Search Results

One of the defining features of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme is that it ‘aims to improve outcomes for learners of all ages in teaching and learning contexts across the UK’. This article argues that, although it is possible to use the terms outcomes for learners and learning outcomes interchangeably, they have an important difference in connotation. Particular meanings of the latter term are dominant within the Further Education sector. Some insight from analysis in the TLRP project Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education is presented to illustrate this difference and to underline the necessity for educational research to engage critically with both outcomes for learners and learning outcomes if it is to provide knowledge with a practical application.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

Vocationalism and competency-based training are mostly seen as opposing principles underlying different VET [vocational education and training] systems. However, despite the fact that the German VET system is influenced by the vocational principle, which is regarded as maintaining a stable system generating high quality vocational qualifications, the competency debate has entered current VET research in Germany. The reason is that learning and work processes change due to increasing globalisation and technological progress, and therefore more flexible and adjustable qualification processes are demanded. Different research activities approach the concept of competency focusing mainly on the question of what constitutes competency in vocational and didactic theory. A widely used and broadly discussed concept is the so called 'professional action competency', which includes technical, methodical, social and personal competency. Although this concept has been the focus of several research projects, the question of its impact on learning processes based on vocationalism has not been answered yet. The paper will discuss this impact by establishing a comparative perspective between competency-based learning processes and processes based on the vocational principle. Their differences and similarities and the question of whether a competency-based approach can be integrated into a vocationally based approach, will be discussed against the background of the current competency debate in Germany. Furthermore, the issue of whether a competency-based approach has potential to improve the flexibility and self-directedness of existing qualification processes will be illustrated by the example of the information and communication technology (ICT) sector where new approaches to vocational learning are evident.

Published abstract.

Available papers from the 8th Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association (AVETRA) Conference, 'Emerging futures: recent, responsive and relevant research', are indexed from TD/TNC 81.564 to TD/TNC 81.610. Show less

In this paper, the impact of evaluation results, using data and experiences from the evaluation of the German pilot vocational education and training (VET) program 'New learning concepts in the dual vocational education and training' in producing innovative change in VET processes and institutions. These evaluations have been recently finalised and look at the impacts of over 20 pilot projects on curriculum redesign and teaching/learning processes throughout Germany. The authors evaluated the change processes on the program actors with a participative evaluation approach. A final questionnaire studied the impacts from the 25 evaluation sessions. To develop the argument, the authors first reflect on the relation of evaluation and learning. Next, they give a short description of the evaluation approach used. Then, different aspects enabling and constraining learning processes are discussed, using empirical data. Show less

This paper explores the relevance for VET of Basil Bernstein's analysis of the structuring of knowledge and the framing of pedagogic practice. Bernstein argued that education was not a passive relay for external power relations. Pedagogic practice is an important structuring mechanism for power relations in the way in which knowledge is classified and framed. Towards the end of his life, Bernstein argued that the 'official' recontextualising principle in education was derived from 'genericism', itself based on new concepts of work and life. He says this is a socially empty concept, and results in identities constructed as market identities in which actors recognise themselves and others in the materialities of consumption. I apply Bernstein's analysis to VET policy in Australia.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner.

Volumes of papers are indexed at TD/TNC 90.212 and TD/TNC 90.213. Selected individual papers are indexed from TD/TNC 90.214 to TD/TNC 90.264. Show less

The critics of management education (e.g. Grey 2002, Cunliffe 2002) have raised the question of the role of business schools in preparing students to encounter the realities of business life under a critical examination. They claim that the crucial issue in designing educational events is to start from the lived experience that students have of the messiness and ambiguousness of organizational life. But what to do if the students do not have such experiences, as this is typically the case in undergraduate education (see Mutch 1997). In my paper, I will describe what happens when students' experiences of studying in a business school are taken as a starting point of course planning and organizing. This course is called Professional Development (PD) and it was run by me and my colleague Keijo Rasanen in the Helsinki School of Economics last spring 2005. In that course, we considered the process of students becoming ‘professional business students’ as an analogy of people becoming professionals in other communities of practice (see Brown and Duguid 1991, Wenger 1998). We understood students' participation in study practices as participation in work practices and their learning similar to other practitioners' learning. We presumed that if the students would learn how to identify, describe and reflect on their own studying practices, they could benefit from that craft also in future.

The results and feedback that we got from our course showed that students do have experiences that could be used in educational settings. It is true that the students did not have much experiences of professional development outside the business school but they did have experiences emerged in educational organizations. Furthermore, as the results show, the students are able to reflect on those experiences if the reasons are well justified and there is something theoretically new to them to be learnt from.

Published abstract. Show less

This article reports on a series of interviews held with individuals in the middle of a Foundation Degree, during which they were asked for their views of studying for this qualification. It draws on a research project conducted with part-time students involved in work-based learning. The research into their ‘learning journeys’ aimed to explore the process of becoming and being a student. Findings suggested that individuals had embarked on a Foundation Degree for career-related reasons, although they also noted that their course returned secondary benefits, such as an increase in self-confidence and additional life skills. Interviewees found it difficult to juggle competing demands on their time, and needed emotional and practical support from those around them to do so. Other areas of concern were the lack of adequate assistance from tutors that some students felt when it came to writing assignments and the financial hardship that undertaking such a vocational qualification could bring. Results from this study highlight facets of Foundation Degrees that need to be considered by those delivering such courses.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

‘Training journal’ provides current and practical information for those involved in workplace learning, training and development in the UK. This issue contains the following feature articles: ‘Reversal theory: changing you and your organisation for the better’ by Stephen Carter (p. 20-22), which examines how the theory’s approach to maximising human potential for contribution at work can be applied to the business context; ‘Mind your brain: why lifelong learning matters: part 5: why emotions matter for learners’ by Bill Lucas (p. 24-29), which examines how emotions and thought are intertwined and ways of managing emotions during learning; ‘Evaluation: navigating the Kirkpatrick magician’s maze’ by David Laughrin (p. 30-32), which describes a practical approach to useful training evaluation for trainers and their employers (Kirkpatrick’s model of training evaluation is indexed at TD/TNC 70.486); ‘Stopping the training drain’ by Suzanne Evans (p. 36-39), which highlights the lack of return on investment in training in the UK and investigates the reasons why as little as 10% of what is learnt during training is actually applied in the workplace; ‘Learning needs analysis: part 5: learning needs analysis methods’ by Sarah Cook (p. 54-56, 58), which provides an overview of the range of methodologies available for training professionals to identify training and development needs as part of a learning needs analysis. This issue also contains a special section focusing on diversity. The articles are: Mental health at work: the hard facts / Tara St John (p. 44-47); Centre stage: how theatre plays a role in diversity training / Adrian McDougall (p. 48-50). Show less

This study investigated supervisees' perceptions of the learning processes and outcomes of professional supervision. Two hundred and sixty-four psychology graduates involved in the process of professional supervision for registration responded to a mail survey regarding their supervisor's approach to supervision, their own approach to supervision and their perceptions of the overall effectiveness of the process. Findings suggest that professional supervision can be readily conceptualised as a learning relationship. Supervisees' approaches to supervision comprised the three dimensions of surface-disorganised, evaluation anxiety, and endorsement of supervisor capability. Supervisors' approaches to supervision were understood by supervisees in terms of facilitative and didactic approaches to learning. A facilitative approach to supervision was associated with enhanced evaluations of supervisor capability and a reduction in supervisee confusion and anxiety. A facilitative, but not a didactic, supervisory approach positively influenced supervisees' perceptions of the effectiveness of supervision.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

New Literacy Studies is the theoretical basis for this research, providing a social view of literacy. Recent work in New Literacy Studies has extended further the notion of literacy and demonstrated the ways in which people engage in practices in their everyday lives that do not always get translated into their studies. This article draws on research within the Teaching and Learning Research Programme that attempts to explore these issues in the context of further education in the United Kingdom. It draws upon data collected over the last year to illustrate, first, how rich the students’ home-based literacy practices are and, secondly, how these are differently mobilised within their curriculum. The article argues that an understanding of literacy as embedded in social practice could result in practices that enhance students’ learning.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

This paper is set in the context where there is a policy emphasis on teacher learning and development in a number of countries as a means towards school improvement. It reports on a longitudinal research project about the workplace learning of English secondary school teachers, carried out between 2000 and 2003. This was part of a Teaching and Learning Research Programme network of projects looking at learning in a variety of workplaces. The paper contrasts some key features in the teacher development and workplace learning literatures, which highlight different understandings of learning - as acquisition, participation and/or construction. We argue that insights from the literature and the research, including insights from other projects in the network, enhance our understanding of teacher learning. The paper describes some of the main ways in which experienced teachers learn, and then identifies three dimensions which interact in influencing the nature of that learning. The dimensions are: the dispositions of the individual teacher; the practices and cultures of the subject departments; and the management and regulatory frameworks, at school and national policy levels. Based upon the findings, we argue that current policy approaches to teacher development in the UK are over-focused on the acquisition of measurable learning outcomes, short-term gains, and priorities that are external to the teachers. They also assume and strive for impossible and counterproductive universality of approach. Instead, our findings suggest that teacher learning is best improved through a strategy that increases learning opportunities, and enhances the likelihood that teaches will want to take up those opportunities. This can be done through the construction of more expansive learning environments for teachers. We examine briefly some barriers to this approach, and give some suggestions of what could be done.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less