Towards a pedagogical model for work-based mobile learning in tourism education

Developments in the tourism industry force tourism companies to constantly seek novel ways to appeal to their old and new customers. The availability of skilful staff is key to ensure positive development and bring new ideas into practice. Schools providing tourism education have to take the challenge and renew their degree programmes to match the changing needs of working life. This paper presents a study that aimed to design an initial pedagogical model for work-based mobile learning (WBML) in tourism education, implement it during an apprenticeship period, and analyze the initial model in relation to the teaching and learning processes that occurred. The research setting was at the TravEd Pyhä tourism school, which operates under the Vocational College of Eastern Lapland and is decentralized from the main campus at the Pyhä ski resort. In practice, the developmental work of this study was carried out through a design-based research (DBR) process. The approach to learning in this study leans on the socio-cultural tradition, central to which are the activities, culture, context, and environment in which the mobile and work-based learning took place. The data used in this research consist of students’ learning diaries, reports, and reflective summaries of their apprenticeship period. The results of this study contribute to the further development of a pedagogical model for WBML.