VET Research Research Articles

Creating more equitable school-to-work transitions for young people not taking the university route: an ‘equalities-ecologies’ framework

ABSTRACT This article proposes and illustrates a framework for thinking about how the school-to-work transitions of young people not intending to go to university can be made more equitable. This framework seeks to enrich sociological readings of VET by building on the considerable strengths of existing research on ecologies of VET provision and the life-worlds of young people navigating transitions, and bringing them together with concerns about the theoretical and practical complexity of equality that have tended to be relatively neglected in VET research to date. Its organising principle is that, in order to make young people’s transitions more equitable, we need to systematically combine analytic attention to: the multidimensional and intersectional nature of inequality; how local learning ecologies are produced at different system-levels; and how these ecologies interact with young people’s life-worlds, values and agency. We argue that identifying which aspects of local learning ecologies underpin or undermine which kinds of equality for differently resourced young people represents an important first step towards formulating a strategy for how local learning ecologies can be stimulated to become both more opportunity-rich and more equitable, and for understanding the policy and practice challenges and dilemmas that have to be negotiated in the process.

Change management through upskilling and reskilling.

BeWell is an Erasmus+ Funded project that kicked-off in July 2022 and will last for 4 years. BeWell is aiming to prepare the health workforce, and more broadly the health ecosystem, to cope with future challenges and the continuously changing societal expectations by developing a strategy on upskilling and reskilling the health workforce in the context of the green and digital transition. 
 BeWell stands for Blueprint alliance for a future hEalth Workforce stratEgy on digital and green skiLLs and serves the objectives of the European Skills Agenda 2020 that aims to support companies and individuals to develop better skills.
 The way health and care is delivered is significantly changing due to a number of major trends. Just to mention a few: demographic change, the increasing number of non-communicable diseases, the consequences of our modern urban lifestyle, the use of digital technologies becoming prominent in all phases of care provision as well as becoming essential for horizontal and vertical integration of care, the ambition to reduce the environmental impact of the health sector activities, etc. To respond to these challenges and to manage these changes, health professionals need different sets of skills if they want to keep the quality of care provision consistently high. Appropriate education, lifelong learning, continuing professional development are the key in this equation.
 BeWell offers to design, develop and implement a digital and green strategy in partnership with a large number of stakeholders representing VET providers, research, professional organisation, social partners, policy-makers, industry and many others. Having mapped the current and future skill needs, emerging occupations, education and training programmes towards the green and digital transitions will be developed and piloted first of all to provide solutions to health professionals, and second of all to help patients to have access to better care. The strategy will ensure that sporadic training initiatives will be coordinated under a long-term common vision addressing not only current skill needs but will also prepare the workforce for the unknown. The strategy will be implemented at local, national and European level through a large-scale partnership under the Pact for Skills.
 All in all, this oral poster session aims to illustrate how health professionals working in primary, secondary, tertiary or informal care settings could benefit from the outputs of the project. Skills matching labour market demands in the context of digital and green transitions will enable health professionals to provide better integrated care services in all settings.

Revisiting VET research paradigms: Critical perspectives from the South

ABSTRACT This paper reflects on a large multisite funded VET research project conducted by a large and diverse research team. Reflecting on two of our case studies, from Uganda and South Africa, we consider both the need for broadening the VET research agenda to incorporate more research on non-formal sites of vocational learning and work, and the imperative of continued critical reflection on modalities of researching the formal sphere. What we offer is a very fallible attempt to open up the debate about the future of VET research further through, we believe, a critical reading of some of our failures as well as successes in trying to ground our research ethically, ontologically and axiologically and not just methodologically. We advocate, where possible, a radical embeddedness of VET research in communities, whilst acknowledging that this is applicable only to some parts of a comprehensive VET research agenda. We also acknowledge that employers and the state are also legitimate stakeholders who should be part of research but point to the need for a more critical reflection into the patterns of power implicit in researching with/on these constituencies. We believe that our reflection on our successes and failures in these two cases and the project as a whole offers useful provocations regarding ways of making VET research more reflective of diverse settings, less extractive from those being researched and more equal in the participation of members of the research team from the South.

Connecting the racial to the spatial; migration, identity and educational settings as a third space

ABSTRACT The VET sector can be located as one that sits within the intersections of the racial and spatial in addition to the classed; the traditional focus of research concerns. There is a direct correlation between towns and cities with high levels of deprivation and the recruitment of racialised and other marginalised groups into general further education colleges. This paper considers the intertwined nature of the racial and spatial and its implications for South Asian Muslim women students in VET spaces in terms of identity construction and possible futures. This paper critiques how geographical location and educational settings highlight the complex factors encountered by diasporic communities; patterns of historical migration; the educational space as a third space); the role of teachers as mentors. These factors contributed to students developing fluid and dynamic identities rooted in a critical self-awareness whilst resisting Western-centric notions of success. Whilst this created a self-realised agency in the narratives of South Asian Muslim women, it also created a cultural hauntology in the absence of a third space. This has various implications for future VET research in terms of how students from ethnically diverse groups, create or engage with a third space.

Applying discourse analysis to Australian national VET policy: more than one, less than many

ABSTRACT VET researchers and policy-makers have historically displayed a keen interest in the future. Two assumptions link VET to the future. The first is that there is a singular object called VET and, secondly, that it can influence a forthcoming state of reality. This relationship is investigated through a rarely utilised post-structuralist discourse analysis of Australia’s development of national vocational education and training policies. The performative language of policy-makers treats VET as a singular object and portrays the future as rational and predictable. By demonstrating that VET and potential realities exist in multiple forms, it might be possible to better utilise VET’s capacities to produce more desirable national futures. The findings suggest that despite continual reform of the sector, just three strategic positions and their supportive discourses have guided federated policy making. The first generally neglected technical and adult education, followed by the creation of a federally funded novel type of educational institution which eventually led to the establishment of VET quasi-markets. Each underpinning discourse exploited the productive power of language to give effect to governments’ desire to improve manifold futures by deploying alternative versions of VET.

VET research: where have we been? A qualitative content analysis of an Australian vocational education journal, 1993 to 2019

ABSTRACT Academic journals communicate research findings, share knowledge and stimulate debate. They are the representative academic ‘voice’ for a discipline, reflecting its knowledge base. This paper examines all 350 articles published in the International Journal of Training Research from 1993 to 2019 to highlight significant trends over 27 years. It analyses the 462 authors, the article types and methodological characteristics, and their key themes and sub-themes. Analysis of authorship over time reveals rises in the proportions of females publishing, of international contributors from 30 different countries, of contributors affiliated with universities and of multiple authorship. Two-thirds of the articles were qualitative research or expository. Key themes were on political, organisational and structural change and on students, followed by vocational knowledge, learning and instruction, and vocational teachers. Studying the themes and sub-themes over time showed how their relative popularity in research has tended to parallel policy developments in the VET sector.

New VET theories for new times: the critical capabilities approach to vocational education and training and its potential for theorising a transformed and transformational VET

ABSTRACT There is a growing sense that the orthodox set of theories and policies for VET don’t work. This is particularly true in the South where all such Northern theories and policies face the common problem of being constructed for other contexts and then imported. In the light of persistent poverty and inequality; widespread precarious and indecent work; continued concerns about educational access, retention and achievement; and a rising environmental crisis, VET must be transformed to address a new and challenging set of objectives. Here, we offer an exploration of a theoretical approach to VET research that has emerged in the past decade and which offers new insights into how VET can be transformed in order to contribute to the wider transformation agenda around sustainable human development. This is what we term the critical capabilities account of vocational education and training, CCA-VET. We will argue that it is one fertile route towards new thinking about transforming VET in order to support a transformation agenda.

The function and institutional embeddedness of Polytechnics in the Indian education system

Purpose: India’s Polytechnics are a fundamental part of its (vocational) education and training system but are largely ignored in VET research. Understanding the status quo and potential of India’s (vocational) education landscape requires an understanding of the role played by the Polytechnics, particularly in view of the Indian government’s major efforts to implement a functioning VET system. Because little is known about the function and embeddedness of the Polytechnics the article therefore aims to examine how polytechnics are embedded in the Indian education and training system and what functions they perform for the actors within the system.Methods: The article begins by describing the systemic embeddedness of Polytechnics in the Indian education system and demonstrates their role and function in relation to a range of stakeholder groups (individuals, employers, society and the economy). Problem-centred face-to-face interviews Interviews were conducted with the principals of 14 Polytechnics in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, among other cities. Semi-standardized interview guidelines were used to conduct the interviews. The interviews were analyzed by qualitative content analysis.Results: The results show that polytechnics perform various functions in the Indian education system. The Polytechnics teach both theoretical and practical skills, which is a special feature of the Indian system at this level. Qualification takes place at an intermediate level, which means that graduates have the opportunity to enter a company after graduation, where they can hold a kind of supervisor position. It is precisely these employees that are increasingly being sought by Indian companies. In addition, polytechnics provide a pathway to higher education, so students can use the opportunity to switch to a college once they have their diploma at the Polytechnic. Furthermore, the Polytechnics offers its graduates a good opportunity to become self-employed through the wide range of specializations and the practice-oriented skill development. In addition, the Polytechnics offer numerous opportunities to promote socially disadvantaged groups. Conclusion: The survey findings illustrate the importance of Polytechnics to the various stakeholder groups, demonstrating their “multidimensional bridging function” within the Indian education and training system.

How can a design-based research methodology that utilises Mixed-Reality (MR) Technologies be utilized to effectively enhance learning for authentic, high-risk situations?

Even experienced mountain climbers underestimate key dangers and make poor decisions in stressful, high-risk situations when climbing, leading to injury and death. My own experience indicates that effective education can play a key role in managing these risks and improving experienced climber’s decision making. Current educational approaches for climbers, however, are generally limited to textbooks and ‘on the mountain’ learning. It is vital, therefore, that new approaches and methods are developed to improve learning. 
 
 My own experience and emergent case studies indicate that AR (Augmented), VR (Virtual Reality) and MR (Mixed Reality), have affordances (possibilities offered by the technology) to underpin new forms of learning and therefore have the potential to enhance education for high-risk environments. Emergent use of MR immersive technologies includes classroom learning, firefighting and military training. An initial review of literature has indicated though that there are very limited examples of rigorous research on the design and application of MR technologies in authentic education, especially for extreme situations such as mountaineering i.e., no one has rigorously designed for these technologies for learning in extreme environments, evaluated learning outcomes and theorised about how learning can be enhanced. 
 
 In response to this gap/opportunity, this research explores the potential of MR technologies to effectively enhance learning for authentic, high-risk situations. The research will use a Design-based research methodology (DBR) to develop design principles informed by key learning theories as they offer recognised and critical approaches for a new way of learning in an extreme environment. Underpinned by a Constructivist paradigm, initial theoretical frameworks identified include Authentic Learning and Heutagogy (student-determined learning).Herrington and co-authors (2009) recommended 11 design principles for the incorporation of mobile learning into a higher education learning environment, and Blaschke and Hase (2015)’s 10 principles of designing learning for heutagogy. Other theories and frameworks include Constructivist Learning and the ZPD (the Zone of Proximal Development), design for mobile MR learning and user-centred design. Activity Theory will also be utilised in the data analysis.
 
 Initial design principles will be developed by the DBR methodology. These design principles will be tested through the implementation and evaluation of an MR ‘prototype’ app design solution.’ The prototype solution will be iteratively redesigned using further evaluation and feedback from sample cohorts of end-users. Data will be collected from key participant interviews, researcher observation/reflections and biometric feedback. Methodological triangulation (multimodal data approach) will be used to evaluate learning outcomes. The iterative development will lead to transferable design principles and further theorising that can be transferred to other learning situations involving preparation and decision-making as well as knowledge in high-risk contexts. 
 
 Reference
 
 Amiel, T., & Reeves, T. (2008). Design-Based Research and Educational Technology: 
 Rethinking Technology and the Research Agenda. Educational Technology
 & Society, 11(4), 29-40. 
 
 Blaschke, L., & Hase, S. (2015). Heutagogy, Technology, and Lifelong Learning for Professional 
 and Part-Time Learners. In A. Dailey-Hebert & K. S. Dennis (Eds.), Transformative Perspectives and Processes in Higher Education (Vol. 6, pp. 75-94). Switzerland: Springer 
 International Publishing.
 
 Cochrane, T., et al., (2017) ‘A DBR framework for designing mobile virtual reality learning
 environments’, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, vol. 33, 
 
 6, pp. 27–40. doi: 10.14742/ajet.3613 
 
 
 Engeström, Y. (2015). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach 
 to developmental research (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
 
 Hase, S & Kenyon, C. (2001). Moving from andragogy to heutagogy: implications for VET',
 Proceedings of Research to Reality: Putting VET Research to Work: Australian 
 Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA), Adelaide, 
 SA, 28-30 March, AVETRA, Crows Nest, NSW.
 
 Kesim, M & Ozarslan (2012), Y. Augmented Reality in Education: Current 
 Technologies and the Potential for Education, Procedia - Social and 
 
 Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological 
 processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Behavioral Sciences volume 47, 2012, 297-302.

Att vetenskapligt förankra ett yrkeslärarprogram: Erfarenheter från ett utvecklingsprojekt

Demands on the scientific foundation of Swedish Vocational Teacher Education has led to a development project on academic competence at Dalarna University in 2018. The project contained two sub-projects; the construction of a matrix, to display the progression of students’ academic competence; and the implementation of a series of seminars on VET research. This article presents the point of departure and the methods used, together with the results of mappings and analysis of four different aspects of academic competence. This inventory of features of academic competence in teacher education, evokes a wide range of questions on the meaning and consequence of scientific foundation, the research-practice relationship and concrete questions concerning course content.

Shaping the futures of (vocational) education and work: Commitment of VET and VET research

Shaping the futures of (vocational) education and work: Commitment of VET and VET research

The didactics of vocational Bildung: how stories matter in VET research

In the research on education, the field roughly covered by the concept of Bildung has seen a wide-ranging discussion philosophically but less has been said and done from an empirical and vocational perspective. Bildung includes matters such as: formation of character, ethical and aesthetic knowledge/capability, capacity for wise deliberation and reflection as well as the development of personal autonomy. The focus here is on how narratives about teaching and curricula, both enacted and experienced, can be used to articulate significant aspects of Bildung-related practical knowledge. The empirical basis for this draws on a variety of narrative sources. By presenting, comparing and discussing narratives, it will be argued that there is a number of Bildung-related educational matters, not least in vocational education and training, where a narrative articulation can contribute. These can be differentiated in at least five groups: enriching knowledge of vocational tasks; conceptual development and critical reflection; advancement of practice; development of ‘practice fields’ and the articulation of patterns of vocational Bildung affordances. In distinguishing these different ways in which vocational Bildung as a form of practical knowledge can be enriched through narrative studies, the article contributes to our capacity for doing systematic research in the subject area.

Einflüsse schulischer und betrieblicher Ausbildungsqualitäten auf die Entwicklung des Fachwissens und die fachspezifische Problemlösekompetenz

Regularly, the quality of VET is an important issue both in VET research and political activities. However, the number of studies investigating quality factors and their impact on vocational competences at the end of VET is quite limited. For existing explanatory models predicting vocational competencies, quality in VET often was assessed with the German questionnaire “Mannheimer Inventar zur Erfassung betrieblicher Ausbildungssituationen” - (Mannheim Inventory to Measure company-based VET) and common quality factors of vocational schools. Given this operationalisation, quality factors only were of minor importance in the explanatory models, often merely indirectly via motivational variables. In this paper, which is based on a longitudinal study with prospective mechatronic fitters, the Mannheim Inventory was extended and additionally curricular focal points of vocational schools were assessed. Results confirm the particular relevance of cognitive competences for the development of vocational competences. In addition, both apprentices’ motivation in training company and vocational school as well as curricular focal points are included in the explanatory models. But like in previous studies, the impact of company and school based quality factors is mediated by apprentices’ motivation.

Missing things and methodological swerves: Unsettling the it-ness of VET

This paper argues for approaches to research methodologies that interrupt the machinic metaphors and relationships for living circulating in so much VET research. Using the schematic of ‘cyborg as a figuration’ and Wilson’s (2009) four epistemological interventions (witnessing, situating, diffracting, acquiring) the authors practice a form of ‘materialised refiguration’ (Haraway, 1994) to re-engage with experiences of doing vocational education and training research over more than two decades. The approach manifests as story telling of/for complexity and opens up a research methodology guided by two questions: How are researchers deeply implicated in knowledge-making practices in and of VET? What vocational lives do we make in and through those practices? The aim of this approach is to call into question machinic VET stories as the only way to narrate vocational education and training research/practice. In so doing, the authors affirm hybrid methodological work that invokes vocational education and training researchers as authors-in-themaking of heterogeneous worlds.

Mentoring the next researcher generation: Reflections on three years of building VET research capacity and infrastructure

During 2008–2011, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) funded a programme to build Australian VET research capacity and rejuvenate what has been seen as the existing ‘greying’ researcher pool. This paper is a reflective narrative about experiences of constructing the programme with a specific focus on the mentoring activity. It is about researching how we develop VET researchers, and specifically the role that experienced researchers can play. In the first three years, more than 40 experienced VET researchers have been associated with the programme, mainly as mentors and facilitators. These mentors have supported 30 new VET researchers undertaking an initial local VET research project and supervising them through to their subsequent publication with NCVER. This paper focuses on the mentoring that took place and what researchers and research managers can learn from those experiences in terms of building research capacity.This paper reviews the first stages of what has been a participatory action research project for those associated with the programme as the national research infrastructure for new VET researchers was constructed. It evaluates what actions have had the greatest impact and what we can lean from the initiative. It traces the project development from the initial project dilemmas through to the completion and publication of papers. This paper provides a narrative of the relationships that built the programme, focusing upon the mentoring relations striving to bridge both cognitive and geographical divides.The findings indicate that mentoring has played a critical role, and has been established as a essential role in this new VET researcher development pathway. The paper concludes by comparing the components of the Australian programme to a theoretical model and producing guidelines for research mentoring practice that have applicability to related research fields.

The dominance of apprenticeships in the German VET system and its implications for Europeanisation: a comparative view in the context of the EQF and the European LLL strategy

Germany’s apprenticeship system is and has always been considered to be the major sub-system of VET. In this context, the debate circling around the European and German Qualifications Framework (EQF and DQR) has become one of the central issues of VET research and policy. Tasks take on a concrete shape if (a) a serious approach is adopted towards the ideas underlying the European Qualifications Framework; and (b) if consideration is given to the ‘construction sites’ typical for the German VET system as a whole. This paper intends to sharpen VET policy awareness for the problem of dealing with those unresolved German VET issues within the context of the development of the DQR. A comparative view includes Austria and France as two countries with diverging learning cultures in VET from the German case, but obviously with more ‘European’ imprints within their respective VET systems. It can be shown that there is an interrelation between the attention apprenticeships as such receive against the background of European ideas such as ‘progression’, ‘permeability’ and ‘lifelong learning’ (LLL), including the implementation and use of ‘hybrid qualifications’.

Dropping out of apprenticeship programs: Evidence from the Swiss vocational education system and methodological perspectives for research

This paper discusses the issue of attrition in apprenticeship programs, a topic that has attracted growing attention by VET researchers and policy-makers in many developed countries. It commences with a brief overview of the key issues challenging initial vocational education in Switzerland, and links these issues to similar concerns in Australia. It then demonstrates how concerns about the workplace environments can be understood through the particular lens of linguistic methods. These methods assist by providing a fine-grained analysis of the interactional processes that can lead to attrition and change in apprenticeship pathways. A case study based on empirical material collected in Swiss workplaces and documenting interactions between a first-year apprentice, his supervisor and his colleagues provides an illustration of this linguistic perspective and illuminates the challenges faced by apprentices in the early days of work.

Measurement of vocational competencies — a contribution to an international large-scale assessment on vocational education and training

Measurement of vocational competencies which includes not only the knowledge but also the action domain is one of the central targets of VET research — under scientific as well political perspectives. It also is a decisive prerequisite for running an international large-scale assessment on VET. The article describes how such measurement is operationalized by defining dimensions of VET competencies and developing adequate items which mirror authenticly tasks to be fulfilled at the workplace. Tasks and items are presented in the context of a technology-based virtual enterprise focusing on the fields of business and administration. Their format allows Item Response Theory (IRT) scaling.

The Fifth Kondratiev and the Last Frontier: Vocational Education and Training Research Priorities for the 1990's

Abstract The title of this paper is perhaps obscure, but it is intended to draw attention to the special context within which we need to consider vocational education and training in the 1990s. The paper describes the salient characteristics of that context, in order to provide a frame for some current preoccupations related to VET research.