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Sustainable development requires multiple stakeholders to work and learn across practices, in other words, it requires boundary crossing competence. To prepare students for their future sustainability professions, higher education should facilitate the development of boundary crossing competence in its curricula. This study aims to confirm whether boundary crossing learning can be stimulated by workshop-based support in multi-stakeholder projects.

This quasi-experimental intervention study (N = 122) investigates the effect of a series of supporting workshops on students’ boundary crossing learning in multi-stakeholder projects. The workshops allowed students to adopt four learning mechanisms (identification, coordination, reflection and transformation) theorised to stimulate learning across boundaries between practices. Students followed zero, one, or two workshops. By analysing the student learning reports, the study examines the effect of the workshop intervention on students’ self-efficacy for stakeholder collaboration, the number of reported student-stakeholder collaborative activities and the reported boundary crossing learning mechanisms.

The results show that a series of two workshops increase the number of reported collaborative activities and activates the students’ boundary crossing learning in terms of reflection and transformation.

These findings support the evidence-based design of multi-stakeholder learning environments for sustainable development and contribute to the body of knowledge regarding learning across practices.

Boundary crossing competence receives increasing attention as an asset for sustainable development. The added value of this study lies in its confirmation that the boundary crossing theory can be translated into directed educational support that can stimulate students’ boundary crossing learning.

The purpose of this paper is to design a rubric instrument for assessing oral presentation performance in higher education and to test its validity with an expert group.

This study, using mixed methods, focusses on: designing a rubric by identifying assessment instruments in previous presentation research and implementing essential design characteristics in a preliminary developed rubric; and testing the validity of the constructed instrument with an expert group of higher educational professionals (n=38).

The result of this study is a validated rubric instrument consisting of 11 presentation criteria, their related levels in performance, and a five-point scoring scale. These adopted criteria correspond to the widely accepted main criteria for presentations, in both literature and educational practice, regarding aspects as content of the presentation, structure of the presentation, interaction with the audience and presentation delivery.

Implications for the use of the rubric instrument in educational practice refer to the extent to which the identified criteria should be adapted to the requirements of presenting in a certain domain and whether the amount and complexity of the information in the rubric, as criteria, levels and scales, can be used in an adequate manner within formative assessment processes.

This instrument offers the opportunity to formatively assess students’ oral presentation performance, since rubrics explicate criteria and expectations. Furthermore, such an instrument also facilitates feedback and self-assessment processes. Finally, the rubric, resulting from this study, could be used in future quasi-experimental studies to measure students’ development in presentation performance in a pre-and post-test situation.

A study on new office technology and the consequences for curriculum design are described. In a preparatory study, information was collected about trends in the field of office automation, the actual and the desired job profiles of office personnel and the existing curricula. The aim of these activities was to have an empirical base for designing the curriculum. As expected, several discrepancies existed between the information obtained and the desired conditions of the ideal situation, which made it necessary to evaluate the findings of the preparatory study. This was done by a curriculum conference, a new approach to design curricula in groups, which has the characteristics of a carefully prepared workshop. At this conference, the design of the curriculum was validated and confirmed. The design of the curriculum embraces module descriptors for several components of office automation. The curriculum conference was evaluated and appeared to be a promising method to design job‐related curricula.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether the new (comprehensive) concept of competence and the competence‐based education approach are being used in, and perceived as being fruitful for, academic education.

In this explorative and qualitative study individual interviews with representatives of study programs from eight universities in the Netherlands were held, and a participative case‐study in one university was conducted, in which practices and perceptions from various stakeholder groups were triangulated.

The opinions of the respondents on the usefulness of the competence‐based education approach were quite positive. There is wide agreement on the necessity to align university curricula to the needs of society and of the labour market. University education can make effective use of the competence concept. Universities differ as to the extent to which they employ a competence‐based education approach. Many hurdles exist for actually implementing this in university curricula.

Interpretations largely depend on the perceptions of the respondents in the study. For most university programs only one representative was included as respondent in the study.

With some exceptions, the competence‐based education approach is currently not much used in academic education. Possibilities and limitations of competence‐based academic education should be identified in further case studies and strategies for actually implementing it should be developed. Further research should show differential relationships between the level of integration of the competence concept in higher education and the societal effects of the respective programs.

The competence concept has been underexposed in university education practices and in research.

A conceptual framework of training and development. At first sight, the contributions of the various authors in this issue differ significantly as to the content of their study. Nonetheless each study focuses on conditions of Human Resource Development (HRD), or more specifically on a component of the comprehensive conceptual model of training and development outlined in Figure 1. This model is of a descriptive nature and depicts the position of training and development in organizations.

The European Commission and social partner organisations at EU level encourage the lifelong development of qualifications and competence. This is reflected in many policy reports and reviews. This paper seeks to show the involvement of social partner organisations at the level of EU‐funded competence development projects.

A survey and four case studies were conducted. The population of 60 Leonardo da Vinci projects for a specific sector (agri‐food‐environment) which were implemented during the years 2000‐2003 was selected for the study. For the survey project, documentation was analyzed based on two variables: type of project (to what extent did it require involvement of sectoral social partner organisations); and (the percentage of) involvement (of sectoral social partners who were involved in the partnership). A Spearman correlation test was used to evaluate the relationship between type of project and involvement. For the case studies project documentation was analyzed, and in‐depth semi‐structured interviews were held with project managers.

The Spearman correlation between the type of project and involvement of sectoral social partner organisations was −0.031 (p=0.812). So there was no relationship. The case studies showed that the involvement of sectoral organisations clearly contributes to realising results in the projects.

In the composition of partnerships for competence development projects at EU level, the Commission and project managers should be aware of the importance of including specific sectoral social partners organisations in the partnership.

No study has been conducted yet that empirically tested the relationship between types of projects and the involvement of sectoral social partners in project partnerships. Important discrepancies are shown, of which stakeholders in sector competence development projects should be aware.

The purpose of this paper is to study the learning of entrepreneurs in authentic learning environments. The research questions are: How do entrepreneurs assess their compentencies, and how do employees and external consultants assess the compentencies of these entrepreneurs? What are the competence strengths and weaknesses of entrepreneurs? What are the learning activities that entrepreneurs perform?

Ten small business owners participated in a self‐assessment and an assessment by employees and external consultants. Follow‐up interviews elicited work‐related learning activities. The interviews were transcribed. Descriptive statistics, t‐tests and correlation tests, and a qualitative analysis of interview transcriptions were performed.

Competencies are being rated differently. Competence assessment is a potentially powerful learning source. The top competence strength is having a learning orientation. A total of 99 learning activities were found embedded in the innovative work processes of the entrepreneurs. The top three learning activities were reflection, observation and experimentation.

The study is based on only ten entrepreneurs. Research is planned with a larger numbers of subjects.

Competence assessment needs to be provided for entrepreneurs in the sector as a tool for deeper self‐reflection, and further performance improvement.

Much research on skills development and workplace learning is about employees in large organisations. However, employers in small and medium‐sized companies are also an interesting professional group to study, since they create working and learning places for employees. Not much is know about their competence development. This study addresses that target group.

In this contribution, a model of evaluation of customer satisfaction about training programs is described. The model is developed and implemented for an association of training companies. The evaluation has been conducted by an independent organisation to enhance the thrustworthiness of the evaluation results. The model is aimed at determining the quality of training programs as perceived by project managers from the organisations that purchased in company training programs from the training companies. Reliability research showed satisfying results. The model is based on the methodology in effectiveness research, and the data was used to test a model of training effectiveness. The results show that this model is confirmed for two categories of projects: projects that were aimed at achieving learning results and changed job performance respectively. The model does not fit for projects aimed at supporting organisational change. Various questions as to the development of the evaluation model are discussed.

This paper aims to, drawing on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), explore the effects of entrepreneurial role models on entrepreneurial intention (EI) and its antecedents and examines the question of whether the effects vary by gender.

Data were collected from a sample of 331 students at seven universities in Iran. Structural equation modelling and bootstrap procedure were used to analyse the data.

Consistent with the TPB, our results show entrepreneurial role models to indirectly influence EIs via the antecedents of intention. No gender differences in the relationship between perceived behaviour control and EIs were found, but gender did moderate the other relationships within the TPB. Attitude towards entrepreneurship was a weaker predictor and subjective norms a stronger predictor of EIs for female students than for their male counterparts. Furthermore, perceived behaviour control and attitudes towards entrepreneurship were more strongly influenced by role models for females as opposed to male students.

Future studies should go beyond examining the mere fact of knowing entrepreneurial role models to examine the mechanisms underlying the relationship between role models and EIs.

The results of this study have clear implications for both educators and policymakers.

The study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by incorporating entrepreneurial role models and gender into the TPB and investigating their mediating and moderating effects within the model.

The purpose of this article is to explore diversity in competence models across Europe and consider the extent to which there is sufficient common ground for a common European approach to underpin the European Qualifications Framework.

The paper uses a literature review and interviews with policy makers.

Despite the central role of competence in policy initiatives, conceptual approaches to competence vary not only between but also within different member states. This diversity embodies not only language issues but also fundamental cultural differences in approaches to skill formation. Whether the models have sufficient common ground to permit a “best‐fit” European‐wide approach is open to question, although this is clearly an essential prerequisite for removing barriers to labour mobility. Despite initiatives like the European Qualifications Framework there is still no consensus for adopting a common competence model and policy discussions continue to reveal confusion.

The focus on policy discussions at the European level may be a limitation, and readers should see this as the introductory scene setting to more detailed discussions in the following papers of important developments within member states. Beyond this, much is happening at the level of sectors and occupations that is the focus for practical implementation.

The paper highlights the urgent need to develop a coherent conceptual underpinning for competence descriptors in qualifications frameworks that will work as a best‐fit approach across Europe. Without this, occupational and inter‐sector mobility will be hindered.

The paper offers the most comprehensive assessment of European approaches to competence to date.