Enhancing school - work knowledge perspectives through a boundary crossing approach

Abstract

It is often difficult to apply knowledge learned in one setting in another setting, for example statistical knowledge learned at school to be used for method comparison at work. By using a boundary-crossing approach we have tried to enhance school-work knowledge perspectives for students in secondary vocational laboratory education. An intervention study consisting of five meetings in which three students were taught the statistical knowledge relevant to work took place. During these meetings care was taken to link the school knowledge to work knowledge, and vice versa. Data collection included video recordings of the meetings, as well as interviews with teachers, students themselves and supervisors from work. A pre- and posttest were created to measure the learning gain of the intervention. A qualitative analysis of the meetings and the reasoning of the students during these meetings showed that the level of integrating school-work knowledge increased during the intervention. The pre- and posttest results showed that the students’ statistical knowledge improved significantly and with large effect size.