Abstract
The dual system of vocational education and training (VET) and its quality have recently been receiving scientific attention, partly due to high drop-out rates and to politically-motivated efforts to increase participation in the system (Le Mouillour, 2018). However, it remains controversial as to how quality within training companies should be measured, and from whose perspective, and how the quality of training affects drop-out. Empirical studies mostly target the quality perceptions of trainees or of trainers in isolation. The extent to which output factors such as drop-out rates are influenced by variations in perceptions of quality between both these parties has to this point not been tested. The object of the present study was to present a novel bilateral approach to assessing training quality. For this reason, the effects on drop-out intention of differences in the perception of in-company training quality (incongruences) between trainees and trainers from the same company were examined. An online survey was conducted involving 311 commercial trainees and training officers from 30 German companies. A framework model of workplace learning (Tynjälä, Vocations and Learning,6(1), 11–36, 2013) and a short questionnaire “VET-LQI” (Böhn and Deutscher, Zeitschrift für pädagogische Psychologie: ZfPP, 33, 49–70, 2020) served as the theoretical basis and test instrument respectively. Responses from trainees were matched to those of their corresponding trainers, in order to determine possible differences for every item and scale. Following a weighting method regarding the absolute rating level, 15 input- and process-quality factors of divergence, so called “difference accounting multi-perspective scores” were used as independent variables in multiple regression analyses. The results show that differences in perception of quality not only have a significant effect on drop-out intentions, but also explain drop-out intentions more generally, and with a higher predictive power than the conventional method of merely focusing on the quality perceptions of trainees (adjusted R2 = .439 > .333).
Highlights
Personal Data Individual Career OutputCompletion and Final ExamPremature Termination of ContractProfessional Competence Career ChoiceOverall Assessment and SatisfactionVocational IdentityOperational Identity
Before we take a look at the results of the “conventional” approach, which considers unilateral trainee perceptions of training, the effects of personal background information and the various training occupations on drop-out intentions were checked
Trainees’ gender, their highest school-leaving qualification and average grade, the languages spoken at home, their self-assessed performance during training in the form of a grade as well as their year of training were included in a regression on drop-out intentions
Summary
Future Prospects and Career Aspirations and Complexity of Tasks. The second area, Social Interaction, consists of Involvement in Occupational Expert Culture, Functional Involvement and Social Involvement. It is expected that especially negative differences (incongruent perceptions) from trainee to trainer will affect output factors like satisfaction, and even drop-out, while in the case of rather similar evaluations of, for instance “too much overtime”, both actors are aware of a problem that should be avoided in training. It is expected that negative differences in perception between trainees and their trainers impact the perception of quality output aspects – in our case drop-out intentions – negatively. Since the study presented here focuses on perceptions of training quality within the company, the scale was shortened to three items focusing on company-based drop-out intentions (see items 105, 106, 111 in Appendix Table 4). The effect of trainer-trainee differences in perceptions of quality on company-related drop-out intentions should become more valid, in terms of precision. “work climate” and “overload” correlated slightly more highly (0.525), while “social involvement” correlated with “feedback” (0.530) and “personnel and instructions” (0.507), indicating that these are not completely separable social aspects
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