International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training
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Higher Education in Switzerland: Predictors of Becoming Engaged in Higher Vocational or Higher Academic Education – The Role of Workplace Factors
Full text linkContext: Vocational education and training enables young people to quickly and effectively enter the labour market. To advance their careers and to develop their professional expertise even more, they must then further their education through higher vocational or higher academic education. In this study, we looked at young people at work: What motivates them to move on towards higher education? As they are engaged in their jobs, their work situations will affect their further educational engagement. We hypothesised that individuals will more likely move towards higher education if their workplaces offer learning opportunities and social support. Human capacities, attitudes, and goals at work develop mainly in informal or non-formal learning situations and in their interactions with their teams. We tested the effect of these workplace factors by taking into account additional important predictors of educational pathways, such as sociodemographic factors (social background, nationality, gender) and motivational factors (values). Methods: Data stemmed from a multi-cohort longitudinal survey on educational decisions and educational pathways in the German part of Switzerland (BEN), running from 2012 to 2016. The selected sample consisted of 601 working individuals who were not engaged in higher education in 2014. Multinomial logistic regressions were run to test the hypothesis.Findings: First, we found that only 35% of the individuals who wanted to become engaged in higher vocational education in 2012 became engaged up to 2016 compared with those intending to become involved in higher academic education, where the rate varied by age—from younger to older—between 45% and 70%. Second, we found distinctive predictors for becoming engaged in higher vocational or academic education. Workplace factors predict engagement in higher vocational education but not sociodemographic factors, whereas sociodemographic and not workplace factors predict engagement in higher academic education. A significant predictor for both groups is the value attributed to higher education.Conclusions: The unique contribution of this paper is to show that distinct patterns of becoming engaged in higher vocational or higher academic education exist. These results confirmed the persistent effect of sociodemographic factors that shape the pathway to higher academic education. Moreover, the results indicated that an individual’s value and workplace factors contribute to enabling paths to higher vocational education, as this depends not on sociodemographic factors but on shaping the work environment that supports learning at work
Theme Centered Interaction in Critical Vocational Teacher Education – An Introduction Into an Ethical Founded Method and Model to Strengthen Self-reflexive Autonomy and Socially Responsible Action
Full text linkContext: The train of thoughts in this contribution is situated in the VET teacher training on an academic level, as it is usual in Germany. Key issue is the pedagogical qualification of the VET teachers and the question of how to give them possibilities to reflect their own biography, their interdependences to the actual cultural and economic environment and their way to choose the pathway to become a VET teacher. How to enable them to argue with their values, fears, strength and weaknesses in their life and especially in leading groups, as they will have to do in classroom management. And at least how to give them an idea of an emancipative, critical and participative way of forming learning situations in which they feel sure and lively to encourage the apprentices and learners in schools to act autonomic and critical in work and besides. This is necessary because of the changes in work and VET in the recent centuries with consequences for workers, learners and curricula as well as the contradictions in that process.Approach: The transformation and the liberalisation of markets and changes of work organisation, the enlargement of tasks in the occupations adds greater meaning to social knowledge and competences, the ability for teamwork and personal development in vocational education. To develop this ability Theme-Centered Interaction (TCI), as a humanistic-psychological approach is used and combined with Critical-Subject-Oriented Vocational Education Theory, inspired by the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. VET-teacher students learn in theory and practice to shape their own way to lead themselves and the pupils in the class and to reflect their activities in a critical way of thinking. The paper ends with brief description of seminar lectures with VET teacher students at the University of Rostock where TCI is practiced as one example how we can reach the objectives described before. Findings: The TCI-concept is helpful to set up better teamwork and self-reflection in the group of the learners. It’s a useful way to prepare them for their practical school phase in which TCI is used as reflection model as well.Key message: Universities as learning places in the tradition of enlightenment have to open up spaces in VET teacher development for domination-free communication and participatory learning within the framework of university studies, which can create a distance to a given social reality, enables students to dissociate from collectively developed goals to become critical formers of their working life and teaching.
 
Developing Schemas for Assessing Social Competences among Unskilled Young People
Full text linkSocial competences are crucial parts of vocational education and training (VET) competences. As part of a development project preparing unskilled young people for VET, an action research project was conducted with the aim of developing a schema for assessing and grading social competences. The development included defining the social competences as well as three levels for assessing these competences. The schema was developed in cooperation with the assessors, i.e., representatives from workplaces, municipal youth guidance centres, and VET colleges. There were two main findings. First, the definitions of the competences and the levels for assessing the competences are related to the context in which the competences should be developed. Second, even though the definitions should be related to the specific contexts, to be manageable they should not be too elaborate. The aim of the project being to develop a schema that practitioners in general can use for assessing young peoples\u27 social competences in relation to work-based training, the study concludes that further research is needed to clarify whether the schema can be used without instruction or training. 
Enhancing Social Competence for Disadvantaged Youth in Pre-Vocational Education: Model Development Through Design-Based Research
Full text linkThis study investigates the enhancement of social competence for disadvantaged young people based on the example of the "Werkschule Bremen" educational course. Theoretical approaches to social competence as a learning outcome are mainly based on the model of social information processing, although the meaning of both practical and experience-oriented approaches is constantly evolving. Taking the specific contextual conditions into account, this study combines qualitative and quantitative methods within the design-based research methodology in order to determine how a location-independent didactical concept to enhance social competence could be created as well as which comparable impacts on the participants\u27 social competence can be verified. The results show that a basic didactical concept is feasible, while the teaching and learning environment has a huge impact on the comparability. It is also clear that the students\u27 motivation to participate depends on both their own and their teachers\u27 interest as well as the teachers\u27 capacity to facilitate safe relationships. As a core result, this study delivers a didactic model that is based on target-controlled experience-oriented learning environments on the practical side and the social information processing approach on the theoretical side
Towards the Compatibility of Professional and Scientific Learning Outcomes: Insights and Options in the Context of Competence Orientation
Full text linkThe steady increase in science-related requirements in operational areas of skilled and managing workforce is influencing worldwide the discourse on shaping professionalization. This article focuses on the compatibility of professional and scientific competence-oriented learning outcomes of qualification programmes within and across the education and training sectors. It is assumed that there is not, per se, a conceptual dichotomy in designing education and training programmes and credentials in a competence-oriented manner to address complex professional and scientific requirements in education and training in a compatible way. The article tries to shift the discussion from a systemic and institutional focus to a conceptual- and requirement-oriented perspective on qualification design. Using Germany as an example, it discusses the conceptual intersections of Vocational Education and Training and academic Higher Education on competence, and comparatively analyzes competence-oriented instruments for the classification and the transparency of learning outcomes and their application in the education practice of dual study programmes with vocational reference qualifications. On this basis, the article elucidates identified characteristics of comprehensive professional-scientific competences and relevant requirement areas in education and training. In addition, further prerequisites for an integrated competence acquisition in education programmes are discussed as well. It is assumed that these characteristics can also be regarded as important prerequisites for the connectivity of qualifications and permeable pathways within and between education systems
Going Back-to-School in Vocational Education and Training: Introduction
Full text linkThis is the introduction of the IJRVET\u27s special edition in 2017 "Going Back-to-School in Vocational Education and Training"
The Reasons Behind a Career Change Through Vocational Education and Training
Full text linkWe report the results of qualitative research on adults who enrolled in a vocational and education training (VET) program with the intention of changing their careers. The participants were 30 adults aged between 25 and 45 years. A modified version of the consensual qualitative research method was applied to transcriptions of semi-structured interviews with the participants. There appeared to be two main reasons underlying the decision to enrol in a VET program with the aim of initiating a career change. Based on the reasons given, two groups (career changers and proactive changers) and five distinct categories were recognized. The career changers included individuals who wished to change careers due to dissatisfaction with their current situation. In this group, the decisions were motivated by either health problems or personal dissatisfaction. The proactive changers included individuals who wished to reorient their career because of a desire to undertake new projects. In this group, there were three categories of reasons: a wish to attain better working conditions, a search for personal growth and a desire to have an occupation that fitted the person’s vocation. Thus, the participants reoriented their careers according to various motivations, pointing to the existence of a heterogeneous population and the complexity of the phenomenon. The results highlight the importance of understanding the subjective reasons behind career changes and the need to adjust career interventions accordingly
Entrepreneurship Education at Indian Industrial Training Institutes – A Case Study of the Prescribed, Adopted and Enacted Curriculum in and around Bangalore
Full text linkOn the one hand, India is a growing economy that needs skilled labour, self-employed entrepreneurs and employees to tackle its economic and social challenges. On the other hand, India faces high unemployment rates, especially among young people. Graduates from industrial training institutes (ITIs) in particular are often facing difficulties in pursuing self-employment. Entrepreneurship education is an essential element in preparing young people for self-employment. This paper analyses how and to what extent entrepreneurship education has been conceived and implemented in vocational schools in and around Bangalore to face these challenges. Methodologically the authors use a three-step approach following the theories of a `prescribed\u27, `adopted\u27 or `enacted\u27 curriculum. Qualitative interviews are used for the analysis of the adopted and enacted curriculum. The authors conclude that whereas the prescribed curriculum includes several elements of entrepreneurship education and teacher\u27s understanding is in line with the prescription, the understanding is seldom translated into input in the day-to-day teaching. The plausible reasons for this gap are discussed in this paper
Why Returning to VET? Results of a Qualitative Comparative Study about English and German Car Mechatronics
Full text linkEducational choices, especially the influence of class on these choices have been a subject of lively international debate. However, thus far, there has been little international and comparative research with respect to vocational and education training (VET) decision making from a subject-oriented perspective. This paper considers occupational-biographical orientations of English and German car mechatronics and focuses on the roles of learning and gaining vocational qualifications. Drawing on the concept of occupational-biographical orientations, the paper describes three types of orientations based on analyses of findings from 11 autobiographical-narrative interviews with English and German car mechatronics. The interviews clearly showed that occupational-biographical orientations explained different views on the necessity of returning to (continuous) vocational education and training. They also demonstrated that subjective perceptions of the national VET system fostered particular occupational-biographical challenges, which supported or hindered existing learning attitudes. Overall, the findings suggested that occupational-biographical orientations exerted the most important influence on learning biographies and decisions to return to (continuous) VET
The Lack of Collaboration Between Companies and Schools in the German Dual Apprenticeship System: Historical Background and Recent Data
Full text linkOn the macro level (federal level) and exo level (state or regional level), the German Dual Apprenticeship System shows a high degree of institutionalised collaboration. However, the companies and vocational schools on the meso level (institutional level and level of the actors), in contrast, are just loosely coupled with a dominant partner (i.e., companies) and a subordinate partner (i.e., vocational schools). How and why these structures have emerged, established and stabilised is part of a complex historical, societal and economical process. The historical developmental will be elaborated in the article. The term ‘dual system’ was invented in Germany in the 1960s, and the intention was to emphasise equal responsibilities, partnership of equals, lively encounters and close collaboration between companies and schools. This vision is not yet a reality, as the presented empirical survey demonstrates. A majority of companies do not or rather seldom collaborate with ‘their’ vocational schools. 74.2% of the companies do not or seldom coordinate their work, and 93% of the companies do not or seldom cooperate with the vocational schools. The German Dual Apprenticeship System operates on the actual meso level just on the basis of less than 30% of its potentiality. The term ‘parallel systems’ seems to be more appropriate to characterise the actual situation on the meso level than the term ‘dual system’