self-assessment? What could we learn from earlier studies to consider authenticity more meaningfully in self-assessment design? To answer these questions, we conduct an integrative review of 40 studies. We formulate an organising framework that outlines the various dimensions of authenticity in self-assessment. We argue that authenticity is a powerful idea that may bring self-assessment from the margins of higher education to its very centre. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This study investigates the impact of project-based learning (PBL) on the perception of professional competence in Early Childhood Education (ECE) among pre-service teachers in Spain. A total of 586 students from four Spanish universities participated in a pre-post test design using the ECPP-FIM scale to measure the impact of the PBL approach on the perception of professional psychomotor intervention skills of ECE. The PBL approach involved close collaboration with preschools, providing students with hands-on experience designing and implementing movement-based activities in natural contexts. Descriptive and inferential statistics, including ANOVA, were used to analyse the data. Results indicate substantial improvements in the perception of professional competence across all five areas of the ECPP-FIM scale. Moreover, students from vocational education backgrounds showed consistently higher pre-and post-test scores than those from other academic pathways. Findings support the effectiveness of PBL in bridging the theory-practice divide and emphasize the importance of integrating real-world experiences in teacher training. To conclude, this study highlights the key characteristics that an ordinary university subject should incorporate to enhance the perception of professional competence. © 2025 Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. All rights reserved.

The Practicum represents a pivotal stage in the development of future teachers' competences, which are shaped by a multitude of factors, including professional socialisation. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the Practicum in training Early Childhood Education (3–6 years) and Primary Education (6–12 years) teachers at a university institution, with specific consideration of the impact of professional socialisation. A qualitative methodology was employed. A total of 95 participants (students, graduates, tutors, and other relevant individuals) participated in a range of data collection activities, including 33 interviews, 5 discussion groups, 22 life stories, and 7 memories/practice diaries. The data were subjected to qualitative processing using the Atlas.ti software. The results demonstrated a favourable evaluation of the Practicum, underscoring the significance of the relationship with the school tutor. Effective strategies were identified, including fostering a sense of belonging and transferring trust and autonomy. However, there was a perceived need for enhanced coordination between tutors. © 2025