Improving Integration of Formal Education and Work-Based Learning

Dear Colleagues,

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

Since the emergence of Industry 4.0, unleashed by the technological advances of the information age, there is 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 educational settings, their practice-based learning and the acknowledgement of those learning outcomes. Also, the integration of work-related activities into classroom learning will be focused on. In the context of integrated learning at school and work, previous international research has mainly focused on vocational education, but this Special Issue widens the focus by extending the target group by including students and teachers in basic education and upper secondary general education.

This Special Issue should 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 integrated learning at school and work. The methodological knowledge and experiences gained may be of great relevance for future international research.

As a first step, we ask for an approximately 500-word-long paper proposal describing the central ideas and methods applied in the intended papers that should address attempts/approaches/studies on the integration of informal learning (at workplaces) into formal educational programs either in primary education, lower or upper secondary education, or vocational education and training. Please send this proposal to christian.harteis@upb.de or inget@tlu.ee by 1 March 2024. Feedback will be provided until 1 April 2024. The deadline for the submission of the final full paper is 20 September 2024.

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

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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 1800 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