Meaningful Learning Tasks Across Borders

Abstract

Abstract: This article examines how an internationally and hybrid-organised final project in higher vocational education was experienced by a student and a supervisor in the collaboration between Fagskolen Viken and Hogeschool Rotterdam, with GKN Fokker in Dordrecht as the commissioning company. The study is designed as an interpretive qualitative case study based on two semi-structured interviews and a small body of documentary material. The analysis is grounded primarily in Lennart Nilsson’s vocational-didactic perspective, especially his emphasis on the work task as central to vocational learning, the integrated character of vocational knowledge, and the identity-forming dimension of learning. Stephen Billett’s concepts of workplace affordances and participation, together with Donald Schön’s perspective on reflection-in-action, are used as additional lenses. First, the analysis shows that the project’s authentic work task generated high motivation and a strong sense of relevance. Second, the international and hybrid dimensions emerge not merely as organisational frameworks, but as part of the learning content itself, because students had to develop language, leadership competence, relational competence, and judgement across countries, disciplines, and digital modes of collaboration. Third, the study shows that the learning outcomes were vulnerable to asymmetrical assessment, weak information flow, and a high degree of person-dependence in the organisation. The article argues that international and hybrid project trajectories in higher vocational education can produce extended learning outcomes when authentic work tasks are combined with strong supervision, clear learning contracts, and robust organisational coordination.