Research interests
- Equal opportunities in education
- Social and ethnic diversity in schools
- Students' motivation for school
- Gifted and high-ability students
For an overview of publications, see the Tab Publications in the menu on the left.
Education is not the “great equalizer” it intends to be. There are increasing educational inequalities between students with different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Many students who start their educational career in primary education in a disadvantaged position are not able to catch up. This project aims to examine how primary school teachers through their everyday interactions with students reinforce these differences in the long term or how they can reduce them.
Like many other Western countries, the Netherlands is faced with persistent ethnic and socioeconomic segregation, characterized by educational and economic inequalities, and indifference and sometimes hostility between different groups. Schools are in unique position to counter this segregation as they are responsible for providing equal educational opportunities and promoting positive intergroup relations. The success of this likely depends on the role of individual teachers. In this interlinked project, we will integrate Self-Determination Theory with the social identity perspective to study (a) how primary school teachers’ group attitudes and motivations to regulate prejudice shape their everyday teaching practices, and (b) how these practices ultimately contribute to students’ intergroup relations and group differences in educational adjustment. We will make a unique contribution by focusing on social class and ethnicity at the same time. Part-project 1 (PhD Jonne Bloem; department of Education) will focus on differential teaching practices toward students with different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and their consequences for students’ motivation, engagement and achievement. In part-project 2 (PhD Iris Boer; department of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences), we will examine teachers’ communications about ethnic and socioeconomic differences, and the impact thereof on students’ group attitudes and peer relations. We will use a three-wave longitudinal design (grade 5-6 primary school; 70 classes with 70 teachers and ±1800 children) and state-of-the-art methods, including experience sampling modelling, implicit measures, and sociometrics. Our results will be disseminated to educational practice, and provide important insights on how ethnic and socioeconomic diversity can be successfully dealt with in the classroom.
Het doel van dit onderzoek is het ontwikkelen van kennis over een dekkend onderwijsaanbod voor begaafde leerlingen. Dit wordt gedaan door het meten van de impact van activiteiten in het onderwijs voor begaafden (interventies) in het kader van de subsidieregeling van OCW.
Het consortium dat dit onderzoek gaat uitvoeren bestaat uit experts op het gebied van begaafdheidsonderwijs, passend onderwijs, interventie-onderzoek en alle leden van het Monitoronderzoek. Onderzoeksvragen betreffen:
Een mixed-method onderzoek wordt ingezet voor het verzamelen, analyseren en integreren van informatie van leerlingen en van actoren rond deze leerlingen in beleid, onderwijs en familie. Een systemisch perspectief is als algemeen thema genomen. Daarnaast wordt onderscheid gemaakt in vijf subthema's: A) Identificatie van begaafde leerlingen en hun ontwikkelbehoeften; B) Aanpassingen in het onderwijsaanbod voor begaafde leerlingen; C) Inzet van gecombineerde expertise in complexe situaties; D) Organisatieperspectief op begaafdheid in passend onderwijs; E) Ontwikkeling van expertise van professionals.
Voor meer informatie, zie https://www.imageproject.nl/.
A large proportion of Dutch pupils are not optimally motivated for school (Dutch Inspectorate of Education, 2014). Moreover, the motivation of many pupils decreases with age. Due to increasing variation in the student population of many schools, it is difficult for many teachers to meet the different motivational needs of all their pupils. Motivation is essential for an optimal school career of pupils and it is therefore important that teachers find ways to motivate all their pupils for school. In this project, which was carried out in collaboration with various primary schools and secondary schools for prevocational education, a teacher training was developed together with teachers, aimed at motivating pupils by providing autonomy support and structure. It was examined to what extent the training had an effect on the way of teaching and the motivation of pupils. In primary education, the effects of the training were limited, but in prevocational secondary education, the training increased experienced need support by pupils as well as their motivation for school.
In many countries, teachers struggle to meet the educational needs of (highly) gifted students, which can lead to less motivation and underperformance. Gifted pupils in the Netherlands do not perform as well as comparable pupils in other countries. With the introduction of the appropriate education act, regular schools are expected to offer better guidance to gifted pupils. To meet the specific educational needs of gifted students and to enable them to develop optimally, the following is necessary: ??(1) knowledge of giftedness and methodologies to identify gifted pupils early on and (2) appropriate strategies to properly guide and motivate them so that they (continue to) realize their potential. In this research network, teachers, teacher-educators and researchers work together to strengthen the educational practice for gifted pupils.
The objectives of this research network are:
(1) Design a sustainable professional learning community in which we work together on themes that fit in with suitable education, (2) knowledge creation by scientists, schools and teachers regarding signaling and appropriate guidance of young gifted students, (3) providing knowledge and methodologies to teachers (in training), trying them out and developing them further to identify gifted pupils and provide appropriate guidance.
More information can be found on the website www.point013.nl (in Dutch).
Like many other Western countries, the Netherlands is faced with persistent ethnic and socioeconomic segregation, characterized by educational and economic inequalities, and indifference and sometimes hostility between different groups. Schools are in unique position to counter this segregation as they are responsible for providing equal educational opportunities and promoting positive intergroup relations. The success of this likely depends on the role of individual teachers. In this interlinked project, we will integrate Self-Determination Theory with the social identity perspective to study (a) how primary school teachers’ group attitudes and motivations to regulate prejudice shape their everyday teaching practices, and (b) how these practices ultimately contribute to students’ intergroup relations and group differences in educational adjustment. We will make a unique contribution by focusing on social class and ethnicity at the same time. Part-project 1 (PP1) will focus on differential teaching practices toward students with different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and their consequences for students’ motivation, engagement and achievement. In part-project 2 (PP2), we will examine teachers’ communications about ethnic and socioeconomic differences, and the impact thereof on students’ group attitudes and peer relations. We will use a three-wave longitudinal design (grade 5-6 primary school; 70 classes with 70 teachers and ±1800 children) and state-of-the-art methods, including experience sampling modelling, implicit measures, and sociometrics. Our results will be disseminated to educational practice, and provide important insights on how ethnic and socioeconomic diversity can be successfully dealt with in the classroom.
Tussen 2019 en 2023 stelt het ministerie van OCW subsidie beschikbaar om het primair en voortgezet onderwijs te stimuleren een passend onderwijs- en ondersteuningsaanbod voor (hoog)begaafde leerlingen in te richten. De meerderheid van de samenwerkingsverbanden in het po en vo heeft een plan ingediend om aanspraak te maken op de subsidie. Het monitoringsonderzoek geeft een breed en landelijk beeld van de inhoud van deze plannen, de realisatie van de plannen en de borging op lange termijn. Ook kijkt het monitoringsonderzoek naar de mate waarin scholen en samenwerkingsverbanden ervaren dat de subsidie bijdraagt aan de drie subsidiedoelen:
Het monitoringsonderzoek loopt van 2019 tot 2023 en rapporteert jaarlijks de bevindingen op basis van verschillende gegevensbronnen. Zo analyseren de onderzoekers de subsidieplannen en worden samenwerkingsverbanden en scholen in het po en vo via vragenlijsten bevraagd over de voortgang. In jaarlijkse reflectiebijeenkomsten met scholen en samenwerkingsverbanden worden de uitkomsten in een breder perspectief gezet. Eind 2023 verschijnt een overkoepelend rapport waarin de uitkomsten van alle metingen worden geïntegreerd en waarin wordt gereflecteerd op de ontwikkelingen door de jaren heen.
Recent developments in immersive learning technologies are providing exciting new tools for teaching and training programmes, yet they remain underutilised in science & technology education, and nowhere is this more true than in the field of chemistry and chemical engineering.
CHARMING, the European Training Network for CHemicAl EngineeRing IMmersive LearnING, takes on this challenge by developing learning strategies, content and prototypes for the application of games and virtual/augmented reality for motivating, teaching and training children, students and employees in chemistry, chemical engineering and chemical operations. The inter-sectorial and interdisciplinary CHARMING ETN consists of leading universities and industry participants and trains 15 ESRs in the areas of innovative chemical engineering, instructional psychology & pedagogy and immersive technology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=b4IwcQu_YsQ&feature=emb_logo