An intuitively appealing approach to increasing the flexibility of vocational education and training is to delegate choices on instruction, such as the selection of learning tasks, to students. However, empirical evidence shows that students often do not have sufficiently developed self-directed learning skills to select suitable tasks. This article describes the Informed Self-Directed Learning (ISDL) model, which depicts three information resources supporting students' process of task selection and helping them to develop important self-directed learning skills necessary for effective task selection: (1) a structured development portfolio to support and develop their self-assessment skills;(2) a description of task metadata to help them compare and select suitable tasks; and (3) a protocol for giving advice, which explicitly demonstrates how to use performance results to select suitable tasks. Furthermore, the ISDL model proposes that as students further develop their self-directed learning skills and improve their task selections, the frequency and/or level of detail of given advice gradually diminishes and the choice of available tasks increases.

This experimental study was designed to investigate whether supervision meetings, in which students receive specific advice on how to use a development portfolio to monitor their progress and plan their future learning, helps them to develop self-directed learning skills and improve their learning in the domain. In the first year of a hairdressing program in vocational education, supervision meetings were used to provide students with either specific advice or not. Students in the advice group (n = 21) formulated better learning needs, selected more suitable learning tasks, completed more practical assignments, and acquired more certificates than students in the feedbackonly group (n = 22). Interviews also showed that students in the advice group appreciated the supervision meeting more and perceived them as more effective than students in the feedback-only group. Guidelines are provided for the use of development portfolios and the organization of supervision meetings in on-demand vocational education.

In on-demand education, students often experience problems with directing their own learning processes. A Structured Task Evaluation and Planning Portfolio (STEPP) was designed to help students develop three basic self-directed learning skills: Assessing the quality of own performance, formulating learning needs, and selecting future learning tasks. A case study with 10 first-year students in the domain of hairdressing was conducted to evaluate STEPP's use, usability, and perceived effectiveness. Results from student interviews show that usability and use are influenced by several factors. Students with low prior hairdressing skills, a weakly developed personal approach to direct their own learning, and an inclination to update STEPP as part of their weekly routine, use STEPP more frequently than students without these characteristics. Both the supervisor and students who frequently used STEPP perceived its use as a positive contribution to the development of self-directed learning skills. Furthermore, this study provides guidelines for the design of development portfolios in on-demand education. Development portfolio 3Design and Evaluation of a Development Portfolio: How to Improve Students' Self-Directed Learning SkillsIn the Netherlands, on-demand education is becoming increasingly popular in secondary vocational education because it is expected to address the uniqueness of students' learning needs and to better prepare students for lifelong learning in their future profession. It offers students the opportunity to plan their own learning trajectory by providing them a certain amount of freedom to choose what they want to learn (i.e., selecting a topic) and how they want to learn this (i.e., selecting particular learning tasks). For instance, an on-demand educational program at a school for hairdressing offers students the opportunity to decide for themselves which skills, from a predefined set of skills, they prefer to develop first: Washing hair, permanent waving, applying hair-dye, and so forth. After choosing which skill(s) they want to develop, students select from a predefined set of tasks the tasks they want to perform to develop these skill(s), creating their personal learning trajectory. Students can choose from tasks in which they practice on a dummy or a model, in which they learn from studying a book, watching a video, or observing an expert at work, in which they work in groups or individually, in which they practice only one skill (i.e., part-task practice) or more than one skill (i.e., whole-task practice), and so forth.Self-directed learning (SDL) plays an important role in on-demand education. Althought the concept of SDL originally emerged from the field of adult education, with particular relevance to workplace learning, students in secondary vocational education are also more and more required to direct their own learning processes, including assessing their own performance, deducing their learning needs from these assessments, and selecting suitable learning resources (e.g., learn...

Stoyanov, S., Boshuizen, H. P. A., Groene, O., Van der Klink, M., Kicken, W., Drachsler, H., & Barach, P. (2012). Mapping and assessing clinical handover training interventions. British Medical Journal Quality & Safety, 21, i50-i57. doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2012-001169Background: The literature reveals a patchwork of knowledge about the effectiveness of handover and transfer of care training interventions, their influence on handover practices, and on patient outcomes. We identified a range of training interventions, defined their content, and then proposed practical measures for improving the training effectiveness of handover practices. Methods: We applied the Group Concept Mapping approach to identify objectively the shared understanding of a group of experts about patient handover training interventions. We collected 105 declarative statements about handover training interventions from an exhaustive literature review and from structured expert interviews. The statements were then given to 21 healthcare and training design specialists to sort the statements on similarity in meaning, and rate them on their importance and feasibility. Results: We used multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis to depict the following seven clusters related to various handover training issues: standardisation, communication, coordination of activities, clinical microsystem care, transfer and impact, training methods, and work-place learning. Conclusions: Ideas on handover training interventions, grouped in thematic clusters, and prioritised on importance and feasibility creates a repository of approaches. This allows health care institutions to design and test concrete solutions for improving formal training and work-place learning related to handovers, and addressing informal social learning at the organisational level, with the aim of increasing impact on handover practice and patient outcomes. Measures need to be taken to assure a continuum of handover training interventions from formal training through work-place learning through less formal social learning, and to embed this training in the design of the clinical microsystem

BackgroundIntegrating cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training in secondary schools will increase the number of potential CPR providers. However, currently too few certified instructors are available for this purpose. Training medical students and physical education student teachers to become CPR instructors could decrease this shortage.AimExamine whether medical students and physical education student teachers can provide CPR training for secondary school pupils as well as (i. e., non-inferior to) registered nurses.MethodsA total of 144 secondary school pupils were randomly assigned to CPR training by a registered nurse (n = 12), a  medical student (n = 17) or a physical education student teacher (n = 15). CPR performance was assessed after training and after eight weeks in a simulated cardiac arrest scenario on a resuscitation manikin, using manikin software and video recordings.ResultsNo significant differences were found between the groups on the overall Cardiff Test scores and the correctness of the CPR techniques during the post-training and retention test. All pupils showed sufficient CPR competence, even after eight weeks.ConclusionTraining by medical students or physical education student teachers is non-inferior to training by a registered nurse, suggesting that school teachers, student teachers and medical students can be recruited for CPR training in secondary schools.