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The purpose of this project was to investigate whether the provision of mentoring training for ITO apprentices, employers and training advisors (TAs) would positively influence the success of the apprentice's learning journey. The Building and Construction ITO (BCITO) and the Hairdressing ITO (HITO) partnered with the lead researcher using a participatory action methodology, to develop resources, facilitate mentoring training workshops (Central North Island and Wellington regions), and support and monitor apprentices' progress over a one-year implementation period. The overwhelmingly positive responses by all participants about the value they perceived in engaging in a mentoring relationship alongside the training programme are described in this report, including observations attesting to the value of the training workshop process for mentors. The report also outlines six key themes related to the use and delivery of mentoring in ITOs: mentor attributes; benefits of mentoring; mentoring support; logistics of mentoring; changes made by the apprentice; and support for the mentor.

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Successful tutors teaching within a youth training setting often work intuitively to engage young adults in tertiary education. This collaborative project involved two private training establishments and sought to identify and describe tutor good practices which influence the achievement of positive outcomes for Youth Guarantee (YG) students. The Youth Guarantee policy provides opportunities to support 16- and 17-year-olds to achieve education success, and progress into further education, training and employment. It supports schools, tertiary education organisations and employers to work together in new ways. From 2014, the age range was extended to include 18- and 19-year-olds.

The project investigated the insight YG tutors have into their own teaching practice, and determined how tutor understanding of their practice can influence effective teaching and contribute positively to student learning experiences and outcomes. The research elicited a range of views, experiences and concepts about what YG students needed to support their learning and how tutors could provide that. The key themes were: the importance of relationships; teaching and learning practices that support YG students' learning; and professional development to support YG tutors' pedagogical practice.

The report contains three recommendations: (1) development of a signature pedagogies framework for YG tutors to support professional development (PD) decision-making and guide a holistic approach to recruitment, selection and induction of YG tutors; (2) utilising existing tutor induction and appraisal processes to provide targeted PD support and learning for the new tutor; and (3) design and implement a formal tutor PD programme to provide a structured, needs-based approach to developing pedagogical practices. Suggestions for future research are also made. The project developed two resources which reflect a combination of the student voice, the tutors' self-reflection and the managers' perspective: a continuum model for establishing good practice teaching of YG students; and a schema to guide decision-making about effective PD for YG tutors.

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This report documents a seven-month project to investigate successful learning in the Adult Community Education (ACE) sector in New Zealand. It was a collaboration of three Rural Education Activities Programme (REAP) centres in the Wairarapa, Central Otago and the Eastern Bay of Plenty. The project had three key aims: (1) to discover how successful learning is defined by learners in the ACE sector; (2) to identify how this definition can inform the programme design, interventions and activities offered the ACE sector; and (3) to use adult learners' perceptions to inform any practice change and ensure programme delivery better meets learner needs. Key findings related to defining learner success, learner challenges and challenges to learning, learner support mechanisms, future pathways and plans, and good practice. Key recommendations are: to develop an evaluation model to establish essential learner-centric practices based on a description of learning success as described by learners; and to develop a tool that can be used by ACE training providers to align programme interventions and activities with learners' views of successful learning.

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In 2016, some members of the current project team completed a Regional Hub investigation entitled 'Supporting dyslexic trainees in classroom and workplace environments' [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 127.314]. This report describes the learning experiences and needs of 20 dyslexic learners in the New Zealand ITO environment and introduces a 'wrap-around' training and support model to help inform decisions about how to best support learners with dyslexia. The current project builds on this earlier work to offer a nationwide intervention package with a suite of resources for supporting dyslexic learners and stakeholders across the tertiary and vocational education sector in different learning settings including the classroom, workplace and home.

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The advent of the New Zealand Apprenticeship programme in 2014 established an opportunity for the industry training organisation (ITO) sector in New Zealand to ensure that the quality of their mentoring is meeting the needs of the learners. The purpose of the evaluation approach taken in this project was to determine the effectiveness of an informal voluntary mentoring programme provided for trainees in the Primary ITO and if any changes or improvements could be made. The specific aims of the project were to: ascertain if mentoring support for trainees by local community volunteer mentors makes a difference to the trainees' learning experiences and outcomes; identify the impact of mentoring on successful trainee learning experiences and outcomes; develop an organisational strategic policy for the mentoring programme; and develop a Mentoring Good Practice model as a formalised process-oriented system for mapping how mentoring support for trainees is provided within the Primary ITO. The project employed a case study methodology over a five month period in the Central and lower North Island region of the Primary ITO (one of five regions) to evaluate the impact and outcomes of the mentoring programme. This region was selected based on its achievement of successful trainee outcomes including retention, completions and pathwaying to higher levels of study. The participants who were invited to participate in the project included: 15 agriculture qualification trainees engaged in a mentoring partnership with a volunteer mentor; 15 volunteer mentors; 10 Training Advisers working across the case study region; the Learning Support Coordinator for the case study region; and the National Literacy and Numeracy Adviser for the Primary ITO. The key findings include: establishment of formal processes to identify trainee needs; development of mentor recruitment processes; clarification of mentor roles and responsibilities; development of mentor support mechanisms; identification of programme benefits and challenges; and programme improvement strategies and sustainability. This report offers a number of recommendations for the Primary ITO and other tertiary education providers to consider in relation to providing good mentoring practices to support trainees' learning experiences and outcomes.

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Does the provision of mentoring support for apprentices completing vocational education qualifications positively influence the success of their learning journey? This presentation will report on two projects which investigated how the provision of targeted mentoring support for apprentices by employers, training advisors and voluntary mentors influences apprentice learning success. Success was defined as encompassing retention, completion and progression, credit achievement and learning experiences. Participatory action research provided the methodological framework for one of the projects, which involved the collaboration of two New Zealand industry training organisations (ITOs) where mentoring support provided by training advisors is a core activity of the apprentice's programme of learning. A significant focus of this project was the engagement of employers as mentors of their apprentices and how the employer provides a complementary support mechanism to the training advisor's mentoring role.

Over a period of six months, the training advisors, employers and apprentices engaged in mentoring training workshops and subsequent dyadic mentoring partnerships. During this period of mentoring activity, semi-structured interviews were conducted via telephone and/or face to face meetings in the workplace setting, establishing both formative and a final summative data collection process. Feedback from the three participant groups has informed the development of a mentoring programme model as a formal support mechanism that can be customised for and integrated in apprenticeship schemes. Using case study methodology, the second project evaluated a current mentoring programme for trainees in another New Zealand ITO, which included a review of the mentoring programme structure and interviews with three stakeholder groups. An evidence-based mentoring model (Petersen, 2011) was used to guide the evaluation of the programme structures and processes, ascertain good practices that positively influence trainees' learning experiences and outcomes, and broaden the knowledge about mentoring approaches and methods that are effective for trainees in the vocational education space.

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A growing body of literature on mentoring in higher education is espousing mentoring as an influential mechanism for supporting a teacher's academic practice, simultaneously acknowledging that mentoring as a concept and practice is an inherently multi-dimensional phenomenon open to interpretation and critique. Few scholars provide a stipulated definition of mentoring, increasing the likelihood that mentoring will continue to be a topical debate in the educational domain. This study had the dual purpose of investigating the effects of mentoring on an academic teacher's practice in the higher education context and the determinants of a mentoring system being implemented within an organisational environment. An extensive literature review exploring mentoring across three disciplines of higher education, health and business highlights a number of significant elements attributed to the transformation of mentoring as a concept into a legitimate mechanism for supporting academic teaching practice. An action research approach guided the collection of data about the influences of mentoring within an organisational context and encompassed four action research cycles of data collection, analysis and reflection. Three distinct participant groups were involved in the study, including five academic teachers who had assumed a mentor role 12 years prior to commencement of the investigation; four mentoring program coordinators based in higher education institutions within New Zealand and Australia and 18 practising academic teachers who engaged in dyad mentoring partnerships over a one year period. The findings of the investigation identified a significant link between mentoring and a teacher's academic development, influenced by inter-connecting variables at an individual and organisational level. The study culminates in the development of a model for mentoring that proposes a definitive approach for mentoring as a professional development mechanism that supports the teaching practice of teachers in the higher education organisational context, within which the concept, practice and evaluation of mentoring are vehicles for teachers to explore, challenge and change existing paradigms of teaching and learning in higher education.

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A team of tertiary teachers and staff developers across four [institutes of technology and polytechnics] ITPs and one wananga [publicly-funded institutions which use Maori protocols] engaged in a two-year project, funded by Ako Aotearoa, to investigate professional development decision-making in order to improve under-25 students' achievement. The purpose of this project was to create an integrated professional development decision-making model which enhances practice to benefit Under-25 students. This project made use of a Kaupapa Maori methodology and conceptual framework, which provided a critical and reflective lens through which to evaluate the project's design, analysis and outcomes. The framework took account of the structural, cultural and political factors that impact professional development decision-making.

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Dyslexia is a real, but often hidden, issue among the farming community. Some researchers estimate that one in five rural residents in New Zealand may be affected by the condition, which usually manifests itself in reading, spelling and arithmetic problems. The Primary ITO [industry training organisation] has taken steps to support those learners. This project built on that work by investigating: (1) how trainees with dyslexia can be supported in workplaces and classrooms; and (2) how they can be assisted with the transition between these two environments.

Trainees, tutors, training advisers and employers were interviewed and the data analysed to explore: the challenges of dyslexia; the impact of dyslexia on the trainee's learning; and strategies to support the dyslexic trainee in their learning. The two main outputs from this project are a guide for trainees, tutors, training advisers and employers outlining strategies to improve learning outcomes for trainees with dyslexia. And, a proposed 'wraparound' support model to guide decision-making about good practice interventions which effectively support trainees with dyslexia. The report concludes with recommendations for future work including the development of targeted learning and teaching resources and the provision of more professional development workshops for practitioners.

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What are the literacy, language and numeracy (LLN) requirements of trainees completing higher level tertiary qualifications? This project investigated the pilot programme of the Level 5 National Agribusiness Management Diploma delivered over the past 18 months by a collaboration between Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), Dairy Training Limited and the Primary ITO [industry training organisation]. The diploma is a key part of the [New Zealand] dairy industry's drive to lift workforce skill levels and capabilities with DairyNZ calling for 1000 diploma graduates on an annual basis.

The project's key aims were to determine what provisions are in place to identify LLN requirements of the diploma courses and therefore LLN support which trainees may need to complete the qualification. The extent to which tutors felt equipped to support trainees' LLN needs was also explored. These aims were achieved through reviewing the diploma qualification structure and interviewing key stakeholders, which helped with the development of tools and resources beneficial to assist programme providers and their tutors in removing LLN barriers and enhancing trainees' learning achievements and success.

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