How well do vocational qualifications help prepare technician engineering students for undergraduate study?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article researches the impact UK college-based vocational qualifications, employing a literal form of criterion-referenced intermittent summative assessment, had on twelve technician engineering students’ transition onto undergraduate programmes. This study, an example of a technical pathway prominent in European countries, resonates with previous international research showing long-standing student difficulties in accommodating universities’ approach to teaching, learning and support, and for technician students, lack of mathematical proficiency. Students also experienced significant difficulty in transitioning from the vocational assessment culture to universities’ testing culture, where traditional end-of-year examinations were a ‘shock to the system’. To ease students’ transition, university lecturers require increased awareness of vocational qualifications, and of students’ backgrounds, concerns and difficulties. Formative assessment at college helped develop students’ autonomy and engagement with learning, whilst enhanced prior course information, increased use of formative assessment at university and early use of short tests, would expedite enculturation of technician students into undergraduate study.