Universitetet i Agder: UiA Journal System
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Challenges in Providing Industry with Skills for the Green Transition at the Right Pace
No full textThe manufacturing industry is undergoing a significant transformation, characterised by a green transition and rapid digitalisation. Technological advances have dominated Industry 4.0, whereas the transition to Industry 5.0 emphasises improving technology from a human-centric lens. This necessitates focusing on digital and green skills development to accelerate the green transition in industry. Within the context of Swedish higher vocational education (HVE), this paper aims to investigate HVE providers’ experiences of challenges in providing industry with the skills needed for green transition. Interviews were conducted with 22 representatives of HVE providers collaborating with industry. The analysis is based on a model for analysing overlapping transitioning systems for development of skills for the green transition in industry.
The findings indicate that there was an imbalance in pace between HVE and industry caused by various challenges at three transitional levels. First, at the individual level, there was an imbalance between students’, workers’, and employers’ perspectives on relevant training needs, skills, and engagement in the green transition.
Secondly, at the company–HVE provider level, companies needed to keep pace with the programmes and courses offered by the HVE providers and recognise that workers on the shop floor needed to train and learn digital and green skills. Thirdly, the HVE system as a whole was unable to attract and recruit enough students to technical and industrial programmes, whereas the industrial sector did not have sufficient ability to identify emerging jobs which require digital and green skills to accelerate the green transition in industry.
Keywords: Green transition, digital and green skills, higher vocational education, Industry 5.
Facilitating development of pedagogical content knowledge among in-service teachers of English in continuing education
No full textThe present qualitative study explores how continuing education courses within the national programme in Norway, Competence for Quality, can support the development of teachers’ English pedagogical content knowledge. The courses under study had a specific emphasis on learner-centred teaching approaches. To gather data, questionnaires were distributed to former students from two tertiary education institutions in Norway, followed by three focus group interviews. The results reveal a strong correlation between learner-centred teaching in continuing education and Desimone’s (2009) contextual framework of effective professional development. However, the study suggests an additional element to this framework: the teaching trial. Engaging in these practical trials allowed the teachers to experiment with new methods and strategies directly in the classroom. This hands-on experience was essential in enhancing their understanding and development of their pedagogical content knowledge of English. This, in turn, led to transformative changes in their teaching practices.  
Editorial
No full textIn this special volume of the European Journal of Workplace Innovation, we wish to recognise the contributions of Professor Richard Ennals, who served as Editor-in-Chief from 2015 to 2024. His extensive work in workplace innovation, action research, and education has had a significant impact on the field. We acknowledge his leadership in fostering dialogue and advancing inquiry. In this issue, we include an obituary by Professor Peter Totterdill, offering a comprehensive reflection on Professor Ennals’ contributions and legacy.
This double issue presents 11 articles exploring key developments in workplace innovation. The contributions examine a range of critical themes, including organisational transformation, digitalisation, sustainability, and employee participation. Together, they offer a rigorous analysis of the challenges and opportunities shaping the evolving world of work and employment. The issue has been curated under the editorial guidance of guest editor Kenneth Abrahamsson.
 
Zooming in on the Impact of Collaborative Robot Arms in Manufacturing Workplaces: A Comparative Case Study
No full textCollaborative robot arms (cobots) are gaining a strong foothold in contemporary manufacturing workplaces. While more information about the cobot’s impact becomes available, crucial design, work perception, performance, and strategic implications are systematically overlooked. Following a modern sociotechnical systems design theory (MSTS) perspective, which lies at the heart of workplace innovation literature, we studied if, how, and why the cobot made production units more resilient and strategically relevant. We ran a comparative case study involving 15 Dutch small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) and 36 interviewees (managers and operators). The results describe how the cobots are designed as autonomous and rigid mini-robots, handling one or a few high-quantity products in ways that are not inherently more reliable and efficient. Operators interacting with the cobots experience stronger motivational work characteristics, butthe cobot’s autonomous and stable operation also provokes classic out-of-the-loop problems. Consequently, cobot-equipped production units do not always perform better. Nonetheless, SMEs deem their units strategically relevant since they (indirectly) improve financial flexibility, increase production capacity, streamlinefuture automation projects, and accommodate the resolution of labor scarcity issues. This research creates a pathway for more MSTS and workplace innovation research at the crossroads of human-robot interaction, organisational design, production management, applied psychology, and entrepreneurship. Practical implications are provided and discussed elaborately.
Keywords: Modern sociotechnical systems, workplace innovation, collaborative robots, future ofwork, comparative case study, small- and medium-sized enterprises, industry 5.
Opportunities of Workplace Innovation in Sustainability Transitions: A mixedmethods analysis of environmental initiatives at the workplace
No full textAlthough learning and innovation are key drivers of sustainability transitions, workplace innovation has gained little attention in the research area. Workplace innovation has potential to produce local change and development toward environmentally sustainable working life and society, since employees’ ideas and initiatives can foster the adoption of environmentally sustainable work practices and processes both at the workplace and within work-related networks. The empirical analysis presents findings from a representative sample of Finnish employees collected in 2022, Climate change and work survey (n=1917), and analyses the results using a mixed methods approach. The quantitative analysis reports environmental workplace innovation and its associated factors. The qualitative analysis of the survey’s open-ended questions assesses employees’ experiences of the hindrances in the development and innovation at work on environmental topics. The results of a mixed-method analysis show both the enabling and hindering factors of environmental initiation. The discussion section further elaborates the findings with previous research. Workplace innovation provides a relevant means for tackling societal change processes of sustainability transitions on a local level of workplace, ranging from small-scale changes in working practices to the organizational or sectoral sustainability solution provision. However, the lack of environmental workplace innovation efforts in Finland indicates that there is a need to strengthen and support local development efforts on environmental questions.
Keywords: workplace innovation, employee-driven innovation, environmentalinnovation, green transition, sustainability transition, climate chang
Challenges in education – A Study Based in Poland
No full textBilingual education and teachers’ experiences in Poland have, thus far, received little attention from researchers. This paper describes the challenges in bilingual education (CLIL - Content and Language Integrated Learning) in the International Baccalaureate in the Primary Years Programme. The study comprised an online survey with thirty-six teachers working with the youngest pupils in five IB PYP schools in Poland. The primary aim of the study was to find the answers to two research questions: What are the main challenges in bilingual education according to Polish teachers? What can facilitate bilingual education at the level of elementary school? The results showed the variety of challenges in bilingual education among teachers, students and parents, such as: lack of training, limited resources, communication barriers. Additionally, content and language teachers described their best practices and methods in teaching primary students. These results may contribute to the changes in the way of teaching non-native languages to young learners. 
The Correlation between Work Engagement and the Positive Organizational PRIDE Index Provides Perspectives on Workplace Development : An Analysis of Northern Finnish Public Sector Workers
No full textIn the rapidly changing world of work, more research is needed on the impact of organization-level factors on personal-level work engagement and the mediating mechanisms between them. In this study, we adopted an organization-level perspective to work engagement, applying the positive organizational PRIDE theory as the research framework. The purpose of this research was to investigate the levels of work engagement among employees working in the public sector in North Finland and their association with the positive organizational PRIDE index. The following research question guided the research: What is the relationship between the PRIDE index and work engagement? This was a quantitative survey-based study, in which the data were collected through an online survey. The data collection occurred between October 6, 2020, and February 3, 2021, among public organization employees (N=606 respondents). The factors of PRIDE were analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA). Further, the analysis focused on the connections between background factors and PRIDE and work engagement. A t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to determine the statistical significance between different groups. The results of this study indicated that there was at least a moderate correlation between all PRIDE index elements and work engagement, and each element of the index was associated with work engagement. When considering the entire index, the correlation was strong. Based on the results of this study, we recommend that the observation, identification, and utilization of strengths be systematically supported through leadership and organizational practices
The Role of Parental Language Profile and Home Linguistic Environment in Shaping Teenagers' Multilingual Identity
No full textIn the multilingual context of Norway, language policy at the macro level supports the development of multilingualism. At the meso level, parental language beliefs and ideologies and language practices in interactions among family members potentially play a critical role in learners’ experience of learning different languages and their multilingual identity. Drawing on Sims et al. (2016) and Spolsky (2012), this qualitative case study investigated parental language profiles, parents’ language ideologies and reported practices at home, and the potential impact these have on their children’s language choices, attitudes toward learning languages and the development of multilingual identity. The data were collected through an adapted version of the Ungspråk questionnaire (Haukås et al., 2021) from teenagers and interviews with parents and teenagers in three families with and without immigration backgrounds in Norway. We first analyzed the data using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke 2006). Thereafter, the analysis was shared with the families to confirm the researchers’ understanding and acknowledge participants’ rights and voices. The findings of the study suggest that parental language profiles, their language beliefs, and home linguistic environment likely have a direct impact on teenagers’ language learning experience, views on multilingualism, and multilingual identities
Mehrsprachigkeit in Studienprogrammen für Fremdsprachen – Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen
No full textDer Artikel präsentiert Erfahrungen bzgl. der Vermittlung der Mehrsprachigkeit im Studienfach Germanistik an drei Universitäten in Finnland und Schweden. Es werden pädagogische und methodische Entscheidungen vorgestellt und diskutiert, die wir für geeignet halten, um mehr-sprachige Themen in Studienprogrammen für Sprachen im Hochschulkontext zu behandeln. Die in den Kursen verwendeten Ansätze zur Mehrsprachigkeit umfassen theoretische Erörterungen, Prä-sentationen von (empirischer) Forschung in diesem Bereich, aber auch den Einsatz von Mehr-sprachigkeitsdidaktik und die Umsetzung verschiedener Formen der mehrsprachigen Kommuni-kation. Die von uns entwickelten Kurse haben linguistische und vor allem soziolinguistische oder didaktische Schwerpunkte; in einem vor kurzem eingerichteten Kurs werden mehrsprachige Themen aus linguistischer und literaturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive beleuchtet.
Erfahrungen in unseren Kursen machen es offensichtlich, dass Mehrsprachigkeit in Studien-programmen für Sprachen ein unverzichtbarer Themenbereich ist. Allerdings müssen bei der Planung solcher Kurse verschiedene günstige und ungünstige Bedingungen berücksichtigt werden. Daher gehen wir auch auf die Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen ein, mit denen wir bei der Einbeziehung mehrsprachiger Ansätze in unsere Lehrpläne konfrontiert wurden. Der Artikel schließt mit konkreten Ideen und Praktiken, wie man einsprachige Vorurteile überwinden und die Präsenz von Mehrsprachigkeit und plurilingualer Bildung in philologischen Studiengängen an Universitäten stärken kann
Home-school relationship in the context of reception of newly arrived emergent bilingual pupils. A comparative and exploratory study between Hamburg (Germany) and Franche-Comté (France).
No full textThis Franco-German exploratory and comparative study, rooted in the tradition of interdisciplinary qualitative empirical research (at the crossroads of sociology, language sciences and education sciences), aims at analysing and questioning the representations of the different actors concerning the reception of newly arrived allophone pupils and the home-school relationship in Germany (Gomolla 2009) and France (Asdih 2012, Lasne et al. 2021, Périer 2021), in two specific regions: Hamburg (Germany) and Franche-Comté (France), and in particular in pre-school/kindergarten and primary schools. We rely on various semi-structured interviews with families and educational actors in school in the German and French contexts. In this paper we seek to understand and compare the different relationships (home/school) according to the actors in the two research fields and question, among other things, the importance of the national field with its specific history in relation to welcoming policies and the promotion of the home-school relationship. The results will help to whether and how cooperation between school and newly arrived families can facilitate families’ transition to a new school culture