PhD - Students Taking Responsibility for their own Learning Process

Are you interested in empowering students to take responsibility for their own learning? Do you want to design engineering education innovations at TU Delft? Then this vacancy might be for you! 

For this PhD theme, you will consider ways of increasing students’ responsibility toward their learning. You will explore the current landscape of engineering education practices with regard to the role of students and trace new patterns of collaboration between students and their educators and also their peers that aim at redistributing agency in learning. Based on this research, you will design specific interventions across a number of TU Delft courses aiming to raise student responsibility and then monitor and evaluate the impact of these interventions.

On this project, you will employ research and design methods to:

You will be part of a cross-faculty research group that consists of 20+ staff members, including university teachers, a learning developer and student assistants. You will be involved in real-life experimentation in existing TU Delft courses. You will help, plan, coordinate, and monitor interventions that seek to increase student responsibility in collaboration with course coordinators across a number of courses. Furthermore, you will be part of a series of educational workshops that will explore course design and course design principles, where students acquire an increased role and how that ultimately affects the educators’ role(s). You will contribute to the body of engineering education knowledge via ground-breaking trans-disciplinary research that also includes acquiring and transferring pedagogical knowledge in a local network and in a local research in education program.

Supervision team (3 members)
Promotors: dr.ir. Remon Rooij and prof.dr. Marcus Specht.
Co-promotor: dr.ir. Olga Ioannou.

Institutional setting of this PhD position
This PhD position is part of the Initiative on Innovation in Delft Engineering Education (IDEE). IDEE is a cross-faculty program for innovations and research in engineering education for degree programs at TU Delft. IDEE addresses the challenges faced by the university in providing student-centric, world-class education and uses an engineering design approach to shape TU Delft's engineering education. IDEE offers opportunities for scientific staff members to work on TU-wide educational challenges in thematic teams. Teams will design, implement, and investigate innovations in education.
This PhD project is one of the research projects within IDEE at TU Delft. The candidate will work in close vicinity of the other IDEE PhD candidates, supported by the TU Delft Teaching Academy.     

• Completed MSc degree in engineering with experience in education innovation and/or educational research; or alternatively, a social sciences, educational background (such as Educational Studies) with interest and/or experience in engineering education;
• Excellent analytical and synthetical skills;
• The ability to work in a team, take initiative, be result oriented, organized and creative;
• Good command of verbal and written English. Dutch language is an asset;
• Good people/communication skills;
• Prior research on engineering education will be considered a plus.

Doing a PhD at TU Delft requires English proficiency at a certain level to ensure that the candidate is able to communicate and interact well, participate in English-taught Doctoral Education courses, and write scientific articles and a final thesis. For more details please check the Graduate Schools Admission Requirements.

Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4-year period of employment in principle, but in the form of 2 employment contracts. An initial 1,5 year contract with an official go/no go progress assessment within 15 months. Followed by an additional contract for the remaining 2,5 years assuming everything goes well and performance requirements are met.

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, increasing from € 2770 per month in the first year to € 3539 in the fourth year. As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. The TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff and a mentor. The Doctoral Education Programme is aimed at developing your transferable, discipline-related and research skills.

The TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged. 

For international applicants, TU Delft has the Coming to Delft Service . This service provides information for new international employees to help you prepare the relocation and to settle in the Netherlands. The Coming to Delft Service offers a Dual Career Programme  for partners and they organise events to expand your (social) network.

Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core values  and we actively engage  to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact!

TU Delft Teaching Academy
The Teaching Academy is the network for and by lecturers of TU Delft with the mission to collaboratively enhance engineering education and drive education innovations across faculty boundaries. Learn more about the Teaching Academy via https://www.tudelft.nl/teachingacademy/about/teaching-academy .

Click here  to learn more about IDEE; and click here  to find other related vacancies.

The Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment has a leading role in education and research worldwide. The driving force behind the faculty’s success is its robust research profile combined with the energy and creativity of its student body and academic community. It is buzzing with energy from early in the morning until late at night, with four thousand people studying, working, designing, conducting research and acquiring and disseminating knowledge. Our faculty has a strong focus on 'design-oriented research’, which has given it a top position in world rankings.

Staff and students are working to improve the built environment with the help of a broad set of disciplines, including architectural design, urban planning, building technology, social sciences, process management, and geo-information science. The faculty works closely with other faculties, universities, private parties, and the public sector, and has an extensive network in the Netherlands as well as internationally.

Click here  to go to the website of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.

For more information about this vacancy, please contact dr.ir. Olga Ioannou ([email protected] ).

For more information about the IDEE application procedure, please contact prof.dr. Annoesjka Cabo ([email protected] ) and Ted Adrichem ([email protected] ).

The position will remain open until February 4th, 2024 (local Dutch time). You must apply via the "Apply now" button. Applications via e-mail will not be processed.

The preferred starting date for this position is spring or early summer 2024.

To apply, please share the following information.

• A detailed CV;
• A short motivation letter (max 1 A4) addressing your interests and describing how you fit in the advertised position;
• Name and contact details of at least two references;
• Transcript of your courses and grades in master’s program;
• MSc thesis.

Please note, you can only apply online. We will not process applications sent by email and/or post. A pre-employment screening can be part of the application procedure.