FEWL dissemination

Academic Publications

• Harteis, C., Goller, M. & Gerholz, K.-H. (2022). Digitalization of work: Challenges for workplace learning. In L. Cairns, M. Malloch & B. O’Connor (Hrsg.), The SAGE Handbook of Learning and Work (S. 329-341). London: Sage. Read full article.

• Maria Erss, Krista Loogma & Anna-Liisa Jõgi (2024) The effect of teacher agency support, students’ personal perseverance and work experience on student agency in secondary schools with Estonian and Russian instructional language, Cogent Education, 11:1, 2314515. Read full article.

• Näkk, Anne-Mai and Timoštšuk, Inge, The Relationship between Learning Context and School Burnout at the End of Primary Education. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction. Read full article.

• Uppin, Helene ja Timoštšuk, Inge (2024). "Eks me oleme kõik natuke idealistid." Muuseumite ja keskkonnahariduse õppeprogrammide juhendajad. ["‘We are all slightly idealistic": The on-site educators of museums, science centres, and other similar institutions]. Mäetagused 88(1), 53-94. Read full article in Estonian. (See the abstract in English at the end of the article).

Conference Presentations

• From September 11 to13, 2024 an EARLI conference, “Walking the talk: co-constructing the politics of meaning, diversity & learning,” organized by SIG10, 21 and 25 took place at the University of Bari in Italy. Maria Erss, Inge Timoštšuk and her doctoral students Kaidi Nurmik and Helene Uppin participated in the conference from the FEWL team.

  Maria Erss, presented a co-autored paper with Krista Loogma titled "Upper Secondary School Students'; Learning at Work: The Effect on Agency in School". Data collected as part of the 2022 Tallinn University Student Survey revealed that students with higher agency perceived greater teacher support, had higher perseverance, achieved good grades in history, and had acquired various specific skills while working. Additionally, boys and native Estonian speakers exhibited higher levels of agency compared to girls and students whose native language was Russian or another language.

  Kaidi Nurmik presented a co-authored paper with Inge Timoštšuk titled " Learning Context Factors Shaping Learner Agency – An Ecological Perspective." Interviews with classroom teachers revealed that while teachers do involve people from outside the school to enrich their teaching, overcrowded curricula and a shortage of resources, including for inclusive education, hinder the creation of a broader learning environment. When planning lessons, teachers consider their students’ specific characteristics and needs, but learners are relatively little involved in shaping their own learning experiences. Although the interviews revealed several examples of teachers giving students opportunities to make suggestions and direct their learning based on their personal interests and goals, such examples were rather rare. The study results suggest that learners' agency in the learning process is generally limited.

  Helene Uppin’s and Inge Timoštšuk's presentation, "Museum and Science Centre Educators’ Perceptions of Addressing Students’ Career Awareness" revealed that although museums and science centres offer students opportunities to explore various professions and try out different roles, cooperation between schools and cultural institutions outside of school is not sufficiently meaningful and personal. Many teachers do not utilize or sufficiently value out-of-school learning opportunities. Cooperation is overly dependent on project-based funding, the availability of marketing materials, and the national curriculum guidelines.

• The FEWL project team participated in the EARLI SIG14 conference at the University of Jyväskylä from August 19–23, 2024, where an invited symposium on the integration of workplace learning and formal education research was conducted. The symposium was led by the FEWL project leader Inge Timoštšuk from Tallinn University who also gave a presentation. 

In the symposium, the FEWL project leader Inge Timoštšuk and doctoral student Birgit Peterson from Tallinn University presented their research; Päivi Tynjälä from the University of Jyväskylä and Christian Harteis from the University of Paderborn also participated. The presentations at the symposium were reflected upon by Professor Stephen Billett from Griffith University in Australia who was in the role of a discussant. In her presentation, Inge spoke about the possibilities of linking the world of work with primary education, and Birgit focused on the work experiences of high school students, what aspects they find meaningful in workplace learning, and the connections they see between learning at school and at the workplace. Päivi introduced her integrative pedagogy model, created 25 years ago, and its recent developments for integrating what is learned in (vocational) school and in work practice. Christian discussed the difficulties in connecting theory and practice in the context of the German dual vocational education system.

Later, Tallinn University doctoral student Kaidi Nurmik, along with Inge Timoštšuk, presented the perspectives of class teachers on how to bring the world of work closer to primary school children. Kaidi investigated in her interviews with 20 primary school teachers how teachers integrate work life with learning in the classroom and what limitations they perceive in it. She found that teachers often connect learning content with the occupations of parents to provide real-life examples of where school knowledge is applicable. However, the potential of local community members and institutions, such as local businesses, is frequently underutilized. The findings indicated that the integration of work-related elements largely depends on individual teachers'; attitudes and they often perceive work-related experiences as basic tasks, such as maintaining order.

Tallinn University doctoral student Helene Uppin presented, in a joint presentation with Inge Timoštšuk, a study on the activities of museum and environmental education center employees in supporting the career awareness of young people. Helene introduced the preliminary findings concerning a small-scale study into how educators of Estonian museums and centres of environmental education support the development of students’ career awareness. Learning activities at museums and centers of environmental education contain activities that are related to work-life and potentially support career awareness. For example, different professions and related educational paths are introduced, work-specific skills are practiced, historical and modern professions are compared, famous role-models and their life paths are analysed. Although self-awareness is considered a part of career awareness in literature, our on-site educators sometimes fail to connect it to career awareness. It seems that a longer working experience and pedagogical training tend to predict a wider or more holistic look on students’ career awareness and life- long learning.

PhD student Birgit Peterson from Tallinn University focused on practices for integrating workplace learning and school education at the high school level. Her research explores, on one hand, different integration practices, and on the other, the experiences, expectations, and needs of employers in this context. Recently, Estonian schools and employers have been developing various forms of collaboration to combine school education with workplace learning to enhance young people's general competencies. The aim of this study was to investigate the pedagogical methods used by Estonian general education schools to integrate school education and workplace learning within the context of developing general competencies. The study employed individual and focus group interviews with high school teachers, academic leaders, and employers. The findings revealed that workplace learning (e.g., short-term internships, voluntary work) is primarily integrated into general education to develop general and career-related competencies. Both schools and employers consider the reflection and conceptualization of experiences as an important part of the learning process. In practice, this integration is implemented through institutional cooperation in elective courses or as part of school exams. Addressing work-related topics or reflecting on work experiences in mandatory subject classes is rare in school practice.

Stephan Drechsler, a PhD student from Paderborn University, discussed in his roundtable session "What is an AI-literate Researcher?, a comparative Delphi study on researchers"; AI literacy across mathematical, biological, and educational sciences, highlighting the need for AI-literate researchers and the potential for developing AI literacy programs to enhance research processes. The study investigates how AI literacy is defined among researchers and what competencies are necessary for researchers in mathematical sciences, biological sciences, and educational sciences to ethically and effectively integrate AI into research processes. The study aims to develop a comprehensive model of an AI-literate researcher (AILR) by collecting expert opinions through multiple rounds of structured questions and feedback. The findings will contribute to developing instruments to measure AIL among researchers, educational curricula, and further education programs, ensuring ethical, effective, and reliable use of AI in research. More information about the project is available
here.

Jana Schwede, a PhD student from Paderborn University, presented her research “Unveiling the Dynamics of Learning Location Cooperation in VET: An In-Depth Exploration of Stakeholders’ Perspectives, Experiences, and Approaches” with a focus on Germany's dual VET system. The qualitative interview study involving VET teachers, company trainers, inter-company trainers, and apprentices revealed diverse barriers to cooperation from the different stakeholders'; viewpoints while providing actionable recommendations to enhance cooperation practices. The study ascertained that teachers and trainers see cooperation between different learning locations as important but regard extensive cooperation beyond organizational matters as unattainable due to constrained time resources prioritizing other tasks. Apprentices were mostly satisfied with how they experienced LLC, but some expressed frustration about repetitive learning content between schools and inter-company training centres. Participants also made suggestions on how to improve current cooperation practices, which involved establishing personal informal networks and building a deeper understanding of the organizational structures within each other's learning locations.

• Maria Erss presented her research titled "Student agency as cultural and gender phenomenon: The role of teacher support and work experience in predicting agency" on August 22nd at Europe's largest education conference ECER in Glasgow.

The presentation was part of a symposium on the agency of children and young people which had participants also from Germany and the UK. The research of Maria Erss revealed that teacher support and previous work experience of students are positively correlated with student agency. Further, student agency is influenced by school culture and gender. Students from schools with Estonian instructional language and boys expressed higher levels of agency and rated the support of teachers to their agency higher than students from schools with Russian instructional language and girls. In order for the youth to have the courage and will to be proactive and make independent decisions in school, students' choices and the freedom to express their opinions and make suggestions have to be supported. The self-confidence that is attributed to agency can also be increased by work experience. Therefore, opportunities must be offered for the youth to gain work experience. 

• Anne-Mai Näkk, an early-stage researcher from the FEWL project’s Estonian team, presented on August 22nd 2023 the joint presentation with Inge Timoštšuk titled “Integration of everyday life aspects in classroom learning” at the EARLI conference in Thessaloniki, Greece.

She presented her research where last year primary school students (N=966) who are being taught by primary teachers and subject teachers were asked to what extent their teachers integrate everyday life aspects (such as practical usefulness, importance, value) in classroom learning. The cluster analysis revealed four profiles including Integrators (20.6%), Explainers (29.2%), Subject-oriented (17.6%), and Inconsistent (32.6%) profile. The results indicate the need to emphasise the value of balancing personal contexts and curriculum in classroom teaching practices to support students’ meaningful learning.

• Kaidi Nurmik, an early stage researcher of the FEWL project’s Estonian team, and her supervisor, professor Inge Timoštšuk, participated in March 2023 in the 17th International Technology, Education and Development Conference in Valencia, Spain, where they presented their paper “Supporting primary students’ agency at school through life-world experiences.”

Since involving students´ life-worlds such as personal interests, hobbies, after-school activities, and parents' professional lives and interests in the learning process could support the development of agency, their aim was to understand how primary teachers have involved students’ life-worlds in the learning process and what impact they have noticed on the students' learning. Semi-structured interviews with 11 primary school teachers indicated that teachers have involved students' life-world experiences for the purpose of enriching school life and supporting relations with broader social context through examples of new and exciting activities. Although enriching the learning content is not the focus, it could be concluded that by implementing life-world activities, teachers have recognised the possibility of supporting student agency.

FEWL in the Media

• "Is it necessary to learn how to work?"
  The FEWL project researchers Maria Erss and Krista Loogma were on 5th of July invited guests on the radio program "Huvitaja" in Vikerraadio where they talked about questions such as whether working is a skill that needs to be learned, what young people get from working alongside school and whether the curricula of general education schools should involve some kind of work experience. The interview in Estonian is accessible here.
• Maria Erss discussed on January 31st in the Tallinn University talk show "Expert on air" among other topics student agency and its relationship with work experience which is also the focus of the project "Enhancing research on formal educational programmes and workplace learning". Watch the recording in Postimees TV here. More detailed discussion of the relationship between student agency and work experience will be available in the soon to be published research article of Maria Erss, Krista Loogma, and Anna-Liisa Jõgi (2024) "The effect of teacher agency support, students’ personal perseverance and work experience on student agency in secondary schools with Estonian and Russian instructional language". Cogent Education. DOI - 10.1080/2331186X.2024.2314515

• “Is early work experience making young people bolder and more self-confident?”, Estonian Teachers’ Newspaper, 10.02.2023 ("Kas varane töökogemus teeb noored julgemaks ja iseteadvamaks? Eesti ja vene noorte võrdlus." Õpetajate Leht, 10.02.2023) Author: Maria Erss.

  This article summarizes the research of Maria Erss on the relationship between work experience and student agency in secondary schools with Estonian and Russian instructional language. The author ascertained that these students who work during school breaks in paid jobs, youth work camps, as volunteers, or in other ways are also reporting more agentic engagement in the classroom and have more courage to express their opinions or stand up against perceived injustice at school. Read the article in Estonian.

• “The gap of skills and experiences” ("Oskuste ja kogemuste lõhe"), Maria Erss and Krista Loogma in the Vikerraadio talk show „Huvitaja“, 08.02.2024.  

  Maria Erss and professor Krista Loogma introduced the Twinning project of Tallinn University,  “Enhancing Research on the Integration of Formal Educational Programmes and Workplace Learning” (FEWL) which deals with the question of how to reduce the gap of skills and experiences in order to achieve a better match between knowledge and skills learned at school and needed in real work life.  They also discussed how to ensure that everybody has equal opportunities and access to knowledge. Listen to the radio programme.

• “About the need of uniting work experience and general education: Examples from the practice of teachers and schools” by Maria Erss in Teachers’ Newspaper, 13.02.2024 ("Töökogemuse ja üldhariduse ühildamise vajadusest: näiteid õpetajate ja koolide praktikast." Õpetajate Leht 13.02.2024),

  How could schools and teachers help to reduce and prevent the existing and future gaps of work experience? Formal education does not often keep up with the rapid changes in the economy and society, which makes learning outside of school, at the workplace, in extracurricular activities, museums and other cultural and memory sites even more important. Learning also happens through real or virtual contacts with knowledgeable and skilled people or by self-education. The educational researchers of Tallinn University, Inge Timoštšuk, Krista Loogma, Triin Roosalu and Maria Erss, are currently researching within the European Twinning project FEWL how to better integrate school education and workplace learning. Read the article in Estonian.

Repository for FEWL Documents

• Working paper on contemporary theoretical foundations and methodology of research of integration of school learning and WPL

​​​​The first collaborative publication of the FEWL team gives an overview of the current state of the art of research on integrating school-based and work-based learning. The working paper focuses on theories, terminology, methodologies, the personal and social impact of workplace learning, and the contexts in which learning occurs. Furthermore, some practices on how to integrate work-related learning into formal education and their influence on student agency are introduced.