Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Leadership development for public sector performance: a longitudinal field experiment in an educational context" "Annie Hondeghem" "Public Governance Institute, Professional Learning & Development, Corporate Training and Lifelong Learning" "Leadership and leadership development have been an important area of study for many public administration scholars for the past few decades. However, a thorough understanding of how leadership development can improve leadership behaviour and thus increase organisational performance in the public sector is still missing. This research project addresses the need for more rigorous empirical research to examine leadership in public administration and more specifically the relationship between leadership development and performance in an educational setting. In line with the demand to use more longitudinal and (quasi-) experimental research designs in educational leadership research, a longitudinal field experiment will be used to evaluate how a leadership development programme for principals influences their leadership behaviour and the outcomes on the level of the organizational performance of the school." "On the relationship between attitudes towards adolescents with special educational needs and peer interaction." "Katja Petry" "Parenting and Special Education" "In line with the international tendency towards inclusion, adolescents with special educational needs (SEN) have increasingly been educated in mainstream secondary schools which creates opportunities for interaction with typically developing peers. However, peer interaction is often problematic with students with SEN having fewer and more negative interactions. These disappointing social outcomes raise the question why students with SEN experience these difficulties. One generally assumed central reason relates to the attitudes that typically developing peers hold towards adolescents with SEN. However, research regarding this hypothesis is scarce and focuses solely on (1) explicit attitude measures disregarding implicit attitude measures, (2) the attitudes of typically developing peers disregarding the attitudes of people with SEN themselves, (3) attitudes at the level of the individual disregarding class and school climate and (4) correlational designs disregarding insight i n the causal nature of the relationship. The current proposal aims to examine the relationship between (1) the implicit and explicit attitudes of adolescents with and without SEN towards peers with SEN at the level of the individual, classroom and school and (2) the degree and quality of interaction between typically developing adolescents and peers with SEN. To establish the causal nature of this relationship we will not only adopt a prospective research strategy, we will also conduct manipulation studies aimed at changing the attitudes towards students with SEN using an evaluative conditioning procedure and a disability awareness program training." "Enhancing fraction understanding: the role of cognitive and noncognitive factors and the potential of educational games" "Fien Depaepe" "Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Kulak Kortrijk Campus" "Given the crucial role of fraction understanding for later mathematical proficiency, it is worrying that both cognitive and noncognitive difficulties may be a stumbling block to develop fraction understanding. In terms of cognitive factors, some individuals experience difficulties with both conceptual and procedural fraction knowledge. These cognitive difficulties are often attributed to the ‘natural number bias’, which refers to individuals’ inappropriate application of natural number principles when they perform rational numbers tasks. In terms of noncognitive factors, feelings of math anxiety, a low math self-concept, or a low motivation toward math might hinder the acquisition of fraction knowledge. In particular math anxiety has been shown to be a possible barrier to understanding a complex topic such as fractions, given the negative association between math anxiety and mathematical performance. Given these often-observed cognitive and noncognitive difficulties associated with fraction understanding, it is of utmost importance to provide appropriate instruction on fractions. One promising possibility in this regard is the use of educational technology. Especially adaptive digital educational games can be used as supplemental material to support fraction instruction, and have shown to be promising in tackling cognitive and noncognitive difficulties. However, the diversity in operationalizations of adaptivity within games in previous research may underlie the lack of conclusive scientific evidence for the effectiveness of adaptive digital educational games." "The Effectiveness of Adaptive and Non-Adaptive Educational Games" "Fien Depaepe" "Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Kulak Kortrijk Campus" "Adaptive educational games –adjusting the difficulty level to children’s performance in the game– can be promising to foster cognitive, non-cognitive, and efficiency outcomes. However, empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of adaptive games is limited. First graders will be randomly enrolled in three conditions: an adaptive game condition, a non-adaptive game condition, and a non-gamified learning environment. In the adaptive and non-adaptive condition, children will play during a period of six weeks resp. an adaptive and non-adaptive version of two games for early numerical skills (number sense game) and early reading skills (reading game). In a first set of four experiments, physiological data will be validated to index non-cognitive learning outcomes. Next, a large scale study will examine the effectiveness of the adaptive and non-adaptive games. Cognitive learning outcomes will be investigated immediately after gameplay and delayed, and both in terms of the trained skills (near transfer) and of math and reading in general (far transfer). Non-cognitive outcomes will include self-reported math and reading motivation and anxiety as well as physiological data tracked during gameplay. Efficiency outcomes will be assessed by tracking the training time needed to achieve the targeted skills. Finally, we will investigate the role of student-level and environmental factors in the effectiveness of adaptive and non-adaptive educational games." "Making democracy work: A co-creative process with civil society and educational actors to strengthen young people's experiential knowledge about democracy through various forms of expression." "Helena Calleeuw" "Sociale innovatie, People & Society" "In the practical scientific research 'Making Democracy Work' we explore whether creative working methods can be an interesting medium to work on citizenship education in the classroom context. Our hypothesis is that the use of creative working methods can not only get young people moving more easily and encourage personal reflection and expression, but also that they can lower the barriers to collective action and to make social themes that affect them public. In a first phase, we will look for good practices that use forms of artistic expression to support democratic citizenship skills. We mainly look for these in the civil society that works with young people and pay attention to the diversity of this civil society. We work with a snowball method to identify initiatives that are initially not in our field of vision. Based on our discoveries, an inspiration guide is drawn up in which the working methods are presented. In a second phase, we work with a multi-actor group within a number of school contexts to develop a tailor-made process based on the design thinking process. This discusses, among other things, how experiential knowledge can be given a place within the formal educational context. Choices are made regarding the use of certain media (dance, theater, music, images, debate, etc.) and in which context this fits. The concrete institutional educational context and the diversity among the students will be taken into account. The inspiration guide and the wealth of good practices from phase 1 will form the starting point of this process. In this way, we want to inspire educational actors with practices from civil society that tap into experiential knowledge to involve young people in the story about democracy, participation and citizenship. In a third phase, this tailor-made process will involve co-creative learning communities in which young people are challenged to sharpen their democratic citizenship skills through creative media based on the choices made in the second phase. Finally, we will document this process and its results in order to internally anchor the experience and knowledge gained in the process and then scale it up and inspire other schools with it." "Mobilising the research, innovation and educational capacities of Europe's universities in the SET-Plan." "Johan Driesen" "Electrical Energy Systems and Applications (ELECTA)" "UNI-SET is a partnership action led by EUA-EPUE and EIT KIC InnoEnergy and involving other relevant existing networks that will seek to mobilise the university sector to realise its full potential through pooling the richness and diversity of its expertise in research and education and directing its efforts towards addressing common goals. The overall strategy of the UNI-SET is to achieve an “open and neutral platform” to enhance the visibility of, and access to, the substantial capacities of Europe’s universities in research, innovation and education and training in the energy field in order to maximise their contribution to the SET-PLAN.The support action is organised in two main phases of implementation. Firstly, a mapping exercise which will involve the design of questionnaires, data collection and its analysis and development work on an internet-based information system allowing future self up-dating by universities. Secondly, the selection and launching of cluster activities aimed at achieving critical masses of experience and knowledge exchange in areas of core competencies in research, education and training in SET-PLAN topics and related areas.Clustering activities identified through the mapping will aim to reduce fragmentation of research and training capacities. Emphasis will be placed on profiling Masters and Doctoral candidates for greater opportunities for their future career development. UNI-SET will offer timely strategic support on a European level to the review of university competencies as many universities are now creating energy-focussed research and training centres drawing expertise from across existing faculties and involving partnerships with industry and other external actors.Horizontal activities to facilitate coordination and information flow among universities and other stakeholders in the SET-PLAN, and to mobilise university expert input to relevant EC initiatives and consultations on energy-related matters will be organised." "Discrete choice experiments: design software and two-stage choice models" "Martina Vandebroek" "Operations Research and Statistics Research Group (ORSTAT) (main work address Leuven), Educational Centre for Mathematics, Education, Econometrics and Statistics (main work address Brussels)" "Discrete choice experiments (DCE's) are commonly used to elicit preferences from decision makers. This thesis contributes to designing such experiments, as well as modelling the choice data gathered by such experiments.In the second chapter, the newly developed R-package ""idefix"" is presented. The latter enables users to generate optimal designs for DCE’s. Furthermore, it includes adaptive design methodology and the option to gather empirical choice data by setting up surveys. The main algorithms optimize designs assuming a conditional or mixed logit model, which are the most frequently applied choice models. As such, the package aims to provide essential tools for conducting DCE’s.In chapters three and four, two-stage choice models were developed that include a non-compensatory consideration stage and a compensatory choice stage. In chapter three, the SCL model was presented which allows to estimate preference coefficients separately from consideration coefficients. We show that, if the true choice mechanism is one in which the importance of attributes differs across stages, the produced choice data can be captured by the SCL model. The model was compared with benchmark models on empirical choice data concerning student rooms. It was concluded that the SCL model allows to gain a deeper understanding of the consideration process, which was not possible with the other models under review.In the fourth chapter, a two-stage choice model that accounts for consideration heterogeneity was presented. The LCCL model allows respondents to have different thresholds for accepting attribute levels by making use of latent classes. To model the consideration process, a conjunctive rule was used as an approximation of a variety of other simplifying heuristics. We compared our approach with the SCL, the CL and the mixed logit model (MIXL) on empirical choice data concerning cinemas. The results show that the data is best explained by the proposed model, and suggests that most participants use simplifying heuristics before choosing." "Experiments, Practices and Positions in Architectural Design Studio" "Kris Scheerlinck" "Architecture, Sint-Lucas Brussels and Ghent Campuses, Urban Design, Urbanism, Landscape and Planning" "This PhD project explores the relationship between three specific design processes, namely, triggering concepts, representations and reorganisations of the studio setting by examining experiments, practices and positions in architectural design studios within the framework of six lenses: systematicity, linearity, simultaneity, participation, limitation and complexity. These three processes are deemed essential in stimulating the students to develop novel ideas and make new associations to recognise architectural qualities. The enquiry assumes a mixed-method approach in data gathering and analyses, which involves literature review, action research, structured interviews, network analysis and thematic analysis. Furthermore, the mixed-method approach relies upon methodological triangulation as a means to avoid pitfalls and to cross-check evidences from a range of data sets. First, pedagogical experiments from the second half of the twentieth century are thoroughly reviewed. Second, three successive design studio experiments are practiced with action research method at KU Leuven and Istanbul Technical University. Third, twenty structured interviews are conducted with studio tutors from architecture schools around the world to reveal the current opinions and positions in architectural design studios. The relationship with six lenses and the positions are then discussed through the findings from the literature review, the action research and thematic analysis of the interviews. Discussions propound the implications of employing the initial three design processes, the evolution of featured themes in design studios and the future potentials of these implications for architectural curriculum. Finally, this study provides discussions on pedagogical experiments, design studio practices and curricular positions through reviews, actions and interviews to explore the trajectory of educational advance in architecture. Findings from the research revealed that the six lenses had different weights among precedents and current approaches which can prognosticate a potential change in future through collaboration, experimenting, new production techniques, empowering students, making processes, collective design, and improvisation. " "Room for Vulnerability: Children’s Everyday Practices and the Design of Cancer Care Environments" "Ann Heylighen" "Education and Society, Architecture and Design" "Children affected by cancer often require repeated hospitalisations. As visits may extend over several months, the hospital becomes part of these children’s and their families’ everyday lives. Since the turn of the 21st century the impact of the material hospital environment on children's health and well-being receives heightened attention from researchers across various disciplines. The context of childhood cancer amplifies young people’s ‘double vulnerability’: being children (physically immature, lacking life experience and knowledge) and being ill. As a result, young people affected by cancer are less considered as direct research participants.This PhD project set out to put the experiences of these young people (between 5 and 18 years old) at the centre of attention. It focuses on their complex interactions with the material hospital environment with the aim to inform its (re)design.The project seeks to do justice to the complexity of this matter by fusing theoretical and empirical work in a transdisciplinary way. Informed by the socio-material turn in social sciences it starts from the idea that people experience space as part of it. Concepts and insights are brought together from childhood studies to bring into clear view children in all their differences as active constituents of the world; from scholarship in anthropology and philosophy in order to challenge understandings of vulnerability and uncertainty as lack or deficiency; from theories on materiality which understand the social and the material as closely intertwined and constitutively entangled; and from design research to make noticeable the spatial and material surroundings of our social lives. Participant observation and video methods are used to investigate and present everyday practices. Turning to things – an IV-stand and an aquarium – as empirical focus allowed noticing how diverse and complex these everyday practices are, and how artefacts are involved in the day-care and paediatric oncology ward where the fieldwork took place. By interweaving different lines of inquiry, the project exemplifies how this fusing of theoretical and empirical work has the ability to advance both social sciences and design research and invites to adopt a nuanced way a seeing.Young people affected by cancer tend to be considered as vulnerable or passive, subjected to the reality of illness and of the hospital. The project shows how they are also ‘everyday designers’ of the world, even in a highly structured environment like a child oncology ward. While most existing research on the material hospital environment focuses on people’s experiences of or affective relationships with it, the children we worked with did not only move through a hospital building, but engaged with it through the many activities they are involved in. These activities continue to shape and are shaped by the material environment. From this practice theory perspective, most of the time children and adults participate in practices together. Considering children’s everyday practices in conjunction with, and as similar to, adults’ is a way to depoliticize age and go against the abundant use of age associations as explanatory in research, practice and policy. Such an approach might be valuable to study and design environments where people of all ages and with different abilities participate in practices, such as museums, hospitals, public parks and facilities, streets, shops.An important thread throughout the project is that of dialogue: between people, between research disciplines and traditions, and with things. As exemplified in our dialogue with the hospital Research Ethics Committee, we have learned to see the potential of exploring and engaging with differences as a way to establish a shared space of reflection. Further research could look into how professional designers can design in ways that acknowledge children as everyday designers; search for more cross-pollination between research that focusses on children’s care environments and childhood research in other contexts; and further explore the potential of dialogue in education, research and practice." "Experiential Learning of Structures through Computational Design : Developing Structural Insight for Architecture Students" "Laurens Luyten" "Design and Engineering of Construction and Architecture" "The instructional methods of teaching structures to the architecture students are not well adapted to the design education. While instructional methods involve an engineering and formula-based approach, constructivist approaches such as experiential learning can be provided for architecture and design students to develop higher-order thinking skills on the behaviors of structures. Experimenting physically with the variations within a structural typology has the potentials to develop an understanding through embodied cognition. To provide such experimentation, this research proposes to develop tools and strategies that use concepts such as evolutionary thinking and population thinking, with the metaphors genotype and phenotype constituting different families of structures. One objective of this research is to provide a medium where architecture students can experiment on the variations of the geometries that have certain logics of structural formation. In addition to parametric design tools, digital and analog media will be used to fabricate and materialize different variations of structures, which will be observed while loading until structural failure. This pedagogical strategy of learning structural behavior through the geometrical differences between members of a structural family will be evaluated and refined in different cycles. The approach of this research will be analyzing the existing methods of structural design education, developing a teaching module with an evaluation tool and conducting participatory action research through qualitative and quantitative methods. The significant contribution of this project is to bring the necessary intuitive structural cognition to architecture and design students through rapid and physical experimentations by using the facilities that the state-of-the-art tools provide."