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Cooperative education arrangements are confronted with manifold anticipations which can be subsumed as ‘synergy’. This article which presents qualitative-empirical partial results of a current research project, is dealing with the question how Volkshochschulen (folk high schools) which are part of an integrated cooperation, are broaching the issue of synergy and how they describe their handling with this demand of cooperation. There are five strained dimensions of synergy and a broad spectrum o…
Interdependence of context, selection criteria and usability of assessment methods Competence assessment is a broad field increasingly difficult to structure. The article distinguishes different assessment methods regarding their relation to different definitions of competence (competence as a collective term vs. competence as an organizing function), purpose of assessment (summative - formative) and objects of assessment (action - resources - reflection). There are contingencies shown which s…
Theme networks and the systematic generation of the new A systematization using the example of the learning regions Meta structures in the form of content orientated “topic net groups” offers a possibility for communication and exchange between the regional projects in the program “Learning Regions – Providing Support for Networks”. Thereby they build a field of communication in which practice problems and their solutions appear and therefore they can be brought to discussion. Thus topic n…
System reflexive evaluation of networks and network programmes A methodological perspective To contextualise and substantiate evaluation is a claim which the evaluation of the programme „Learning Regions – Providing Support for Networks” of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) formulates. But which basic approaches and proceedings are suitable to consolidate the item `networks` with suitable theoretical complexity and methodologically reflective evaluation? In this contr…
The German Society for Promotion of Research at Old Age (Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Forschung im Alter – DGFFA) wants to give an impulse for the intensification of the discussion on those aspects of the demographic change, to which the universities/colleges would need to devote themselves to in due time, if they strive to consolidate their future viability in a society of lifelong learning. The presented suggestions in this contribution are components of a position paper that a wor…
A variety of investigations are concerned with examining competencies of professionals in fields of adult education, neglecting the question what characterizes the activities they perform in order to organize learning situations. By analyzing an opening sequence of two different adult education lessons, the author shows, how microethnographic approaches of analyzing videotaped face-to-face interaction offer new insights in how participants ordinarily deal with challenges of establishing and sus…
This paper deals with the relation between the "effort" produced by institutions of further education for successfully realizing inter-organizational participation in networks and the "significance" of participation for the performing of the services of the institutions. A polythetic classification based on the qualitative data material is presented that allows for the differentiation between three different groups of organizations based on the relation between effort and significance. The resu…
Research on learning - a retrospective The history of empirical research on adults’ learning reaches back until the twenties of the last century. This contribution evokes some interpretative research on the pedagogy of learning and teaching for adults. It seems that the adult education sciences’ disciplinary memory is underdeveloped as many instructive older analysis seem to have fallen into oblivion. Recent studies mostly don’t pay attention to the linkages and continuity of the questions. …
