Students’ interactions: Using video data as a mean to identify competences addressed in learning factories

摘要

Learning factories foster practically oriented teaching-concepts and therefore, offer excellent opportunities to develop students’ competences in self-controlled learning processes (cf. Müller-Frommeyer, Aymans, Bargmann, Kauffeld, & Herrmann, 2017). Two teams of four students each were videotaped for one semester during a research-based team project at a learning factory. The aim of this paper is to examine to what extent the competences identified in the competency model for students working with a learning factory by Müller-Frommeyer et al. (2017) are addressed in students’ task-related group discussions. The recorded videos (12,807 sense units) were analyzed using a newly developed coding scheme (act4learning) which focuses on learning-related competences. Additionally, the students filled in questionnaires regarding their computer-related self-efficacy before and after the team project. Overall, all examined competences of the model were addressed in the students’ discussions, but in varying extents. The video data shows that interactions are mainly related to professional as well as social competences and rarely related to self-competence. Differences – especially regarding the extent to which professional and social competences were addressed in the meetings – can be found between the two examined groups of students and in different learning settings. The results allow a deeper understanding of the competences students address in their team meetings in research-based projects with a learning factory, and therefore, the competences they can acquire while completing the project. The results further provide the opportunity to continue adapting competence-based teaching concepts at learning factories in higher education.