Special Issue "Improving Integration of Formal Education and Work-Based Learning"

Dear Colleagues,

The Special Issue aims to enhance scientific excellence and research potential in the field of research on integrating formal education and workplace learning (WPL) for students, schools, and vocational education. 

Since the emergence of Industry 4.0, unleashed by the technological advances of the information age, there has been an increasing research interest in enriched learning in various authentic environments. The proposed Special Issue will pay special attention to students’ participation in authentic work environments outside the school, their practice-based learning, and the acknowledgement of those learning outcomes. Also, integrating work-related activities into classroom learning is part of the focus. In the context of integrating learning at school and work, previous research activities have internationally mainly focused on vocational education, but this Special Issue widens the focus by extending the target group and including VET students as well as students in basic education and upper secondary general education.

The Special Issue aims to introduce novel approaches and methodologies in workplace learning research and provide new insights by applying the social ecology approach for research in the field of integrating learning at school and at work. The methodological knowledge and experiences gained may be of great relevance for future international research.

Prof. Dr. Christian Harteis
Prof. Dr. Inge Timoštšuk
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• workplace learning
• experiential learning
• formal education
• acknowledgement of learning
• learning ecology
• subject integration
• individual learning paths