International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training
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Three-Capital Approach to the Study of Young People who Excel in Vocational Occupations: A Case of WorldSkills Competitors and Entrepreneurship
Get PDFThis paper examines the entrepreneurial inclinations of young people who achieved excellence in vocational occupations. We propose a three-capital approach to the study of entrepreneurship. Relying on the existing theories and original qualitative and quantitative data analyses, findings from interviews with 30 entrepreneurial and 10 non-entrepreneurial WorldSkills competitors show that psychological capital, social capital and human capital can be combined to explore how young people who excel in vocational occupations develop entrepreneurial mindsets. We show that training for and participation in the largest vocational skills event globally - WorldSkills competition - develops selected aspects of three capitals. However, we also discover that the entrepreneurial motivation precedes competitors\u27 involvement with WorldSkills
Examining Barriers to Internationalisation Created by Diverse Systems and Structures in Vocational Education and Training
Get PDFIn a global society, all educational sectors need to recognise internationalism as a core, foundational principle. Whilst most educational sectors are taking up that challenge, vocational education and training (VET) is still being pulled towards the national agenda in terms of its structures and systems, and the policies driving it, disadvantaging those who graduate from VET, those who teach in it, and the businesses and countries that connect with it. This paper poses questions about the future of internationalisation in the sector. It examines whether there is a way to create a VET system that meets its primary point of values to produce skilled workers for the local labour market, while still benefitting those graduates by providing international skills and knowledge, gained from VET institutions that are international in their outlook. The paper examines some of the key barriers created by systems and structures in VET to internationalisation and suggests that the efforts which have been made to address the problem have had limited success. It suggests that only a model which gives freedom to those with a direct vested interest, students, teachers, trainers and employers, to pursue international co-operation and liaison will have the opportunity to succeed
Universities\u27 Engagement with Vocationalism: Historical Perspective
Get PDFThe aim of this article is to explore the historical context of vocationalism in universities. It is based on an analysis of the history of the university from a vocational perspective. It looks for evidence of vocational engagement in the activities of universities over time, taking a long view from the birth of the Western University in the Middle Ages to the 1980s with the emergence of current issues of vocationalism in university education. It adopts a chronological perspective initially and then a thematic one. The main findings are: (1) vocationalism in university education is as old as the Western University itself, (2) there is evidence from the start of the Western University of vocational engagement in terms of the provision of vocationally relevant subjects, vocationally relevant skills and the development of vocationally relevant attitudes, (3) whereas most graduate employers used to be concerned with the vocationally relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes students acquired on their degree courses, most are now more concerned with graduate capacity and disposition to learn within their employment after graduation and (4) subject-centred education is compatible with university education that supports the vocational aspirations of students
Re-Contextualizing Vocational Didactics in Norwegian Vocational Education and Training
Get PDFThis article explores teachers and trainers didactical practices in different contexts in Norwegian VET: schools and workplaces. With the introduction of e-resources and e-portfolios in VET, learners as well as teachers and trainers experience a more hybrid learning-arena, which claims for a recontextualization of vocational didactics as well as re-defining roles and responsibilities of the actors. The article discuss new forms of boundary crossing, dealing with e-portfolios as boundary objects, increasing learner autonomy, transformative learning outcomes, interaction between actors and designing learning processes in hybrid learning-arenas. Vocational didactics as understood in a teacher-training context are challenged by more actors and new forms of interactivity with technological tools crossing sites. The study is based on a longitudinal study in a national project on quality assessment, interviews with teachers and trainers as well as apprenticeship training offices supported by documentary evidence from three trades: sales, plumbing and industrial mechanics
Governance for Learning Outcomes in European Policy-Making: Qualification Frameworks Pushed through the Open Method of Coordination
Get PDFThe construction of European education policy builds on a widely shared goal of transparency in qualifications, upheld by the popular narrative of mobile students endowed with scholarships from the EU Erasmus programme, which allow them to transfer credit points between universities and across national borders. EU education policy is increasingly inscribed in National Qualification Frameworks (NQF). Their European umbrella is coined the European Qualification Framework (EQF), which is linked to a discourse on or even shift to Learning Outcomes; functioning as a tool for the displacement of input to output categories in education systems with a view to make qualifications more transparent. This form of governance situates Learning Outcomes as a tool for policy reform that intentionally should affect all educational and administrative levels of European education. The article shows that the multitude of governance instruments used to promote a shift to Learning Outcomes are so varied that EU education policy has no apparent need of new instruments for this purpose. The fact that Learning Outcomes are linked to EU policy instruments of the Open Method of policy-Coordination and destined for several sectors of education, increases the likelihood that they will be translated into modified learning practices. Yet, there is a danger that governance of Learning Outcomes succumbs to a pitfall of declaratorily placing Learning Outcomes in the middle of learning practices in all subsectors of education, without sufficiently proving their real novelty and regulatory functions
Vocational Didactics: Core Assumptions and Approaches from Denmark, Germany, Norway, Spain and Sweden
Get PDFThe design of vocational didactics has to meet special requirements. Six core assumptions are identified: outcome orientation, cultural-historical embedding, horizontal structure, vertical structure, temporal structure, and the changing nature of work. Different approaches and discussions from school-based systems (Spain and Sweden) and dual systems (Denmark, Germany and Norway) are presented in this special issue. From an inside or national perspective, the solutions show a high cultural-historical dependency. From an outside or cross-national perspective, contingency and alternative possibilities become visible. The combination of both perspectives could enable continuity as well as innovation. This is the basic assumption of the presented collection about vocational didactics
Transitions and Diversity in Didactics: An Exploration Searching for Implications for Vocational Education and Training
Get PDFDepending on the perspective and even language, the concept of didactics is defined in different ways. The debate about conceptualization, particularly concerning the equivalence in English of what in other languages, specifically Germanic and Latin languages, is termed "didactics" is well documented in the research literature. There is a claim in this article concerning the need to transcend the language discussion; it is indeed necessary, especially for Vocational Education & training (VET), to develop a close linkage between what some authors consider "an empirically based" side of didactics associated with empirical findings and the "non-empirical" side that is associated with theoretical constructs for understanding the teaching-learning process.The main aim of this article is to revisit research in didactics in German, Nordic and French contexts looking for diversity in the various approaches. This is intended to contribute to the discussion about prospects and shortcomings in the development of a didactics for the intricate subject of vocational education and training. Rather than alternative didactical paths, the article intends to suggest lines of development, encourage discussions and the further research needed concerning relationship didactics and vocational education and training
Assessment of Prior Learning in Adult Vocational Education and Training
Get PDFThe article deals about the results of a study of school-based Assessment of Prior Learning of adults who have enrolled as students in a VET college in order to qualify for occupations as skilled workers. Based on examples of VET teachers’ methods for assessing the students’ prior learning in the programs for gastronomes, respectively child care assistants the article discusses two issues in relation to Assessment of Prior Learning: the encounter of practical experience and school-based knowledge and the validity and reliability of the assessment procedures. Through focusing on the students’ knowing that and knowing why the assessment is based on a scholastic perception of the students’ needs for training, reflecting one of the most important challenges in Assessment of Prior Learning: how can practical experience be transformed into credits for the knowledge parts of the programs? The study shows that by combining several Assessment of Prior Learning methods and comparing the teachers’ assessments the teachers respond to the issues of validity and reliability. However, validity and reliability might be even further strengthened, if the competencies are well defined, if the education system is aware of securing a reasonable balance between knowing how, knowing that, and knowing why, and if the teachers are adequately trained for the assessment procedures
What Sense Can We Make of the Possibility of Vocational Didactics? An Approach from the Spanish School-Based System Complemented by Non-Formal Vocational Training
Get PDFOur contribution attempts to review the development of the field of didactics in Spain in the past 35 years and its contribution to the development and improvement of vocational education and training. We intend to show that the concern of didactics is an issue of great concern (and dispute) in Southern Europe, for which we will use Spain as an example.
We will particularly analyse from a didactical approach (taking didactics as a normative applied discipline well established in academia) the possibilities that a traditionally school-based discipline has to improve the development of vocational education practice in and out of schools, for young and adult people, in terms of pedagogical innovation
From the Reality of Work to Grounded Work-Based Learning in German Vocational Education and Training: Background, Concept and Tools
Get PDFThe "Riga Conclusions" of the European Ministries of Education of 22 June 2015 for the orientation of vocational education and training in Europe are promoting work-based learning as one of five "medium-term deliverables" for the next five years. But: How should and can work-based teaching and learning be designed? Our approach was developed within the German Dual VET System. Therefore it is not surprising that the work reality is for us the major principle for designing curricula and learning settings. As a starting point for developing didactical measures in the field of vocational education and training it is crucial in this approach to identify practices, routines and experiences of skilled workers that are experts for what they are doing. What are those people doing when handling a task, how are they acting, what work objects and tools are they operating with, and what requirements do they have to be aware of? To answer these kinds of questions, the real work in practice must be explored. A useful approach for doing this is a vocational work process analysis. The next step comprises developing a workbased learning project for the classroom. These two steps, vocational work process analysis and work-based learning projects, build the core of the article and enable a grounded work-based learning. Additional the changing priorities of curriculum design in the last century are introduced to reach a better understanding of the background and the actual work-oriented focus in German Dual VET. Our key proposition is: If work-based learning in vocational schools is wanted, the gap between the reality of work and the formal learning settings has to be closed.
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