From facilitation to self-governing

learning networks

What are the factors that influence the continuation of a

learning network?

Miriam Goes

Evaluation of a network

The Consortium vmbo-mbo is a covering organisation that supports projects about learning continuity pathways from preparatory secondary vocational education (vmbo) to senior secondary vocational education (mbo) in the field of health care and social welfare.

RdMC performed an evaluation study on what factors from the participants’ perspective make a learning network effective so it can be self supporting.

The research questions we addressed are:1. What are the success and hindering factors and how can they contribute to

the self supporting of the learning network?2. What is the organisational form of this learning network and is this effective?3. How does the participation on the learning network contribute to the

professionalization of the participants?

Method

Design

We worked with the multi-method treatment (De Laat, Lally,Lipponen, & Simons, 2006) as a result of which you can get yourinformation on several ways and from various informationsources.

Procedure and instruments

The research was done in three stages. • first stage

Interviews with several participants of the learning network. Thereby a study of relevant documents describing the policies and strategies of the projects that are part of the learning network to contextualise the interview data. A questionnaire is constructed based on the results of these interviews and the document analysis.

• second stage Distribution of the questionnaire among the active group (94) of the learning network Consortium vmbo-mbo Stimuleringsinitiatief. The aim of the questionnaire is to validate and scale the findings of the first stage. Response till now is 34 %.

• third stage SNA-visualizations will be made of the active member networks based on the interviews. This way we are able to paint a picture of the level of interaction that takes place within this consortium and how this geographically is spread over the various participating clusters.

Results

• A list of success and hindering factors and recommendations for

continuing the network after stimulation has stopped• A description of the organization of the network, what activities had

taken place and what was the contribution of this activities. • SNA-visualizations of the active member networks and of key figures

within the networks based on the interviews. This way we are able to paint a picture of the level of interaction that takes place within this consortium and how this geographically is spread over the various participating clusters.

TCP

TCO

K11CP

1CP

Respondent 1 of cluster K (Kandinsky) has relationships with 2 persons from cluster CP (members of the own project) and 1 team of cluster CP and with 1 team from cluster CO (persons from the own organisation)

TCO K2

1CP

1CP

1CP

1CP

1CP

1CP

1CP

TCO

1R 1P

1O

Respondent 2 of cluster K has relationships with: 7 persons from cluster CP, 3 teams from cluster CO (one the same as respondent 1)and1 person from cluster R (Roelof van Echten etc.)1 person from cluster P (Petrus Canisius etc)1 person from cluster O (Oostvaarderscollege)

Visualisation of relationships within the consortium