Apprenticeship in higher education in France: an experimental device to help apprentices to link academic knowledge and work experience

Abstract

The French apprenticeship system has been an object of research in France for more than 30 years now, by experts from different backgrounds. Over the past 15 years apprenticeship has grown significantly in higher education. At this level, if a greater importance is attached to theory, it becomes more difficult to connect this theory to more diversified work situations. Referring to Geay’s alternance model and to Vergnaud’s theory of conceptual fields, this article will focus on the impact of apprenticeship on the learning process. I will describe a pedagogical device I designed and implemented in a business master’s programme in order to help apprentices link their professional experience with academic knowledge taught at school. The exploratory study I conducted with 37 master-level apprentices showed that these students were driven to build generic situations out of their personal experience at work and also to interrogate these situations from the perspective of academic knowledge. I also observed unexpected effects on teachers and mentors.