I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Sociology at the University of Groningen, and a member of the Interdisciplinary Research and Training Center SCOOP: Sustainable Cooperation, and the Interuniversity-Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS). In my PhD project, I researched interorganizational cooperation and interdisciplinary learning in the health care sector.
Project Title
Inter(n)professional: how interns develop interprofessional skills in the healthcare sector in the North of the Netherlands
Systemic or behavioral change(s) addressed
The project is aimed to evaluate educational innovations to increase the interprofessional skills of health care students in lower- and higher-level secondary vocational education internships. The aim of these educational programs is to increase the interdisciplinary collaborative skills of workers entering the labor market.
Theoretical approach
The theoretical underpinning of the project is goal-framing theory, from Lindenberg (2008) and Lindenberg & Steg (2013). The idea of this cognitive-sociological approach is that human behavior is framed by certain situational or social cues that lead them to aim for particular goals. The theoretical prediction is that students who perceive their internship environments as one of joint production towards a common objective will be more strongly motivated to contribute consistently.
Empirical research strategies
We will gather longitudinal and multilevel network survey data among students and their collaborators in several health care programs in the five biggest lower- and higher-level secondary vocational institutes in the North of the Netherlands. Creating a high-quality, longitudinal dataset of collaborative learning networks is an explicit aim of the project.
Possibilities for inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration
There are many possibilities for inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration in this project. The theoretical underpinnings of the project are social psychological, but I would like to believe that the project could contribute to, and benefit strongly from, insights from pedagogics (given its focus on increasing the skills of students in vocational internships), organizational studies (given the connections of internships to labor markets), and management studies (given its focus on creating environments in which individuals are motivated to collaborate). If someone were to want to assess a historical account of how the pressures of the health care sector go together with a change in the types of internships offered by vocational institutes, this for instance might also be a very interesting project to pursue jointly.
Social transition(s) addressed
The transition from a healthcare sector demarcated by hierarchical and professional boundaries to a more fluid and collaborative sector under pressures of aging populations and increasingly complex care needs.