Phd Position In Competencies Development Through Public Engagement

The VU Amsterdam has the ambition of fostering research and educationthat contribute to (local) societal issues. This contribution can be realized, amongst other forms, through transdisciplinary approaches that promotes students’ learning through their active participation in experiences of community/public engagement. It is not only beneficial for students and teachers for improving social engagement and enhancing skills and aptitudes, but also to community partners to address pertinent issues in the society.
This PhD position involves research on development of competencies among students through transdisciplinary processes that involve engagement of academic and non-academics actors. Engaged learning is a form of transdisciplinary process that promotes students’ learning through their active participation in experiences of community/public engagement. While much is known about the varied competencies that students can develop through engaged learning, there is a dearth of evidence on how these competencies are shaped and developed, interlinked, and how the level of participation/engagement in such processes affect the level of competencies they develop. Further, it is of importance to understand how these competencies developed through engaged learning can lead to actual broadening of minds and/or ‘transforming’ of students, teachers and community partners, and to supporting goals relating to reciprocity between academic and non-academic stakeholders. To do so, a combination of qualitative methods (literature review, interviews, focus groups) and quantitative methods (surveys, experiments) will be used.

Your duties

As a Ph.D. student on these projects your main tasks and responsibilities are:

• to work in close collaboration with the community service learning (CSL) team, and students, teachers and community partners.
• to carry out literature study, surveys, interviews, and focus groups with stakeholders to understand how competences are developed in public engagement processes within VU Amsterdam.
• to develop new ideas and insights which will lead to international publications and a Ph.D. thesis
• to assist in teaching activities of the department

Your work will be supported with committed supervision and additional training in methods you are not familiar with. If you share our enthusiasm for the academic challenges and relevance of the proposed research topic and meet the requirements below, then we encourage you to apply for the position.