Relevance of Higher Education for Adults in a Work-Life: A Case Study from Norway

Abstract

This case study is conducted in the spring semester of the first year, testing out organizing the mandatory assignments allowing to coordinate the two courses offered: “Project Management” and “Digital work forms in organizations”, and facilitate for the students to utilize their own organization as a basis for the case in the assignment. The study programme of Bachelor in Organization and Management consists of a total of eight courses, each semester offering two courses parallel to each other. The students are adult employees and attend two-day seminars five times per semester.  The research for this paper will be qualitative in conducting semi-structured interviews. The aim of the research will be to unveil if this has had an impact on the perception of relevance, and their learning outcome. The results will show how successful this “merger” regarding the assignment between the two different courses, based on how the students perceive the outcome to support the relevance regarding their job situation. Moreover, how they perceive the learning outcome from looking at the same case from the perspective of two different curricula will be interesting and may influence the way one organizes future training in higher education institutions.