Fostering 21st Century Skills in Student-Centered Engineering Education at the Secondary School Level: Second Evaluation of The Learning Office

This Research to Practice Full Paper represents the second comprehensive evaluation of the learning office, a pilot project introduced at a higher technical secondary school. The project has reached its third year and encompasses six of our twelve cohorts from grade 9 to grade 11. Students taking part in the learning office project have a more flexible course schedule, allowing them to choose time and scope for almost all of their school subject with some restrictions. The results revealed that the dropout rate could be reduced from 54% to 40% in the learning office over the first two years and also confirmed previous evaluations showing that students choosing the learning office approach struggle in their first year due to the change of systems. However, after they passed the first year, the overall subject-specific learning outcome shows no noteworthy differences. The learning office students of grade 11 even slightly outperformed their control group in some regards. This suggests that once the learning office students adapted to the new system, their gain in transversal, personal, and social skills do not happen at the cost of subject-specific competences, but is an additional asset improving our students' qualification to meet the challenges of tomorrow.