Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training

Editorial: Vocational classroom research with a focus on teaching and learning in vocational education subjects

Stig-Börje Asplund, Nina Kilbrink, Ann-Britt Enochsson — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Thirty years of sharing and caring in Vocational Education and Culture Research Network

Anja Heikkinen, Liv Mjelde — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0200

There are as many stories about the Vocational Education and Culture Network as there are people who have involved themselves in the network activities during the past 30 years; they all are worth telling. The organisers of the 2023 Oslo workshop asked us two to present a kind of memoir of the network because we were both involved at the start of joint activities. We hope this dialogue on our experiences will show some of the shared and distinctive features of the network. It is not chronological but covers a few themes raised by our experiences, illustrated by photos from earlier presentations and documents available to us. They do not try to do justice to all the diverse activities and meanings networkers have experienced during the past 30 years. Since so many have participated and contributed, we focus on activities rather than individuals, but readers will identify some long-term members in the photos. We hope a more detailed discussion continues after our dialogue.

Editorial: Autumn 2023

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Evaluating labour market–educational programme fit: A case study on aligning supply and demand for competences using a generic approach

Laura Felby, Jacob Nielsen, Anna Roesen, Morten Mathiasen, Sune Müller — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0200

There is a long-standing debate within academia and practice on how specific educational programmes and educational systems, in general, prepare students for the labour market after graduation. This article contributes to this debate by exploring to what extend Bloom’s revised taxonomy (BRT) can be used to investigate the degree of alignment between the demand of the Danish labour market and the supply of competences. We present a generic method for evaluating labour market–educational programme fit that can be used across educational programmes. This method is developed and tested in a case study in which BRT is used to investigate the alignment between the curriculum and labour market demand for skills, knowledge, and compe-tences. We compare the curriculum of the multimedia design programme with relevant job advertisements. This comparison involves a qualitative analysis of both the programme’s learning goals and the advertisements’ content based on qualitative and abductive coding. We identify areas of misalignment and discuss how the educational programme can use the information to align the supply with the demand for competences.

Examination as knowledge development: A case study from vocational education and training

Øyvind Glosvik, Dorthea Sekkingstad — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Post-graduate and further education can easily be overlooked as a contribution to collective knowledge and practice development in a field of practice. An overarching theme of this article is how the organisation of a post-graduate and further education initiative can influence collective knowledge in vocational education and training. This article aims to inquire about what teachers and school managers in vocational education and training experience with an examination format where the teachers conduct a university exam at their school, with their management as audience and potential participants. This case study is based on qualitative data from four focus group interviews with teachers and five focus group interviews with school managers at five vocational training schools. The teachers participated in the ‘Vocational Teacher Training Initiative programme’ (YFL) in Norway. ‘The third space’ is used as the overarching theoretical framework. Through a thematic content analysis, the findings were crystalised into three categories. 1) The examination format facilitated a proximity to practice. 2) Knowledge sharing appeared as concrete actions. 3) The examination format revealed new possibilities for co-creation with higher education. The result is that the examination format seemed to function as a bridge between conventional teaching practices in higher education and collective development in vocational education and training. Minor changes in the examination format appeared to open the door to what is termed ‘a third space’ between higher education and schools.

Expansive conceptualisation of the impact of continuous learning programmes: An analysis of research-based workshops in higher vocational education and training

Sanna Juvonen, Tarja Kantola, Hanna Toiviainen — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Finnish higher education institutions offer continuous learning opportunities, including professional specialisation education programmes for the health and social sector. This article focuses on the conceptualisation of the impact of these programmes, which was the topic of discussion by education and working-life actors in research-based workshops. Drawing on the cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT) approach, the study seeks to answer the following research questions: What are the main themes through which the participants conceptualise the impact of education? How do the themes expand the conceptualisation of the impact of education? A qualitative study analysed data from the multi-professional discussions facilitated by researcher-developers in online workshops during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings describe the impact-related discussion themes and analyse their expansive potential. Participants’ discursive actions in research-based online workshops manifest expansive conceptuali-sation on multiple dimensions, but also reveal dilemmatic impact-related questions that reflect the underlying contradictions of continuous learning programmes in the health and social sector.

Grensekryssing i yrkesfaglærerutdanningen: Betydningen av studentenes utviklingsprosjekter

Øyvind Granborg, Nina Aakernes — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0200

This article aims to explore how vocational teacher students’ work with development projects can create coherence between learning in the university and learning in teaching practice. Previous research indicates that students often perceive a lack of coherence between the academic knowledge culture in the university and the experiential knowledge they encounter in teaching practice. The study uses boundary crossing as a theoretical approach, and the results are based on interviews with vocational teacher students. The results reveal that their work with development projects strenghten programme coherence by linking the learning arenas university and teaching practice. The development projects also acted as boundary objects, facilitating the integration of the different knowledge cultures and practices. This study contributes to understanding the potential of development projects to create coherence between university and teaching practice in vocational teacher education. The results suggest the need for closer collaboration between universities and schools in supporting vocational teacher students’ work on development projects to enhance boundary learning.

Roles of science and research in vocational teacher preparation: A case study from a Norwegian VET teacher programme

Eli Smeplass, Lene Hylander, Chris Zirkle — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Bridging vocational skills and scientific principles can pose challenges in vocational education and training (VET) teacher programmes. This study aims to enhance such programmes by exploring the potential of reflective practices among students and educators on the nature of science and research in VET contexts. Engaging VET teacher students with multidisciplinary backgrounds in a learning community, the study explores how to further develop research-based teacher training by ‘nudging’ student cooperation. A pedagogical course designed to appreciate students’ prior experiences aimed at preparing them to reflect upon their own professional development from a scientific perspective. Using five focus group interviews with 19 first-year students, the study identifies and explains four key factors for quality in VET teacher training: relevance of pedagogical theory, the value of a multidisciplinary approach, recognition of students’ VET backgrounds, and the importance of community in learning. The findings emphasise the significance of creating coherence between research, vocational skills, educational theory, and real-world applications to develop quality in VET teacher training. This study has implications for educators and policymakers, underlining the need for a comprehensive approach to research-based VET teacher competence that integrates personal, academic, and professional elements.

Vocational students in the hospitality industry explain guests’ sexual harassment

Maria Hedlin, Eva Klope — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0200

This study’s purpose is to contribute knowledge which can be used as a basis for vocational teachers in hospitality when they discuss sexual harassment with their students. We therefore explore how students in training for vocations in the hospitality industry explain why some guests subject staff to sexual harassment. The empirical material consists of focus group interviews with students in the Swedish Hotel and Tourism programme and the Restaurant Management and Food programme. Twenty-two focus group interviews were conducted, 2–8 students participated in each group. The interviews took place in ten different municipalities in southern Sweden. The students’ explanations are that the sexual harassment is an issue linked to the generation, an issue of information, an issue of personality, an issue related to alcohol, an issue to do with male nature, and an issue of guests taking advantage of their status. These different explanations are linked to overarching discourses. Several of these are historical discourses that have been repeated for a long time. For teachers in the hospitality vocational education programmes a pedagogical point can be to highlight all the explanations and discourses in order to examine together with the students the assumptions on which their explanations rest.

Editorial: The journal turns thirteen

Per Andersson, Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen, Johanna Köpsén, Arnt Louw — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0200

What constitutes a conducive learning environment in VET?

Bjarne Wahlgren, Vibe Aarkrog — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Based on a review of international research, this article summarises the key factors identified as shaping a conducive learning environment at vocational schools. The factors are exemplified with data from an empirical study conducted at 13 Danish VET schools.

We distinguish between curricular factors, i.e., the organisation, form, and content of teaching and training, and social factors, i.e., students’ relationships and social inter-actions with peers and teachers.

Key curricular factors include giving students authentic, vocationally relevant tasks where they play an active role in and share responsibility for their own learning. Other important factors include that teachers tailor training to the individual, convey positive expectations concerning student performance, help students to set and achieve realistic goals, and offer regular feedback. Likewise, it has impact on the learning environment that the teaching is practice-related and that the teachers work closely with trainers at workplaces offering apprenticeships.

Key social factors include teachers establishing positive relationships with their students, acting as role models. Furthermore, it is important that teachers nurture a positive social environment among students. As such, a well-functioning learning environment requires teachers to have not only the relevant vocational skills but also a range of social and personal competences.

From doing to learning: Students’ self-evaluation and reflective practices in VET

Giulia Messina Dahlberg, Susanne Gustavsson — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0200

This study aims to investigate the conditions for students’ self-evaluation and reflective practices when dealing with the learning of skills in a range of different settings in vocational education and training (VET), in the natural resource programme with simulated and authentic teaching practices and learning environments, for example digital driving simulation, as well as environments with authentic machines. The empirical basis of the study consists of extensive data generated during fieldwork in the form of interviews, field notes, and observations in simulator centres, authentic school environments and classrooms. The results show that simulation-based teaching and learning have created opportunities to develop practices that foster students’ evaluation and regulation of their learning, through the implementation of specific tools that focus on triggering students’ reflections on specific vocational skills and competence. The analysis also shows that feedback and reflective practices could be understood as an evaluation tool for task completion against specific set standards in pedagogical design. But also, as a practice of socialisation and transformation for the students, with the aim to provide them with the kinds of tools that may foster creativity and collaborative practices in the vocational training and their future profession.

Implementation of digital tools in VET: Experienced support and technology acceptance

Sarah Würges, Carmela Aprea — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0200

Among pressures and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, progressive digitalisation has resulted in changes in vocational learning environments. Therefore, a well-planned and didactically sensible implementation of digital tools is indispensable. The aim of this article is to discuss how experienced support from teachers/trainers influences trainees’ acceptance of digital note-taking apps and video conferencing systems, and what requirements there are for support. These factors were measured based on the technology acceptance model and social support theory using an online questionnaire (mixed methods) of 891 trainees from different training occupations in Germany.

The results show, that ‘Support trough instruction/communication/time resources/ organisation’ is relevant for the embedding of digital tools at the learning venues schools and workplaces. Experienced support influenced trainees’ technology acceptance of the tools. In summary, didactically sensible teaching of basic digital skills ensures progress in the sense of digitalisation and, thus, the future employees of ‘Industry 4.0’ emerge from ‘Vocational Education 4.0’.

Praktisk yrkesopplæring på nett: En case-studie av yrkesfaglæreres undervisningspraksis under covid-19-pandemien

Frode Torgeir Andersson, Marit Lensjø, John Eivind Storvik — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The purpose of this article is to develop knowledge about the experiences of technical vocational education and training teachers in Norway during the covid-19 school closures in the spring and autumn of 2020. Data has been obtained through an electronic questionnaire with open, text-based answers. 18 vocational teachers participated in the survey, which shows that the closure had major consequences for vocational students in the technological education programs. The home school’s narrow framework conditions made it difficult to replace the school’s practical workshop and hands-on training. The study shows that the closure has triggered major differences in how vocational training was carried out. While some students only participated in digital home school, other students were able to have more practice in firms and enterprises than in ordinary school life. Excluded from school, training firms, and leisure activities, many students felt lonely and passive and some were eventually in danger of dropping out of school. The study shows that the vocational teachers took extensive responsibility and worked hard to find relevant and practical tasks for their students in the crisis that arose. One-to-one conversations between teacher and student as well as a close school-home collaboration became decisive for the students' experience of social and professional belonging.

Spegeln som resurs i hår- och makeupstylistklassrummet: Yrkesämnesundervisning på hantverksprogrammet

Minna Arvidsson, Stig-Börje Asplund, Ann-Britt Enochsson, Nina Kilbrink — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0200

This study explores the interaction between students and teachers in subject-specific vocational education, specifically focusing on the hair and make-up stylist classroom within the handicraft programme in Swedish upper secondary school. The aim is to understand the role and significance of the mirror in enabling teacher-student interaction and mutual understanding. By integrating Conversation Analysis and Variation Theory into a unified approach (CAVTA), the study seeks to provide comprehensive insights into the ‘what’ and ‘how’ aspects of learning. CAVTA enables the identification of the visible content in teaching and how it manifests in the staged vocational education setting. The findings reveal the teacher’s strategic use of the mirror to emphasise critical aspects of the Object of learning, in this study referring to the application of eye shadow. This utilisation of the mirror serves as a valuable teaching tool in the interaction between the teacher and student.

How does it feel? An exploration of teaching perceptive sensoriality in hairdressing education

Anna Öhman, Eva Klope — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

This study explores vocational didactics and embodied knowledge in hairdressing education by studying how perceptive sensoriality is used by teachers and students in creating shared understandings of vocational knowledge. Among multiple actions, touch is distinguished as a central resource in learning the vocation, as it emerges in interaction between teacher and student related to the ongoing teaching and its assignment. The data is based on video-recordings displaying how touch is used in manipulating objects and material, or in assessing qualities and defects. In such instances, touch becomes a diagnostic criterion (Goodwin, 1997) to investigate how the material worked with can be evaluated and handled. To bridge the gap between individual and collective vocational knowledge, metaphors are of use. The results show two approaches to the teaching of perceptive sensoriality. In order to learn the vocational subject content the teaching need to provide for and practice the individual’s embodied sense of touch as well as the vocation’s verbalised collective feel. This is the core of the didactical challenge.

Editorial: Autumn 2022

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0100

A PRIDE-theory-based analysis of a positive learning environment in a Finnish vocational education and training (VET) institution

Jonna Hurskainen, Sanna Wenström, Satu Uusiautti — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0100

The aim of this study was to analyse Finnish students’ perceptions of a positive learning environment. Because of the reform of Finnish vocational education and training (VET) and the recent decrease of students’ well-being, it is important to study how students’ well-being and learning can be enhanced. This study applied the PRIDE theory to describe the positive learning environment. The acronym PRIDE is derived from these words: positive practices, relationship enhancement, individual attributes, dynamic leadership, and emotional well-being. The data was collected with semi-structured student interviews (N=12) from a northern Finnish VET institution. The interviews were analysed with a theory-based content analysis leaning on the PRIDE theory. The research provided important information of the positive learning environment from the students’ perspective, through which learning environments that support students’ well-being and learning can be designed and developed in VET. In addition, the study provided an example of how to use the PRIDE theory for analysing positive learning environments and education.

The vocational teacher, an inventor in special needs education: A study on Swedish vocational programmes

Robert Holmgren, Gerd Pettersson — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) in Sweden has been subject to frequent educational policy reforms which have resulted in reduced numbers of students and student groups comprising many students with special education needs (SEN). These changes can be assumed to have resulted in increasing demands on VET teachers’ work with special needs education (SNE). The purpose of this study is to contribute knowledge about VET teachers’ conditions for, and work with, SNE in Swedish VET programmes. An analysis of interviews with 15 teachers from eight VET programmes revealed the following themes: 1) Framework factors in the learning environments affecting teaching and learning, 2) The schools’ organisation of special educational competence and the VET teachers’ application of special needs education, 3) Communicative teaching for increased knowledge of students’ strengths and needs, 4) Adaptations at individual and group level, 5) Integration of theory and practice, and 6) Reconsidering teaching approaches through follow-ups. The analysis, based on Skrtic’s theory, reveals a dichotomy in the VET teachers’ conditions for, and work with, SNE. In the schools, a bureaucratic approach is applied where overriding goals are attributed high value, while the VET teachers strive for an adhocratic approach where the teaching is based on their students’ needs. Based on Ainscow’s theory, the analysis shows that the VET teachers take an interactive learning environment-related approach, which means that, based on their understanding of the students’ difficulties, they develop adaptations to stimulate their students’ learning and development.

Organisatoriske særtrekk i samordningen mellom skole og arbeidsliv i yrkesfagutdanningen: Empirisk belysning gjennom en norsk casestudie

Merete Chatrin Rekdahl, Jan Merok Paulsen — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The current study provides an in-depth investigation of critical factors of successful inter- organisational collaboration involving upper secondary schools, vocational communities situated at department levels, and labour market partners in the school’s local environment. The research question that has guided the study is: What are the organisational characteristics of schools and subject departments which are well-performing in terms of a high degree of student completion in vocational education and training? The concept of ‘organisational characteristic’ refers to structures, roles and institutionalised patterns of collaboration involving school teachers, school leaders and labour market partners. The study is designed as a single case study encompassing two units of analysis, embracing school and department levels in their interactions with partners in the labour market. The findings of the study highlight the importance of collaborative learning through the creation and development of specific organisational routines directed towards the core practices of vocational didactics. Moreover, the findings underscore the process of local adaptation activated at the subject- department level and directed towards corresponding businesses and relevant parts of the public sector. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.

Opplevelse av sammenheng i fag- og yrkesopplæring: Et longitudinelt perspektiv

Grete Hanssen — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0200

This longitudinal study explores the resources vocational students need to balance stress and develop vocational competence in school- and work-based learning. As a theoretical framework, the concepts of sense of coherence (SOC) and general resistance resources (GRR) are used, as proposed by Antonovsky in his salutogenic theory. SOC consists of three components: comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. GRR is about how a person, group or community use internal and external resources to promote SOC. Participants are interviewed at the end of their school part of the education and again at the end of the apprenticeship. The two interviews are compared using comparative analysis methods to explore how participants’ GRRs develop. The study shows that comprehensibility increases when practice and theory are integrated into work tasks during the apprenticeship. The manageability component, developed throughout the educational process, helps them master stress and to face unpredictable situations. The GRRs promoting meaningfulness are almost similar in the two interviews and appear to be stable over time and central for participants to engage in learning situations and develop vocational competence.

Fra logg til blogg: Yrkesfaglæreres digitale kompetanseutvikling gjennom designbasert praktikerforskning

Svanhild Kristine Berntsen, Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Professional digital competences (PDC) have a significant influence on Norwegian and international innovation in education and have been extended to include several aspects of the teacher’s role. There is a need for more research on vocational teachers/education in general, and specifically on digital competence. This article is an intervention study in Norwegian vocational education and training, exploring the development of vocational teacher’s professional digital competences through design-based practitioner research. The aim has been to study how the implementation of a new artefact, using blog as an ePortfolio and a boundary object, influence the practitioner researcher’s and vocational teacher colleagues’ development of PDC. The study was carried out in subjects of vocational specialisation with youth enterprise as the method. The results and analysis contribute to identifying participatory knowledge about vocational teachers’ development opportunities and competence profile related to the use of technology as boundary objects and the further establishment of new boundary-crossing practices. This study contributes to an expanded understanding of vocational teachers’ competence profile and development opportunities related to PDC, and the case contributes with increased knowledge about how practitioner research provides opportunities for development.

Editorial: NJVET and the NordYrk network

Sat, 24 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0200

Effects of coaching on wellbeing, perception of inclusion, and study-interest

Suzette Kaper, Nina van Graafeiland, Bart Vogelaar — Sat, 24 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The current study aimed to investigate the influence of an evidence-based coaching intervention on students’ wellbeing, perception of inclusion and study-interest, among 93 first year social work students (aged 16–24) in the Netherlands. The coaching intervention that was implemented was based on the REGROW model. A pre-test-intervention-post-test design with two conditions was employed. The experimental condition (n = 47) received coaching from their mentor between pre-test and post-test, while the control condition (n = 46) received regular academic career counselling from their mentor. The results indicate that coaching has a positive effect on students’ emotional wellbeing, but not on psychological and social wellbeing, perception of inclusion and study-interest. In addition, it was found that students’ evaluation of the coaching trajectory is predictive of their emotional wellbeing, specifically in relation to relatedness and pressure. In vocational education, coaching seems to be a valuable addition to academic career counselling. A structured practical coach model, such as the REGROW model, potentially combined with a coach card, could help implementing coaching in vocational education.

Demokrati på erhvervsuddannelser med afsæt i social- og sundhedsuddannelser

Henriette Duch, Tobias Kidde Skov — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0100

Since the year 2000, the Danish vocational education and training institutions have been legally required to include the educational objective of educating the students to participate in democracy. We examine the implementation of the requirement from a student perspective, through interviews with twelve newcomers at a social and health care college. Our focus is the student experience in school and their expectations for their working life.

With the theoretical approach of John Dewey’s philosophy on democracy and education we find a diversity among students. Some students are very active and express their opinions while others choose to be reluctant in public. In social science, the students learn about representative democracy but democracy as a social practice is limited in other subjects and in the classroom. However, the teachers’ role seems important for the students’ courage to speak up. The article concludes that some students might be in risk of exclusion of democracy, and we suggest more research in didactical approaches to address this.

Hvordan tilrettelegge for læring av yrkesteori?

Eldbjørg Marie Schön, Ellen Beate Hellne-Halvorsen — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The aim of this study is to investigate how teachers facilitate the training in vocational theory that can motivate students for learning in the Restaurant and Food Science (RM) education programme. By using focus group interviews of vocational teachers and a survey of students, the study seeks both teachers’ and students’ experiences of teaching and learning vocational theory respectively. Students who choose vocational education expect a lot of practice in the education and may therefore experience challenges when the training consists of theory. This can have consequences for the students’ motivation for learning and for completing the education. The results from the interviews show that the vocational teachers emphasize teaching theory in a classroom context before the theory is translated into practical work. When the teachers link theory to practical tasks, vocational guidance and differentiation are prominent, but no specific methods are presented for the preparation of vocational theory. The results from these interviews are compared with results from the survey of students and what they think motivates them for learning occupational theory. The students’ experiences mainly coincide with the teachers’ statements, but the students’ answers also refer to specific teaching methods that motivate them to learn.

Selvstendige helsefagarbeidere i morgendagens helsetjeneste

Siw Martinsen Watz — Fri, 16 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0100

Work in home nursing care is characterised by individual work and time limits and requires an independent professional. This article investigates how apprentices in the health care profession in Norway develop independence during their apprenticeship period in home nursing care. The study addresses the apprentices’ perspective on their own development in the encounter with the field of practice and the patient living at home. The research question the article answers is: How do health care apprentices experience the development of independent professional practices during the apprenticeship period in home nursing care? 12 apprentices and newly qualified health care professionals were interviewed individually, with a semi-structured interview guide as a starting point. The results show that health care apprentices encounter a working day in home nursing care where the individual apprentice’s independence is both a prerequisite for the work, and a consequence of high workload. The development of independence at work can be linked to the apprentices’ participation in practice, gradual and adapted responsibility and to guidance and reflection in a community of practice. The study claims that development takes place in interaction with the supervisor, other colleagues and patients. When apprentices are given tasks adapted to their level of competence, they experience control and develop independence.

Utvikling av profesjonskompetanse: Estetiske læreprosesser i yrkesfaglærerutdanning

Jan Viggo Iversen, Wenche Hammer Johannessen — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0200

The purpose of this study was to explore how experiences with aesthetic learning processes in vocational teacher education contribute to developing professional competence. This is grounded in theories of holistic experience, creative processes, and the development of professional digital competence. Qualitative data for this exploratory case study was generated in two focus group interviews among 10 teacher students in vocational teacher education, 2nd year of study. Using a thematic content analysis three categories emerged: ‘Encounter and courage’, ‘Creativity and images’, and ‘Digital competence and multimodality’. The results show that the students’ encounter with the aesthetic learning process leads to exploratory and critical thinking with an aesthetic quality. Taking part in this aesthetic learning process has led to experiences with holistic learning and in particular the emotional aspect of learning related to frustration, vulnerability, creativity, and spiritual development.

Editorial: Spring 2022

Per Andersson, Song-ee Ahn, Johanna Köpsén, Arnt Louw — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0200

A holistic student-centred guidance framework supports Finnish vocational education and training students in building competence identity

Anu Raudasoja, Soili Rinne, Sanna Heino — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100

This study deals with competence-based and student-centered Finnish initial vocational education and training (IVET). The main research question is how holistic guidance supports the building of the student’s competence identity in Finnish IVET. The holistic guidance in competence- and work-based vocational education and training is formally implemented when a personal competence development plan (PCDP) is drawn up for each student and informally in various interaction situations in studies, work, and leisure time. The guidance actors supported student’s personal growth, guided learning and provided career guidance. For this study, interviews were carried out with IVET students (n=15) and IVET teachers (n=29). The analysis carried out combined data-based and abductive qualitative content analysis methods. In the analysis results, the different guidance actors were organised into the following five levels of guidance: 1) IVET teachers, tutors, and workplace instructors, 2) IVET study counsellors and special needs teachers, 3) student welfare personnel, 4) leisure time actors and hobby instructors, and 5) employment specialists. Based on the results, a framework was designed for holistic student-centred guidance in Finnish IVET. This framework describes how active student agency and multidisciplinary guidance work can support the building and updating of the student’s competence identity. This study revealed that guidance processes are complex and highlights that many actors are, not only guidance specialists, needed to fulfil the task.

Conceptualisation and experience of ownership in multi-stakeholder partnerships: Lessons from the HDECoVA initiative in Ethiopia

Eskindir Jembere Asrat, Alebachew Kemisso Haybano, Susanne Gustavsson — Sat, 24 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0200

Ownership is commonly considered a key principle aiming to promote effective multi-stakeholder partnerships. This article explores the conceptualisation and experience of ownership in a multi-stakeholder initiative in TVET, with an empirical focus on a Public-Private Development Partnership (PPDP) in Ethiopia. The qualitative case study is based on insights derived from semi-structured interviews with project staff and partnership actors and an analysis of relevant documents. The findings indicate discrepancies between rhetoric and reality of ownership dynamics, which complicates the actual ownership practice. The goal of all-inclusive equitable participation, originally intended, is not achieved. Power is not equally shared in the initiative, as local actors play a limited role in the decision-making process, and therefore do not acquire ownership as intended. In this case, the PPDP approach reproduces inequality as international actors exert influence through indirect governance. This study suggests a coherent understanding of the ownership concept, which emphasises the relationship between all parties, promoting co-ownership, rather than merely defining the roles of donors and beneficiaries. PPDPs are likely to achieve better results and local actors may sustain outcomes when their capacity is built through active engagement in the process and the partnership is implemented through joint commitment, responsibility, and equal participation.

How can students in vocational education be motivated to learn mathematics?

Karolina Muhrman — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0200

The aim of this article is to discuss how mathematics teaching with a closer connection to students’ vocational orientation can increase their motivation to learn mathematics. This article uses a motivation theory called self-determination theory to analyse interviews and observations made in two different studies investigating mathematics in vocational education. The results indicate that there are many vocational students who are unmotivated to learn mathematics because they do not see any relevance in the subject. However, there seem to be positive aspects regarding vocational students’ motivation to learn mathematics when they are given the opportunity to work with vocational-integrated mathematics tasks, especially in a vocationally authentic environment. In relation to self-determination theory, it is possible to see increased motivation linked to a sense of meaningfulness, competence and self-determination, as well as increased social collaboration. However, teachers need to be observant of students’ goals for their studies, so that even those who do not see a future in the vocation they are training for will find motivating factors for their learning in mathematics.

Editorial: Autumn 2021

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0100

Being someone or doing something: How students in municipal adult education view their future vocation

Tobias Lasse Karlsson — Sat, 29 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0200

Being an adult, deciding what to do with your life, and trying to understand the consequences of educational choices can be difficult. Vocational education and training (VET) programmes within the Swedish municipal adult education (MAE) offer an opportunity to learn a vocation, and last 6–18 months. This study aims to explore how adult VET students perceive desirable vocational habitus and is based on 18 interviews comparing students from two vocational MAE programmes in assistant nursing and floor laying. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at the beginning of the students’ training and data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. The results show that choosing a VET programme is a process of choosing what you want to do for work but also who you want to be. However, whether or not students see themselves as suitable is contrasted between how they perceive their future vocation and what the vocational community expects from them, which in turn affects their learning process and development of a vocational identity. Noticing the discrepancies between students’ perceptions and vocational expectations can both reduce the risk of losing students during training and reduces the risk of reproducing unequal ideals.

Finnish VET representatives’ interpretations of inclusion

Sanna Ryökkynen, Anu Raudasoja — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0200

The purpose of this study was to learn about Finnish VET representatives’ perceptions of inclusion. Discussions and research on inclusion in education have mainly concentrated on the comprehensive school context, although vocational education and training (VET) students may have multiple, intersectional experiences of disadvantage. Our data included representatives (N=53) from five different Finnish VET sectors. Through semi-structured interviews, we investigated their interpretations of inclusion. We applied an abductive approach in our analytical process that followed the principles of qualitative content analysis. Our findings indicated that the definition of inclusion is ambiguous. At the administration level, inclusion was related to ideology, whereas teachers spoke about special education practices. Work-life representatives connected inclusion to the principles of communality, and students appreciated this understanding and individual solutions in their studying and workplace learning. This study supports the view of earlier studies and addresses a need for shared understanding and values to engage with inclusion in practice. The VET sector would benefit from discussions and training in inclusion and inclusive principles, where the study works as an initiator.

Editorial: New insights in vocational education and training

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0200

Vad var det som hände? Efterbearbetning av en simulering för utvecklande av professionell kunskap hos polisstudenter

David Sjöberg, Staffan Karp, Tor Söderström — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0100

I den här artikeln fokuseras om och på vilket sätt efterbearbetningsfasen vid simulering av olycksplatser stödjer lärande av professionell kunskap hos polisstudenter. Efterbearbetningen bestod av ett avslutningssamtal med de 50 polisstudenter som deltog i simuleringen samt en video-baserad debriefing med sex av studenterna. Studien baserades på en enkät till alla studenter och djupintervjuer med de sex utvalda studenterna. Resultaten visade att femtiotre procent av polisstudenterna ansåg att avslutningssamtalet inte bidrog i någon större utsträckning till lärandet av yrkesrelevant kunskap Intervjuerna visade att avslutningssamtalet var alltför allmängiltigt och oprecist för att bidra till utvecklande av professionell kunskap, medan den video-baserade debriefingen fungerade som en medierande resurs för att identifiera och överbrygga luckor i kunnandet. Vår slutsats är att innehåll och utformning av efterbearbetningen är viktigt att beakta för att ge goda förutsättningar för lärande av professionell kunskap med hjälp av simuleringar i professionsutbildningar.

Att öva för att lära sig att hantera polisiära situationer utgör ett viktigt inslag i polisstudenters utbildning. Lärandet sker genom praktiska övningar t.ex. drillövningar och övningar av specifika moment men även via simuleringar där studenter agerar som polis i mera komplexa situationer. Simuleringar är inte unika för polisutbildning utan utgör ett vanligt inslag i professionsutbildning genom sin koppling till ”verkliga” situationer (Peters & Vissers, 2004; Lederman, 1984). Under de senaste årtiondena har simuleringar använts för utbildning inom så skilda professionsfält som medicin och hälsovård, flyg och blåljusverksamhet. Simuleringar kan vara av skiftande karaktär t.ex. fysiska i form av rollspel men även datorbaserade. Simuleringar kan syfta till att utveckla en specifik färdighet (se t.ex. Windsor, 2009; Stefanidis, Acker, & Heniford, 2008; Wallin, Meurling, Hedman, Hedengård, & Felländer-Tsai, 2007), som t ex att lära sig hur man avläser röntgenbilder (se t.ex. Söderström, Häll, Nilsson, & Ahlqvist 2012) eller till att lära hur man ska agera i komplexa situationer (Andersson, Carlström, & Berlin, 2013; Bauman, Gohm & Bonner, 2011), t.ex. vid svåra olyckshändelser med många personer inblandade (se t.ex. McConnell & Drennan, 2006). Simuleringar av komplexa situationer med många inblandade brukar benämnas som fullskaliga (se t.ex. Andersson, Carlström, & Berlin, 2013). Simuleringar antas träna och utveckla professionell kunskap genom att förbereda studenter på att hantera komplexa och ibland farliga situationer som de kan komma att ställas inför i en kommande yrkespraktik. Användningen av simuleringar i utbildningar bygger således på ett antagande om överföring av erfarenheter och kunskaper från ett sammanhang till ett annat (se t.ex. Söderström, Åström, Anderson & Bowles, 2014). I den här artikeln utgår vi från simulering som en utbildningsresurs där deltagarna interagerar med varandra och miljön (situationen) på ett målorienterat sätt i syfte att lära sig polisära kunskaper.

Att bedöma lärarstudenters yrkesskicklighet

Margreth Johansson, Marta Palla — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0100

Jag var inte nervös när jag höll lektionen men nu är jag lite nervös, eftersom jag aldrig har ansvarat för ett trepartssamtal, det har alltid läraren från högskolan gjort. Jag har i varje fall skrivit en agenda och jag vill gärna börja med att prata om både planeringen och undervisningen. Därefter vill jag diskutera utifrån kursens lärandemål och min professionella roll. Jag har tagit med mig planeringsmatrisen och VFU-omdömet. Jag kommer att prata om vad jag har lärt mig och vilka nyvunna insikter som jag fått under denna sista VFU-period. Ja, mina nyvunna insikter har faktiskt förändrats under resans gång. Jag tänker mer på eleverna och deras lärande i stället för min egen ledarroll. Idag känner jag mig betydelsefull som lärare.

Denna artikel handlar om bedömning av lärarstudenters yrkesskicklighet under den verksamhetsförlagda delen av utbildningen, VFU. Enligt Hegender (2007) är bedömningskriterier ett ”mischmasch” av teori och praktik. Om så är fallet finns det anledning att fundera över, vilka aspekter av yrkesskicklighet man kan få syn på och vilka stödstrukturer som kan användas vid bedömning. Ovanstående citat är ett exempel på hur lärarstudenter i slutfasen av utbildningen kan inleda ett trepartssamtal. Trepartssamtal är en av fyra stödstrukturer, som vi har utformat och prövat. Vår bedömningsmatris (figur 3) består av stödstrukturer som är avgränsade och beskrivna bedömningskriterier. Artikeln avser att svara på frågan: Vad bedömningsmatrisen ifråga kan bidra med vid pedagogisk bedömning av studenters yrkesskicklighet. Tre utvecklingsprojekt genomfördes under år 2009-2012 i samarbete med handledare och lärarutbildare från högskolan samt blivande förskolelärare, fritidspedagoger, grund- och gymnasielärare. De blivande lärarna/pedagogerna var i slutfasen av utbildningen, där det allmänna utbildningsområdet, AU3, behandlas. Utvecklingsprojekten har delvis finansierats av LärandeResursCentrum, LRC, Högskolan Kristianstad.

Lärande i teori och praktik

Thomas Winman — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0100

Utbildningar med inslag av verksamhetsförlagda utbildningsmoment har funnits under lång tid och de förväntas ge kunskaper och färdigheter och brygga mellan olika kunskapsformer och därmed bidra till en syntetisering av kunskap. Syftet med studien är att bidra till kunskap om hur lärandemål i verksamhetsförlagda kurser kommer till uttryck i studenters examinationsuppgifter. Resultatet bygger på analyser av styrdokument och kursplaner samt 26 studenters examinationsarbeten från deras verksamhetsförlagda kurser, från två olika utbildningsprogram. Resultaten visar att utbildningsanordnare har delvis olika föreställningar om vetenskaplig kunskap, praxiskunskap samt relationen dem emellan. Medan vissa dokument utgår från teoretiska perspektiv i sina definitioner så utgår andra från mer praktiska perspektiv på vad kunskap är och var den finns. Verksamhetsförlagd utbildning ses i ett program som ett medel för att utveckla yrkesspecifika kunskaper och i det andra programmet fokuseras teoretiska analyser av praxis. Dessa olikheter får konsekvenser för både utformning av uppgifter och för hur studenterna förstår och skapar mening men också för vilka kunskaper som utvecklas.

Learning through collaboration between vocational teacher training institutions and workplaces: Barriers and contradictions

Dinavence Arinaitwe, Louise Mifsud, Habib Kato, Arne Ronny Sannerud — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0100

In vocational education and training, the acquisition of relevant skills by learners is vital for their employability. It has been argued that institution–workplace collaboration facilitates this acquisition of relevant skills through availing authentic real-life learning situations. This study used the cultural–historical activity theory to identify and characterise challenges to learning through collaboration between a masters of vocational pedagogy (MVP) programme, vocational teacher training institutions and workplaces in Uganda. Data were obtained using in-depth individual interviews with purposively sampled actors in collaborative activities. The findings revealed that challenges manifesting as discursive contradictions occurred in different phases of implementing collaborative activities. In the planning and implementation phase, contradictions were linked to short time frames for collaborative activities, unsynchronised activity plans and contradictory working cultures. In the supervision of learning, contradictions arose from a lack of a common understanding of the objectives and work methods of the collaborative activities. A lack of feedback to actors, an absence of a collaboration focal person, and a lack of government policy limited participation in collaborative activities. These challenges were observed to lessen the focus on the MVP students’ learning, which ultimately affected the quality of work produced and interfered with the implementation of collaborative activities.

Collaborative problem solving: A pedagogy for workplace relevance

Timo Halttunen, Christian Dragin-Jensen, Céline Kylänpää, Anders Karkov — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is a widely used pedagogical approach in work-based learning. To facilitate the complex process of situated learning, researchers have emphasized the need for scaffolding to enable learning of skills while engaged in problem-solving. While CPS as a pedagogical practice has mainly been examined in classroom situations, a research gap exists in studies of CPS in real-world contexts. In this study, we contribute to the understanding of CPS by examining the contextual characteristics that shape students’ and teachers’ experiences in situated learning. Consequently, we present a multi-case study to investigate involvement of a business professional as a source for scaffolding on site, in a hotel business environment. We employed a qualitative, multi-case methodology in the study. An ill-structured, real-world problem of food waste in the hotel service sector was presented to students (N = 72) and their accompanying teachers (N = 9) from second and tertiary education. They were provided with access to expert knowledge and opinion by industry professionals (N=5) on site. We collected data via observations, interviews, and questions from the involved stakeholders in three physical locations in Denmark and in Finland. Additionally, we documented their experiences using an online collaboration tool in each case. Despite the scaffolding provided by the business professionals, students underused the resources available for their learning in the extended learning environment. Students benefited from guided exploration of the problem space, structured feedback, and teacher interventions, resulting in improved perspective taking, participation, social regulation, task regulation and knowledge building.

Læring på tvers: Hvordan kan yrkesfag- læreren legge til rette for boundary learning for elever i arbeidslivspraksis?

Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen, Kari-Anne Kverneggen, Monika Øgård — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0100

A well-known challenge in vocational education and training (VET) programmes is the lack of coherence between school-based and workplace learning. The Norwegian VET model consists of two years of upper secondary education followed by two years of apprenticeship at work. This small-scale study of vocational teacher’s vocational didactics aims to investigate boundary learning at the VET Programme for Sales and Service at the Norwegian upper secondary level. The research question explored is: How can vocational teachers improve boundary learning for students in work-based placements in the subject vocational in-depth study (YFF)? The methodological approach is qualitative interviews with vocational teachers and the systematic developmental work of vocational didactics by vocational teachers at one school. Our study focuses on boundary learning using the theoretical approach from Akkerman and Bakker (2011a). The findings show how vocational teachers develop and use boundary objects such as systematic reflection and subject based assignments to connect work-based learning from YFF to school-based learning. Further, a systematic development of vocational didactics is possible with a new proposed model of vocational didactics for boundary learning. The conclusion discusses how a developmental approach in the vocational teacher group combined with theore-tical concepts could enhance the students workplace and boundary learning.

Important and achieved competence for Swedish vocational teachers: A survey with teachers and principals

Sofia Antera, Marianne Teräs, Staffan Nilsson, Helena Rehn — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0100

Vocational teachers have a key role in the professional growth of vocational students, making their competence an important factor in the quality of VET. This study explores how principals and vocational teachers identify important and achieved competencies in relation to vocational teachers’ work. The data was collected through an online questionnaire, centred in two types of competence, competence important for teachers (important competence) and competence they consider they have already developed (achieved competence). For each type, a set of 27 competencies was evaluated on a Likert-scale by 370 participants, including both teachers and principals. The statistical analysis was primarily descriptive. The findings indicated that good communication with students, assessment of students’ knowledge, skills and abilities, and creating conditions for learning, are the three most important and achieved competencies in VET teachers’ work. On the contrary, previous teaching experience, working experience with adults and migrants, and the competence related to recruitment of students and marketing of the school, were seen as the least important and achieved ones. Different actors, meaning principals and teachers, reached an agreement on these findings. Future research should look into the reasons behind the selection of specific competence as important and the processes of competence development.

Editorial: Online journal – online conference

Per Andersson, Song-ee Ahn, Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen, Arnt Louw — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0200

Å tilrettelegge for elevenes yrkesinteresser: En surveystudie av yrkesfaglærernes kompetanse i yrkesdifferensiert opplæring

Rønnaug H. Lyckander — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0200

In Norway there exist two different educational pathways for vocational teachers, a bachelor programme and a postgraduate programme in education. This article reports on a comparison of teacher preparation in these two programmes that qualify vocational teachers for work in schools. The purpose is to explore the competence vocational teachers develop during teacher education that is particularly relevant for the broad introductory courses in vocational education and training (VET). Previous research has found that teachers should choose authentic learning activities relevant for working life, as well as developing students’ interests in a vocation. Cross-sectional survey data were collected among vocational teacher graduates (n = 279). Tests of mean differences indicated that the bachelor sample reported being significantly better prepared for teaching in broad courses than the postgraduate sample. However, the same difference could not be found in teachers’ report of different learning activities in school. The discussion points to how differences and similarities between content and practice arenas in teacher education can explain teachers' experiences and whether both teacher programmes develop the competence needed to teach in the broad structure of Norwegian VET.

Teachers’ perceptions on relevant upper-secondary vocational graduate competencies and their development

Sami Löfgren, Liisa Ilomäki, Auli Toom — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0200

Finnish initial vocational education and training aims for graduate employability by emphasising self-directed learning and workplace learning. However, little is known about what competencies teachers consider relevant for graduates, how teachers address competencies in their instruction and how they perceive the benefits of workplace learning. Therefore, this study aims to highlight teachers’ perceptions and their practices on these topics. This is a qualitative interview study conducted in cooperation with a large Finnish vocational education provider. Participants of the study were teachers in automotive engineering, electrical and automation engineering, mechanical and metal engineering, and building service technology. The data were collected with semi-structured qualitative interviews and analysed using qualitative, abductive content analysis. The research findings indicate that teachers consider fundamental domain-specific competencies and work-related attitudes paramount for graduates as these promote professional expertise and employability. Secondly, teachers prefer to teach domain-specific competencies. However, the emergence of self-directed learning demands that teachers be pedagogically competent. Thirdly, teachers deem workplace learning beneficial but also consider that school may offer more equal and versatile education opportunities for everyone. The research findings enrich the scientific discussion on vocational graduate competency needs and vocational teaching and support the development of vocational education systems.

Flerkulturalitet i opplæring av helsefagarbeidere

Oddhild Peggy Bergsli — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0200

This study will focus on multicultural competence as a topic in vocational training of health care workers in upper secondary school in Norway. The research question is: How do vocational teachers practice multiculturalism in health care worker vocational education? According to OECD, multiculturalism is one of the core competencies of the 21st century. The need of healthcare professionals with expertise in multicultural sensitivity and health-communication will increase in the years ahead because this competence is essential for a good and caring professional health care. The theoretical perspective is related to a theoretical conceptual understanding of multicultural competence and to vocational didactic perspectives on health care worker vocational training.

The data collection is based on semi-structured interviews with vocational teachers. The key findings show that multicultural issues are rarely highlighted in education and that multicultural topics are rarely linked to vocationally relevant professional tasks. Topics as health-communication and diet were poorly elucidated from a multicultural perspective. There will be a need to implement various occupationally relevant multicultural issues in health worker vocational training to prepared for the multicultural professional life.

Ligga steget före: Barnskötares yrkesomdöme åskådliggjort genom bedömningshandlingar

Enni Paul, Camilla Gåfvels — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0200

This study explores vocational judgement, which is discernible in the assessment actions of a supervising childminder directed towards upper secondary school students – while interacting with the children – during work-based learning in Sweden. The research aims to identify the characteristics of vocational knowing in terms of judgement, as exhibited in everyday interactions with children, by applying multimodal interaction ana-lysis to two video sequences from different Swedish preschools. The study findings show how vocational judgement – in the form of embodied discernment – is a central aspect of a childminder’s vocational knowing. Vocational judgement becomes discernible, for instance, in how supervising childminders are consistently one or several steps ahead of both children and upper secondary school students

Editorial: Assessment in Nordic VET

Hæge Nore, Viveca Lindberg — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0100

Invandrarnas yrkesutbildning och sysselsättning i Finland

Johanna Lasonen, Marianne Teräs, Carine Cools — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0100

In Finland, immigration has increased in recent decades. An equal quality of life and position for immigrants is a vocational and social challenge. In our article, we examine the challenges adult immigrants face in Finland regarding the recognition of professional qualifications, skills and employment and their children's access to education. As a result, we have two different points of view: adults in working life and young people in school transitions. The research materials were collected through interviews and surveys. The results suggest that adult immigrants usually have their skills recognised in the labour market only when the person obtains an overlapping or supplementary vocational training in Finland. Adolescents’ school transitions are tied to at least three types of factors: the young people themselves, issues related to the community, and services offered by society. The authorities reiterated the importance of language skills, the motivation, and community services, while the young people promoted the social community: the importance of friends and families. The results highlight the importance of cooperation between the authorities, homes and young people so that young people can receive support at special stages in their lives.

Uddannelse til ældrepleje: Et scoping review af læring i dansk social- og sundhedsuddannelse

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0200

The purpose of this article is to initiate a Nordic exchange of research-based knowledge about elderly care education. The aim is to shed light on and discuss learning issues that the Nordic countries have in common. Changing ways of understanding and performing care work throughout the Nordic region create a need for new understandings of the roles of welfare professionals and of issues of their learning. In Denmark, elderly care education is anchored in social and health care programmes within the vocational education system. Targeted research has taken place in the field since 2006, but no attempt so far has been made to create a systematic overview of the existing research. This article presents the results of a scoping review of the research in social and health care education in the Danish context. The review includes 45 publications in which themes and types of learning actor are identified. The article concludes that there are relatively few studies that take a learning perspective on social and health care education programmes. The analysis shows a predominance of studies that examine the trainee as a learner, while few study teachers and care workers as learners or focus on organisational learning.

Entrepreneurship education practices in VET: The roles of the teacher and the local region

Piia Kolho, Elena Oikkonen, Timo Pihkala — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0200

This study focuses on entrepreneurship in vocational education and training (VET). Generally, teachers’ operations in entrepreneurship education (EE) have been researched widely from the perspective of teaching and working practices and pedagogy. However, there are only a few studies of EE from the VET teacher’s perspective. As a practice-oriented school, EE in VET is supposed to benefit from the hands-on experience of teachers as well as from the tight relationships with local businesses. The study applies quantitative methodology (n=795) and analyses the versatility of EE practices in VET and the roles that the teacher and the region play in determining EE practices. The findings indicate interesting new results especially on how the regional context influences practices. The research raises important topics for discussion concerning the teacher’s role in regional development.

Yrkesbevis för godkänt yrkesprov i floristutbildning

Camilla Gåfvels — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0100

This article is about vocational knowing in a school context, focusing on teachers’ inter- action and assessment actions. The empirical data consist of audio-recorded episodes from the assessment of a professional certificate exam, describing how five teachers to- gether assess floral arrangements. The study examines the assessment of a bouquet, and contributes to a discussion about (i) the botanical material’s importance in the assess- ment, and (ii) changes in the assessment conversation’s organisation in the form of ne- gotiations; aiming to visualise the vocational knowing and ‘dual roles’ of the teachers. The analysis highlights how aesthetic abstractions form the content of the conversation, related actions, and what aspects of professional knowing that are expressed relationally between teachers in situ. Results from the study show that respect for the material is an important part of vocational floristry knowing.

”Du har skött dig bra”: Återkoppling inom arbetsplatsförlagt lärande utifrån yrkeselevers upplevda läroplan

Martina Wyszynska Johansson — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0100

The article examines upper secondary students’ experiences of assessment in workplace-based learning. The research question is how the students express their self-experienced progression through their participation in feedback in workplaces. In a focus group interview study, 70 students from the Child and Recreation Programme in 10 Swedish schools participated when they were halfway through their education. Four themes emerged as the students reconciled and bridged over the discontinuities between assessment in school and in workplace-based learning. These comprised making sense of 1) explicit and 2) inconspicuous feedback, 3) a suitability for the job, and 4) a vocational attitude that was childcare or customer-oriented. The students engaged in self-assessment directed at open-ended goals of personal self-discovery and in relation to people-cantered service occupations. In line with the findings, a more generous and encompassing or divergent view of assessment of vocational becoming in workplace-based learning is advocated.

Lærerrollen der blev væk: Opbygningen af et transformativt lærerideal

Tobias Kidde Skov — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0200

This article raises the question if the role of the vocational teachers needs another teacher’s ideal. The foundation of the article is a rising tendency to describe the teacher’s role by other means than being a teacher and making the role of the teacher a matter of bringing students safely and easily to a learning outcome, through a teaching task described as both a supervisor, facilitator, motivator, and consultant.

The article commences by explaining the tendency to understand the vocational teacher by others means than a teacher. Through analysis of ideas from Gert Biesta, Hartmut Rosa and Andrea English, the article will point to a transformative teaching ideal as a way of understanding the role of the vocational teacher, and at the same time try to exemplify this teacher ideal through different types of vocational education. The article will conclude by arguing that a transformative understanding of the teacher’s role can be seen as a more embracing ideal as opposed to the current trend of constructivism, and at the same time as an ideal, that gives back the original teaching task to the teacher.

”Men nu fick man planera om och i den planeringen fick jag vara med!” Verksamhetsförlagt lärande i yrkeslärarutbildningen när undervisningen går över till distans

Martina Wyszynska Johansson, Ellinor Dyne, Susanne Gustavsson — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0100

The article explores the effects of the transition to distance education due to the Covid19 pandemic on vocational teacher students’ workplace-based learning in a vocational teacher programme. Two practices are explored, that is, the instruction practices by prospective teachers and supervision. The theory of practice architecture is used to explain how the two practices interplay with one another in the common project of learning to become a vocational teacher. A web survey is utilised to gain both the students’ and the supervisors’ experiences. The main findings are 1) re-definition of pupil participation and activity as a touching base for supervision, and 2) expanded notion of supervision grounded in a more equal and complementary relationship between the student and the teacher supervisor. A call for an updated in-service supervision training as part of the vocational teacher programme and to strengthen vocational teacher education as a whole is put forth.

Når lærlingen møter arbeidslivets vurderingslogikk: Yrkessosialisering i det norske salgsfaget

Kaja Reegård — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0200

The article examines the role of formative assessment to occupational socialisation processes in retail apprenticeship in Norway. The analysis draws upon a qualitative study of managers and apprentices in the Sales Vocational Education and Training (VET). The Norwegian sales trade struggles to gain foothold. The skilled sales assistant constitutes neither an established social category, nor an employee category. Sales VET is directed towards a labour market sector depicted in terms of high turnover, traditionally valuing soft skills and personality over formal credentials. The article aims to extend understandings of apprentices’ subjective accounts of the assessment they are subjected to and coconstructing. Three different assessment practices integrated in the daily work are analysed. First, retail work centres on customer interaction. The feedback the apprentices receive from the customers, as a type of user-evaluation, provides rich and immediate learning resources. Second, the retail apprentices were thrown into tasks from day one, and are thus shown trust and given responsibility. This recognition by gradual access to more complex tasks serves as another type of assessment, implying increased self-confidence and sentiments of commitment. Third, the sales figures of each apprentice were transparently registered and monitored in the computer system of the shop, representing assessment as management control. By deploying the notion of assessment logic, the article argues that one is better equipped to grasp the interplay between learning, assessment, becoming and working in the retail sector. The interactive nature of customeroriented service work implies re-interpretation of the traditional assessment nexus of trainer – apprentice. The findings of the article show that the apprentices ascribed customer evaluation of great importance to their learning and becoming.

Fastighetsskötares erfarenheter av validering

Per Andersson — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0200

Validation, or recognition of prior learning, involves an idea of ‘making learning visible’ – of valuing knowledge irrespective of how, when and where it is learnt. This chapter presents a phenomenographic analysis of how a group of caretakers from a Swedish property management company experience participation in a validation initiative focusing on their vocational competence.

The findings show how validation is experienced in various ways by the caretakers – as an opportunity for personal development, as a matter of assessment and control, or as ‘only scratching the surface’. The process is also experienced in different ways in terms of learning – with a focus on prior learning or new learning, or even no learning. Other benefits of validation are described in terms of exchange value or personal development. Through a contextual analysis, the findings are integrated in a model where the relationship between the individual and the validation process is described as a developmental, a credit-exchange or a critical relation.

The conclusions put focus on the relevance of validation for groups like caretakers. This is a group where the vocational learning to a high extent is informal, which means a potential for recognition of their prior learning in terms of formal credentials.

De fem A’er: En evalueringsmodel for læreprocesser på erhvervsuddannelserne

Lene Tanggaard — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0200

This article develops the contours of a new Five A-model for assessment practices in vocational education. The model develops a combination of the Five A-model taken from creativity research with empirical studies of vocational education. The rationale is to create a basis for description, analysis and development of assessment in vocational education. The Five A-model presents a heuristic method used to describe and reflect on basic assessment practices in vocational education studying the simultaneously related and dynamically interacting role of respectively actors, action, audiences, artefacts and affordances for assessment. On this basis, the article asks not only how research on assessment developed vital distinctions between summative and formative assessment, but also how the idea of formative assessment can be a vehicle to further development of artefacts supporting boundary crossing between schools and learning in the workplace, and furthermore, how apprentices can take responsibility for their own assessment actions. Assessment practices are never neutral, but they contribute in themselves to the valorisation of particular practices, which is why researchers and practitioners in the field must continuously ask critical questions related to the consequences of assessment.

Realkompetansevurdering i norske kommuner

Erik Døving, Anita E. Tobiassen — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0200

Workers in Norway can get skills acquired through informal and incidental learning validated in a formal process. The educational authorities issue a certificate stating that the worker’s skill level is equivalent to a certain level of vocational education. This way, the worker can more easily obtain a vocational degree. We describe and discuss how Norwegian employers facilitate validation for unskilled employees within municipal nursing and care, and we discuss how municipal employees can get their skills formally recognised. Results are based on qualitative interviews and written surveys in seven municipalities. Validation is useful for workers mostly as a stepping-stone to complete a vocational education, while from the municipal employers’ perspective validation as such is of limited use. Only every fourth worker knows about the national system for validation of skills, and workers that can benefit most know the least about the system. The results presented here show that the employer and co-workers are the most important source of information, while trade unions are less active in providing such information. Our results further imply that information and initiatives should be targeted at immigrants in particular. In addition, counties responsible for vocational education vary in how they implement the validation system.

”Det är klart de vet vad uppgivenhet betyder”: Kommunikation och språk i vård- och omsorgsutbildning på komvux

Sara Hultqvist, Katarina Hollertz — Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0200

This article concerns the role of teachers as street level bureaucrats in Swedish vocational healthcare education for adult students. At the centre of the analysis are the challenges related to policy implementation when many of the students are second language speakers and language and communication play a role. Policy documents provide the analysis with a normative framework. Interviews with teachers give the analysis its standpoint. As a societal context, the field of elderly care suffers from labour shortages with difficulties recruiting trained staff. Policy stakeholders place high expectation on adult care education to both supply the labour market with trained staff, and to contribute to a smooth integration of migrants into society. As a matter of fact, half of the students in Swedish adult vocational healthcare education are migrants and the majority of those who complete the education get employment within elderly care. Thus, healthcare teachers are incremental to the implementation of policies. In their role as street level bureaucrats, they use different strategies to handle the press transferring sometimes contradictory policies into practice in the direct encounters with students.

The results stress the importance of communication and language in healthcare education – and in elderly care practice.

Immeasurability loss? An analysis of the impacts of accountability measures on counselling within VET

Niklas Rosenblad, Birgit Schaffar, Erika Löfström — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0100

Comparative measures of learning outcomes and professional actions are set out to indicate accountability of VET. Individualisation and fragmentation of education emphasise counselling of students as support for their learning. The purpose of the article is to identify how counsellor and teacher practitioners perceive opportunities and challenges in merging their pedagogical and fundamental conventions of their work with structures and frameworks of accountability constituting their practice. Theoretically the study is influenced by socio-cultural perspectives. The analysis follows an abductive approach, reporting on the results from ethnographic observations of guidance counselling (N=29) within VET and subsequent interviews (N=12). We ask how the tension between the immeasurable and measurable contextualises within counselling, and how counselling is construed by counsellors and teachers. The results suggest adherence to quality measures in VET exchanged processes of human interactions and agreements with assumptions of outcomes. The effort of reaching the measures led to failure in achieving the purpose of what the targets are meant to underscore, portraying a disillusion of control. Accountability addressed a critical point concerning responsibility and evoked professional ethical dilemmas for the practitioners. Certain categorised actions of counselling processes were made externally visible by documentation but depleted counselling as learning processes inwards.

Samarbeid og lærerprofesjonalitet

Stein Rafoss, Hilde Witsø — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0200

This article is about the importance of collaboration in the development of teacher professionalism, and we have asked the research question: How can group collaboration between vocational education and training (VET) students contribute to the development of their teacher professionalism? The data basis is interviews with ten VET students in practical pedagogical education for vocational teachers that we conducted in the winter of 2020. In addition, we studied all internship documents that the ten students produced during the internship period. The students are in practical training at their own school with their own students and collaborate with each other to strengthen their own teacher role. We have applied Dale’s (1989, 1993, 2001) theory of teacher professionalism. To analyse collaboration, we used the theories of Hegel (1999), Honneth (2008, 2009), Barth (1994) and De Hei et al. (2018). We found that this internship made it possible for students to talk and reflect on didactic questions related to Dale’s three areas of expertise.

One size fits nobody: En casestudie av yrkesfaglæreres deltakelse i kompetanse-utviklingsarbeid i videregående skole

Julie Klovholt Leonardsen — Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0200

Vocational education and training (VET) teachers have a dual profession as teachers and vocational workers. Professional development projects in school must apply to both sides of their profession. However, VET teachers’ need for professional development, particularly in terms of student assessment, has not been significantly explored. This ethnographic case study examines what aspects of professional development projects VET teachers perceive as meaningful for developing their assessment literacy. Data was collected through observations of 31 VET teachers in two upper secondary schools, in the context of a professional development project aiming to strengthen assessment literacy. Eighteen of these teachers also participated in focus group interviews. Findings show that if VET teachers are to find professional development projects in school meaningful for developing their assessment literacy, the projects must 1) have vocational relevance, 2) maintain a vocational perspective on the validity of assessment of students’ vocational competence, and 3) take place in a learning and development-oriented culture. Unfortunately, professional development projects do not address teachers’ developmental needs due to tensions among professional, socio-cultural and organisational contexts in school and vocational workplaces.

Editorial: New insights into VET

Per Andersson, Song-ee Ahn, Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen, Arnt Louw — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0100

No abstract available.

Yrkesfaglærerens paradoks: Utdanne til fagarbeid eller videre studier?

Else Marie Johansen — Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0200

This article refers to the vocational teachers’ reflections from experiences with students on the upper-secondary level health-care worker studies in Norway, who have a different purpose and basis for their education than to train as health-care workers.

The study is based on six group interviews with 15 vocational teachers at health-care worker studies and draws attention to the experiences and assessments that the teacher makes in educating health-care students. Knowledge of motivation, self-efficacy, and community of practice form the theoretical foundation for the study.

The results show that it is a complex group of students the teachers present in their reflections. Among other things, the teachers describe students who to a large extent do not know what they want with the education, as well as students who during the school year encounter practice and become insecure about their educational choices. The teachers therefore tend to facilitate a somewhat more general presentation of the subject, in order to embrace all the students’ different bases and goals of the education. At the same time, teachers clearly stated that they set clear academic requirements for the students and requirements for active participation, but if the academic focus is general and not specifically aimed for the health-care worker, it may strengthen the understanding that the profession is less important.

Grunnleggende ferdigheter for arbeidslivet? Bruk og betydning i restaurant- og matfagyrker

Halvor Spetalen — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0200

A framework for basic skills is included in all subjects and curricula throughout the Norwegian school system. These basic skills are defined as reading, numeracy, and oral, written and digital skills.

In this article, I question to what extent these basic skills are being used in professional practice within a selection of restaurant and food processing occupations. The empirical data in the article is based on a survey done autumn 2015 (Spetalen, Eben & Jahanlu, 2016).

The report shows that basic skills are being used to various degrees. This variation is not only between different restaurant- and food processing trades, but also in relation to certified skilled workers and those with management responsibilities. Data from this survey indicate that managers and skilled professionals correlated significantly when using basic skills for work. Both mangers and skilled professionals make use of basic skills far more often than professionals without managerial responsibility and non-skilled workers, do.

Influenced by Michael Young’s (2004) theory, this survey gives valuable input in developing new vocational curricula relating to a reformed structure in Norwegian vocational training, starting autumn 2019.

Health and social care teachers’ descriptions of challenges in their teaching at upper secondary school

Eva Eliasson, Helena Rehn — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0200

Since vocational teachers not only mediate theoretical and practical knowledge, but also ideals concerning the professionals’ personalities and actions, the aim of this study is to analyse if and how these ideals influence the highlighted challenges of teaching. The study is drawing on a social constructionist perspective; the method used involves 17 qualitative interviews. The challenges mentioned were as follows: lack of motivation, language and cultural factors, low status of the occupation and plagiarism. Underlying ideals rooted in the health care sector were that students should become a carer because of an inner desire. Moral and ethical values were other ideals that underpinned themes such as dealing with plagiarism and the problems experienced with non-native Swedes. An underlying fact is also the low traditional status of the nursing assistants, a challenge the teachers try to handle without effective tools. In the order to understand the challenges and handle them, the teachers construct categories of differences. This is visible when the categorisation of students is made based on motivation and ethnicity. The findings highlight the importance of courses in vocational training that focus on understanding various norms and categorisations.

Lærings- og arbeidsvaner hos lærlinger

Per E. Garmannslund, Hilde Witsø — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0200

In this paper, we present a study that focuses on the vocational education and train-ing (VET) system in Norway and the part of the training undertaken in training es-tablishments. The purpose of the study is to examine whether the use of an electronic monitoring tool improves the apprentices’ learning- and work habits as well as their professional awareness.

The study is twofold. Firstly, we used a quantitative design to illuminate the phe-nomenon of ‘volition’, as an expression of learning and work habits. In this part of the study 64 apprentices answered a questionnaire. Secondly, we conducted a quali-tative study in which three apprentices were interviewed about their experiences with the electronic monitoring tool and what it entails in terms of their learning and work habits, as well as their professional awareness.

Findings indicate that the electronic monitoring tool helps to reinforce communi-cation between the apprentices and instructors. In addition, findings indicate that apprentices reflection and effort increases, which can be an important contribution to appropriate learning and work habits.

In sum, our findings suggest that an electronic monitoring tool appears to con-tribute positively to both appropriate learning and work habits, as well as manage-ment of apprentices’ understanding of their future professional responsibilities.

Promoting students’ reflections in organisational improvisation arrangement between higher education and workplaces

Tiina Rautkorpi, Laura-Maija Hero — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0100

This article focuses on how experimentation-based pedagogy has been pursued by one Finnish university of applied sciences (UAS) in working life environments in the context of the Triple Helix. This article focuses on efforts to combine together situated learning, organisational improvisation and cultural-historical activity theory. In this higher education organisation, the students’ multidisciplinary innovation projects are used to improve the students’ skills in performing experiments with variations. The article demonstrates how pilot trainings were organised for teachers and their networks to equip them to project facilitators in a new mode of activity. It also reports on the undergraduates’ group demonstrations and evaluations based on a recent sample of their subsequent innovation projects. The small-scale content analysis was conducted to identify areas for further development. According to the activity theory, the crucial learning outcome of the UAS educational projects should be a collective reflection on practices. In addition, the two essentials of reflection and learning are the tools available for mirroring and continuous concept formation. According to the findings, there were prominent achievements in ethnographic fieldwork but more supportive arrangements and training is needed to promote especially the concept formation.

Editorial: Nordic research on vocational education and training

Per Andersson, Sofia Nyström — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100

No abstract available.

Arbeidsinnkludering som en vei til varig arbeidslivstilknytning og et verdig voksenliv: Hvordan metoder for arbeidsinnkludering kan brukes i opplæringen av lærekandidater

Eva Martinsen Dyrnes, Dan Roger Sträng — Mon, 06 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0200

The labour market in many European countries is changing and for many young people it leads to challenges in gaining a lasting connection to working life.

School dropout and deficiencies in their education lead to challenges for many young people on the road to adulthood. Students who find it difficult to complete a vocational education in upper secondary school, now have the opportunity to be training candidates in a practically oriented education with a limited number of competence goals.

Work inclusion means that the individual's ability to work will be examined in various ways to increase the possibility of permanent work. However, work inclusion is a complex phenomenon, where several actors may be involved and where the goals and progress plan will vary. This is costly and stressful for both the individual and the society. Working life is a central learning arena within upper secondary education, and there will be a need to facilitate participation in this arena also for students with a need for adapted education.

Yrkesutbildningsutmaningar i nya tider – vilken väg ska vi ta?

Lázaro Moreno Herrera — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0100

Vocational education and training is amongst the educational areas drawing the biggest attention by mass media and a key topic of political debate in Sweden. This is by no means surprising if we take into account that nearly half of Swedish youngster follows any of the vocational training lines offered at upper secondary education. But, is this a unique ´Swedish discussion`? Are there other international frame factors influencing and some how conditioning the discussion about the strategic importance of VET? If, so which are these frame factors? This paper attempts to give initial answer to these questions by contextualizing VET discussion in Sweden from an international perspective that includes social transformations from modernity to the so called postmodernity and the impact on work market demands. The paper present these new demands, as well as qualifications required. The chapter uses a wide range of references that includes Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report of 2012 focused on the third goal of Education for All, that is to ensure that all young people have the opportunity to acquire skills. The urgency of reaching this goal has sharpened acutely since 2000 as a consequence of a global economic downturn impacting on unemployment. The paper intends to contribute to better understanding of the challenges as well to create awareness and encourage discussion in different contexts and levels, that is vocational school, VET teacher training, policy making and VET planning.

Verkstaden som skola eller skolan som verkstad: Om produktion som pedagogisk praktik i svensk yrkesutbildning

Åsa Broberg — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0100

The workshop school was a particular form of education in the Swedish vocational education system of 1918. It was established and developed over a period of 50 years before it disappeared in the upper secondary reform of 1968. The workshop school differed, in many respects, from the kind of school workshops of today where students attain most of their vocational practice. It was not unusual that the workshop schools operated as small business enterprises on the local market, even when the municipality was the organizer of the education. The wide scope of this article is about this historical phenomenon. The aim is to investigate the production as a pedagogical tool through the artefacts and spaces of the workshop school. This is done within the theoretical framework materiality of schooling, a perspective that can be described as school archaeology. City- or municipal archives hold a treasure trove of photographs and narratives from the era of workshop schools in Sweden. They reveal how production shaped the content and relations to society in a very different way from the vocational training that takes place in the modern school workshop.

The Academic Motivation Scale: Dimensionality, Reliability, and Construct Validity Among Vocational Students

Britt Karin Støen Utvær, Gørill Haugan — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0100

Self-determination theory (SDT) distinguishes types of motivation according to types of self-regulation along a continuum of internalisation. Types of motivation vary in quality and outcomes and are frequently used in research as predictors of educational outcomes such as learning, performance, engagement, and persistence. The Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), which is based on the SDT, has not previously been evaluated in Norway. In response, by using correlation and confirmatory factor analysis, we examined the dimensionality, reliability, and construct validity of the AMS among vocational health and social care students. Our hypothesised 7-factor model demonstrated the best fit, while the AMS demonstrated good reliability and construct validity in the sample of students. However, some improvements remain necessary. In predicting the rate of school completion among students on vocational tracks, amotivation and identified regulation appeared to be more powerful as intrinsic motivational variables.

Yrkesutbildning eller yrkesbildning: vad lär vi oss egentligen? En introduktion till empirisk yrkesbildningsdidaktik

Ruhi Tyson — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0200

The Bildung contents and processes of vocational education and training is the focus of this article. This is something that has, for the most part, been treated on a philosophical level previously and where the intent here is to discuss how empirical research into vocational Bildung didactics can be conducted and what kinds of knowledge it can contribute. In the Bildung-philosophical discussion vocational education has historically often been contrasted with general Bildung and part of an empirical inquiry into vocational Bildung didactics is to surface the actual experiences of Bildung that vocational education and training can afford. The inquiry is based on an extensive explorative study of craft master Wolfgang B. and his vocational education biography. A part of this biographical study is presented in the article where the conversation centres on a vocational task he remembers and the various vocational Bildung affordances that can be found in his account. This leads to a more nuanced understanding of the concept of vocational Bildung and to a concluding discussion of the various ways in which this kind of empirical studies in vocational Bildung didactics can contribute to both research and practice.

Editorial: A developing journal

Per Andersson — Wed, 28 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0100

No abstract available.

Betydningen av ekstern praksis i tannteknikerstudiet

Hilde Kjærnet Haugen, Ketil Hegerstrøm Haugli — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0100

Dental technology is a health profession that manufactures individualized dental prostheses. Production primarily takes place in privately run dental technology laboratories. The Bachelor’s degree program and professional identity link to a scientific and craftsmanship tradition. The program organizes a period of 16 weeks internships undertaken at external workplaces. To obtain internships is challenging, specifically because the companies receive no compensation for lost production while supervising the students. This also hampers requirements of formal competence for teaching guidance in the industry. In 2014 lecturers from the program conducted interviews at former training businesses. The aim of this study was to evaluate the profession relevance of external business practices in the study program, and how the supervisors in the companies perceived their training responsibilities. The results indicate that external practical internships give students a real life experience in a daily professional practice that can’t be imitated on the educational institution. Recruitment of potential labour is a clear motivating factor among dental companies for accepting student interns. The educational institute must continuously secure the relevance of the program, and the students’ prerequisites to utilize external practices. Some mutuality in cost-benefit perspective stimulates the professional field.

Introducing a critical dialogical model for vocational teacher education

Daniel Alvunger, Carl-Henrik Adolfsson — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0100

The purpose with this article is to conceptualise and present what is referred to as a critical dialogical model for vocational teacher education that takes into account the interaction between theory/research and practice/experiential knowledge. The theoretical framework for the model is based on critical hermeneutics and the methodology of dialogue seminars with the aim to promote the development of a ‘critical self’ among the vocational teacher students. The model enacts an interface between theory and practice where a number of processes are identified: a reflective-analogical process, a critical-analytical process and an interactive critical self-building process. In order to include a theoretical argument concerning the issue of content, the concept of ‘learning capital’ and its four sub-categories in terms of curricular capital, instructional capital, moral capital and venture capital is used. We point at content-related aspects of student learning and how a critical self has the potential to promote various kinds of ‘capital’ and capacity building that may be of importance in the future work-life of the vocational teacher student.

Vocational teachers taking the lead: VET teachers and the career services for teachers reform in Sweden

Daniel Alvunger — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0100

In 2013 the Swedish government launched a reform on career services for teachers that introduced first-teachers as a new category of teachers. Since this reform still is in the process of being rolled out, we know fairly little of its impact, especially concerning VET teachers that are appointed first-teachers. This paper explores and analyses two cases of VET first-teachers with focus on the implications on educational leadership practices in their work with school improvement where ‘distributed leadership’ is used as a lens for understanding the characteristic features of leader-ship practices. The results show that the VET first-teachers consider themselves to represent an important educational leadership being process leaders for creating a culture built on mutual trust, turning the focus of school improvement from a ‘top-down’ perspective to change ‘from below’. They become ‘brokers’ and a link between school management and their colleagues, even if there are some difficulties. Moreover they visualise different practices and foster a new awareness – concerning e.g. assessment and the relationship between school and work-place – that seem to influence collegial discourse.

Professionel identitetsudvikling gennem uddannelse til erhvervsskolelærer i en empirisk undersøgelse på en diplomuddannelse

Henriette Duch — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0100

New vocational teachers in Denmark already have an education when they become teachers. They also have several years of work experience. Regardless of educational background and employing college, they have to attend the same course when they are employed at a vocational college. It is mandatory to complete the Diploma of Education in four years. During that course, the teacher is in transition to become a professional vocational teacher. Drawing on theories of identity the aim is to analyse the development of a professional identity. The terms ‘professional identity’, ‘personal identity’ and ‘identity of the profession’ are defined.

The main finding is that vocational teachers develop new ways to act and think. They develop the professional identity in interaction with colleagues and students from other vocational colleges, but the development is individual.

The research project takes a qualitative approach. Four vocational colleges are selected as cases of maximum variations, and focus group interviews are conducted at each college.

Learning with companies (LeWiCo) through the use of Facebook in the context of vocational hospitality education & digital spa marketing

Annica Isacsson — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0100

There is still lack of information on how to best implement social media in project collaboration and tourism marketing education despite the fact that social media offer interesting intercultural learning opportunities and enriching learning environments. This article aims to describe an example of an international, collaborative learning project conducted on Facebook in the context of vocational hospitality education/spa marketing. The aim of the Facebook project was to enhance work-based pedagogy, and to construct flow in learning.

The article adopts a case study approach to describe in detail how Facebook was used to foster self-directed and co-constructive learning in a social environment. The findings presented in the article are based on the postings of participating students in Facebook, and on teachers and project team reflections. Overall, the project was a success and led to the construction of a useful, current and engaging knowledge base in the context of spa marketing.

Moreover, the students appreciated the informal learning environment, and the teachers learned how to enhance learning without suffocating the learning process with too many guidelines or information. The students learned how to collaborate independently, and in pairs, and to take responsibility of their own learning.

Editorial: The first issue of NJVET in a new shape

Per Andersson, Susanne Köpsén, Bjørn Magne Aakre — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training (NJVET). With this journal, we want to create a forum for research on vocational and professional education and training, with a particular focus on issues at stake for vocational education and training (VET) in the Nordic countries. The journal is published online and open access, and there are no submission or article processing charges. This is the first issue of NJVET in its new shape. We have put effort into the renewal of our website, submission and publishing system, guidelines for contributions etc. Altogether we hope that this will contribute to strengthening the quality of our journal, and also of Nordic VET research in general. In this first issue we can present contributions from four Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Nevertheless, relevant contributions from outside the Nordic countries are most welcome! We encourage publication of articles in English, which makes the audience of our research results much broader, but we also offer the opportunity to publish in the Nordic languages. In this issue, articles are published in English, Danish, and Norwegian. You should also note that we make a difference between research articles, which have undergone a double-blind peer-review by at least two anonym viewers, and magazine articles that contain other types of materials, discussions, minor studies of VET etc. The magazine articles are not subject to double-blind peer review, but are reviewed by the editors. We also welcome relevant book reviews. However, this issue does not include any book review.

Fra innvandrer til medstudent og ressurs i undervisningen ved helsefaglig høyskoleutdanning

Ursula Småland Goth, Trude Løkhaug Jensen, Randi Skyrud — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0100

Norway has become a multicultural society where cultural encounters still can be seen as cultural conflict. The increased diversity in the population leads to an increased need for students with minority background within the health professions and health professionals from the majority population practicing care with a culture sensitive approach. During the last years, the University College of Oslo and Akershus has seen a significant increase of health student applicants with immigrant background. To encounter the situation this article aims to describe immigrant student’s learning situation. 21 randomly selected students from the University College were interviewed on the basis of a semi-structured interview guide.

Nine of the students were immigrants and 12 belonged to the major population. Gained data were analysed within a constant comparative approach. Our results showed that immigrant students face challenges during participation in study groups, seminars and in other professional communities. The detected challenges also included the acquisition of terminology and communication in Norwegian. The study concludes that there is a need for an enforced inclusive learning environment by promoting togetherness, tolerance and cultural competence.

Er stasjonsopplæring i videregående skole en metode som er egnet til å støtte yrkesfageleven i vurdering av egen læring?

Hanne Stousland, Hilde Witsø — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0100

Nasjonal og internasjonal forskning viser at elever som lærer å vurdere sitt eget arbeid, øker sitt læringsutbytte og blir mere motivert for læring. I denne artikkelen vil vi presentere en studie basert på intervjuer og observasjoner av lærere og elever i en videregående skole, Utdanningsprogram for teknikk og industriell produksjon. Vi undersøkte om stasjonsopplæring som undervisningsmetode kan bidra til bedre vurderingspraksis ved at det blir lagt til rette for elevens egenvurdering. Vår hensikt er å argumentere for at læreres strukturering av og samarbeid om en fastlagt metode for opplæring i yrkesfag er egnet til å støtte elevens evner og muligheter til å vurdere sitt eget læringsarbeid. Stasjonsopplæring er i denne sammenhengen en strukturert undervisningsmetode i yrkesfag der Kunnskapsløftets ulike læreplanmål for det aktuelle utdanningsprogrammet er brutt ned til konkrete arbeidsoppgaver knyttet til aktuelle lærefag.

Learning at work in Higher Vocational Education

Kerstin Littke, Per-Olof Thång — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0100

Higher vocational training (HVE) is a new form of post-secondary education that was introduced in 2009 in Sweden. The aim for HVE is to address the demands of a highly skilled Swedish workforce. Compared to other forms of adult and higher education it is less institutionalized and, based on Swedish standards, gives great opportunities for the provider to decide regarding the contents and design. The purpose of this study was to analyze a) the quality of the course, Learning at Work (LIA), and (b) to develop instruments and indicators to explore the quality of the student learning in working life as part of HVE. The design of research instruments was based on hypotheses to uncover the background, the learning process and effect parameters In LIA offered at 12 different HVE sites in Sweden within the areas of health care, computer science, technology and business administration. The survey data of forty-two students and thirty-six workplace supervisors were analyzed. The results of the study show that the quality of the learning at work (LIA) varies considerably between different programs and different students. In most programs, it has a significant development potential. A well-functioning LIA is characterized by adequate learning content, an open work climate between colleagues, accuracy and dedication, frequent supervisor feedback, and regular communication between the Program Director and the supervisors. It is important that the educational provider requires workplaces with capacity to offer the students relevant and qualified work content. LIA should offer qualified work content providing knowledge of breadth and depth. Knowledge gained from school-based training should be challenged and must achieve curriculum goals. An important finding is the lack of definitions and criteria for quality, and the risk of quality differences between educational providers. Another significant problem identified in the study is the unclear division of responsibilities between the educational provider and the partner from the world of work. Most of the supervisors, who were skilled workers or professionals, had a fragmentary understanding of HVE. They gave instructions, but did not stimulate their students to reflect theoretically on what they learned during LIA. Integration between school-based learning and experience of work life was limited. There was a shortage of instruments for assessing the quality of what was taught in the workplace. A large proportion (75 %) of the students was employed soon after graduation. For those who did not, their skills run the risk of rapidly becoming obsolete.

Maritim utdanning i lys av globaliseringen

Bjørn Magne Aakre — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0100

Denne artikkelen belyser forholdet mellom utdanning og globalisering med den maritime sektoren som kontekst. Fremstillingen bygger på eksempler (case) fra to norske bedrifter med virksomhet i og utenfor Norge: Kongsberg Maritime sitt treningssenter i Korea, og Rederiforbundets Norwegian Training Centre i Manila på Filippinene. Først gis det et innblikk i opplæringsform og innhold, og hvordan denne er forankret i læreplaner og sertifiseringer. I begge eksemplene spiller teknologi, blant annet simulatorer, fra Kongsberg en sentral rolle. Til slutt drøftes utdanningen i lys av politiske og økonomiske forhold. Undersøkelsen konkluderer med at utdanning og kunnskapsoverføring er vevet sammen med globalisering på det økonomiske, teknologiske og politiske området. Samtidig påvises det klare forskjeller i de to eksemplene fra henholdsvis Sør-Kore og Filippinene.

Etienne Wenger-Trayner, Mark Fenton-O’Creevy, Steven Hutchinson (eds): LEARNING IN LANDSCAPES OF PRACTICE: BOUNDARIES, IDENTITY, AND KNOWLEDGEABILITY IN PRACTICE-BASED LEARNING. Routledge, 2015.

Janne Kontio — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0100

No abstract available.

Reformed firefighter training program in Sweden: conflicting instructor conceptions of professional learning

Robert Holmgren — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0100

In 2003, the content and form of Swedish firefighter training were reformed. New curricula and guidelines were implemented, instructors from different fields of knowledge were recruited and the training program was extended. In this study, 29 instructors were interviewed with a view to identifying and analyzing the salient conceptions of professional learning among them and how their conceptions have been affected by, and have affected, the implementation of the new training program. The results show that the dominant conception among fire and rescue instructors continues to be adaptation-oriented, and that it has not changed significantly, despite revised training goals and challenges from the development-oriented attitude prevalent among the risk and safety instructors. It is also shown that this fundamental contradiction between instructor conceptions is manifested in several dilemmas and conflicts during the negotiation and implementation phases of the new training program.

Att forma en medarbetare eller att undervisa en student

Maria Johansson Mahic, Maria Skyvell Nilsson — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0100

Genom cooperative education (co-op) ges studenter möjlighet att inom utbildningen, praktiskt tillämpa sina kunskaper på en arbetsplats. Under co-op tilldelas studenten en av arbetsgivaren utsedd handledare. Co-op är ett trepartssamarbete mellan högskola, student och arbetsplats. Merparten av tidigare studier fokuserar studenternas upplevelse av co-op eller vad co-op kan innebära för studentens studiemotivation, framtida karriär och möjlighet till arbete. Syftet med denna fenomenografiska studie är att beskriva handledares uppfattning om handlednings syfte. Studien kan därmed bidra till kunskap om den utbildningssituationen studenter ställs inför i co-op. Studiens resultat, som är baserad på intervjuer, visar fyra olika uppfattningar om handlednings syfte: Stödja in i gemenskapen, Delge specifikt kunskapsinnehåll, Att få möjlighet att lära och Bidra till produktionen. Handledarnas uppfattningar indikerar att studenten förväntas praktiskt tillämpa teoretisk kunskap och få arbets- och yrkesrelaterade erfarenheter genom ett socialt lärande. Variationerna i handledarnas uppfattningar antyder även att det samlade kunskapsinnehållet som studenten får ta del av under co-op kan variera stort. Utifrån resultatet diskuteras möjligheter och hinder för studentens lärande under co-op.

Maintenance or change - an analytical tool for studies of the Work-Integrated Learning in teacher education

Jörgen Dimenäs, Anita Norlund — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0100

In Sweden, as in many other countries, work-integrated learning is an emphasized part of teacher education. In parallel with this emphasis, the conflict often emerging in students’ meeting with the profession is well known from previous research. In spite there seem to be few analytical tools for capturing the characteristics of work-integrated learning. The aim of this article is to construct, operationalize and try out an analytical tool to be used in connection with studies of the character of work-integrated learning. For the construction of the tool we rely on the conceptual pair of horizontal and vertical discourse, collected from Basil Bernstein’s theoretical frame. The horizontal discourse connects to an informal, everyday context whereas the vertical discourse is formal and school-oriented. In the article we divide these concepts into certain aspects related to work-integrated learning. We also turn to empirical material where student teachers were interviewed about their experiences, mainly from tutorial guidance. Our conclusion is that the analytical tool could serve as a useful instrument for analyzing such phenomena.

Gymnasierektors ledarskapsparadox: att vara verksamhetschef och pedagogisk utvecklare

Ingemar Johansson, Soly I. Erlandsson, Anna Maria Dåderman — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0100

Forskning om rektors ledarskap är omfattande, men studier som undersöker gymnasierektors arbetssituation och ledarskap är mer sällsynta. Avsikten med den föreliggande studien var att bidra till att denna kunskapslucka fylls igen. Semistrukturerade intervjuer med tio gymnasierektorer genomfördes med fokus på rektors arbetsuppgifter, möjlighet att planera och styra arbetet, förväntningar kring ledarskapet, samt möjlighet att utvecklas och lära i arbetet. I resultaten av den tematiska analysen framträdde fyra teman: (1) ledarskapsideal, (2) kollegialt stöd, (3) ledarskap i en förändringsbenägen organisation, och (4) begränsat utrymme för reflektion. Ett övergripande, gemensamt tema: ”Ledarskapsparadox” speglar de högst varierande omständigheter och förhållanden i vardagen som en gymnasierektor ska kunna hantera, vilka också präglar resultatet av analysen. Ett något oväntat resultat var att gymnasierektor upplevde stort, eget ansvar för elevernas bästa. Studien kastar nytt ljus på gymnasierektorers ledarskap, och bidrar till ökad förståelse för vad rollen som ledare för en komplex organisation som gymnasieskolan kan innebära. Genom att knyta an till en arbetspsykologisk ledarskapsteori och formulera en arbetspsykologisk hypotes kan studien bidra till forskningen om arbetsintegrerat lärande (AIL).

Förord

Kristina Johansson, Per-Olof Thång, Lars Svensson — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0100

Praksisnærhed i erhvervsskolens naturfagsundervisning gennem betydende overgange

Paola Valero, Peer S. Daugbjerg, Karin Løvenskjold Svejgaard — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0200

Relation to practice in vocational science education through consequential transitions: Relation to practice is often used as a teaching principle in vocational science education. The principle is based on the assumption that it improves students’ possibilities to do a more effective transfer of knowledge between a school context and a context of professional practice. In the paper we deploy a sociocultural perspective to present a nuanced concept of practice that leads us to conceive transfer in terms of consequential transitions among practices. Relation to practice as a pedagogical principle should build on the clarity of which practices students are invited to participate in, and how teaching facilitates different consequential transitions among them.

Finnes det en faglig felleskomponent for TIP yrkene?

Espen Schønfeldt, Ursula Småland Goth, Brynjar Landmark — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0200

Yrkesfaglig opplæring til et bestemt yrke gir en yrkeskompetanse med eller uten fag- eller svennebrev. Opplæringen foregår både i den videregående skolen og i bedrifter. Første år på programfaget Teknikk og industriell produksjon (TIP) på videregående skole i Norge kan lede til 65 ulike fag innen teknisk industri, skips- og bilindustri (82 med kryssløp). Det antas at det er sprikende kompetansekrav mellom disse yrkene og at det derfor er vanskelig å finne faglige fellesnevnere mellom mange av fagene. I så fall er det utfordrende å ha en felles undervisning som oppleves som relevant for alle fagene. Målet med undersøkelsen å vise hvilke faglige felleskomponenter det er i den kompetansen/kunnskap og ferdigheter som arbeidsmarkedet etterspør. I denne artikkelen prøver forfatterne å belyse i hvilken grad det finnes faglige fellesnevnere mellom de ulike TIP-fagene slik at det en underviser i ett fag også har faglig relevans for andre fag. Fagpersoner i industri i Norge med ansvar for lærlinger i sine respektive fagområde ble kontaktet og spurt om hvilke emner, kunnskaper og ferdigheter som er viktig for dette yrket i deres bedrift. Med dette har forfatterne laget en relevansundersøkelse over hvilke emner som etterspørres i og på tvers av de ulike yrkene. Dette belyser i hvilken grad det er store eller små faglige fellestrekk mellom de ulike fagene. Det kom inn over 400 svar fra opplæringsansvarlige i alle fylker i landet (unntatt Finnmark), hvorav 240 ble skåret fra de ti største industriområdene. Disse representerer 75 % av lærlingplassene fra TIP i Norge i 2012. Ulike fagområder ble skåret etter dikotome svar (relevant/ikke) og vektet på en 4-punkts Likert-skala. Siden det er store variasjoner med hensyn til hvor mange lærlinger de ulike fagene etterspør ble datæne vektet. Data i denne undersøkelsen gir belyser bedriftenes etterspørsel etter kunnskap av de inkluderte TIP. Det viste seg at det finnes konkrete kunnskaper og ferdighetsnivå i ti av de 11 yrkene som etterspurte flest lærlinger i 2012 i Norge. Disse er blant annet kobling, demontering, feilsøking på elektriske anlegg og maskinering etter arbeidstegninger. Artikkelen konkluderer med at det er mulig å konkretisere praktiske faglig relevante øvingsoppgaver for de fleste av de inkluderte fagene uten at undervisningen oppfattes som abstrakt og teoretisk.

Learning to stay in school: Selection, retention and identity processes in a Danish vocational educational training programme of basic health and care

Jakob Ditlev Bøje, Steen Beck, Helle Winum — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0200

In Denmark, as in other countries, education is seen as the most important way to make the country competitive in a global world and to solve problems relating to the welfare state. Many efforts are made to retain students in the educational system, but at the same time the system remains selective. In this paper, we present analyses that shed light on how a double agenda of selection and retention is played out within a school of studies in basic health and care and on how different groups of students respond to that. We find that the double agenda is handled in a manner where one agenda is reserved for one group of students and another for a different group of student. Our theoretical point of departure is the British tradition of Cultural Studies and particularly Paul Willis’ study on working class boys’ resistance towards school.

Vurdering for yrkesrelevant opplæring

Ann Lisa Sylte — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0200

Nye vurderingsverktøy som var kjent for elevene førte til økt motivasjon og økt læringsutbytte. Vurderingsverktøyene hadde tydelige kjennetegn med beskrivelse av kvaliteten på kompetansemålene og nivå for måloppnåelse. Stor grad av elevmedvirkning gjennom elevenes deltakelse i valg av arbeidsmåter, egenvurdering og yrkesrelevante kjennetegn bidro til meningsfull og yrkesrelevant opplæring. Artikkelen bygger på et aksjonsforskningsprosjekt (2006 – 2010) om kunnskapsutvikling og implementering av nye læreplaner (Kunnskapsløftet 2006) i Norge. Lav yrkesrelevans og stort frafall i den norske yrkesopplæringen var bakgrunnen for aksjonsforskningsprosjektet. For å utvikle yrkesrelevant og meningsfylt opplæring preget av elevmedvirkning, fra første dag i videregående skole, stod utvikling av lærernes yrkespedagogiske og -didaktiske kompetanse gjennom skoleutviklingsprosjekter sentralt i aksjonsforskningsprosjektet. I aksjonsforskningsprosjektet forsket lærere i videregående skole på egen praksis gjennom utvikling av yrkesdidaktiske metoder som blant annet nye vurderingsverktøy som fremmet yrkesrelevant opplæring. Artikkelen belyser og drøfter hvordan utvikling av vurderingsverktøy med kjennetegn kan fremme yrkesrelevant opplæring og dets utfordringer.

“Learning by doing…” “Studentbedrift” som pedagogisk tilnærming til entreprenørskap i yrkesfaglærerutdannelsen

Ursula Småland Goth, Eldbjørg Schøn — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0200

Introduction: Society is changing, and with that the challenges vocational teachers meet. Entrepreneurship is today defined as one of the key competences in various educational programs. This article aims to shed light on today’s teaching practice of practical entrepreneurship through the creation, implementation and management of student enterprises. Method: The following data were used within a qualitative approach: seven semi-structured interviews with students, data from course evaluations for the years 2006-2012, a strategic literature search and data from exam assessments for the years 2006 to 2012. Results: Practical related tasks mediated through student enterprises gave a sense of increased competence and an overall picture of future challenges. Not all students described those results as vocationally relevant. Too many students experienced the project student enterprise as negative. Several students’ complaint that focus was only set on commercial activities and the product itself. Dissemination of key values in pedagogical entrepreneurship like social interaction and collaboration was not accomplished. Conclusion: A stronger focus should be set on pedagogical entrepreneurship. This might be achieved if the design focuses increasingly on knowledge, collaboration and teaching skills.

Kvalifisering til læretid - Ikke bare et spørsmål om teori eller praksis i skoleopplæringen

Halvor Spetalen, Else Marie Johansen, Kjersti Lisbeth Johnsen — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0200

I denne artikkelen vil vi først presentere ny kunnskap om hvilke læringsarenaer og læringsaktiviteter som blir benyttet i de yrkesfaglige utdanningsprogrammene Restaurant- og matfag (RM) og Helse og oppvekstfag (HO) basert på en systematisk observasjonskartlegging. Kartleggingen er gjennomført ved hjelp av studenter ved yrkesfaglærerutdanningen (YFL) i RM- og HO-fag ved Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus i deres pedagogiske praksisperioder. Undersøkelsen omfatter drøyt 90 ukesobservasjoner av ulike RM- og HO-klasser i videregående skole over en periode på tre år. Resultatet av kartleggingen viser at elevene i RM- og HO-fag tilbringer svært ulik tid i klasserom, i verksteder eller i ekstern praksis. HO-elevene benytter i stor grad klasserom og noe praksis utenfor skolen mens RM-elevene benytter først og fremst verksteder på skolen og mindre tid i klasserom og ekstern praksis. I klasserommet benyttes stort sett de samme læringsaktivitetene enten elevene gjennomfører RM- eller HO-fag. Deretter sammenlikner vi resultatene fra kartleggingsundersøkelsen med data fra Analyser av Lærlingeundersøkelsen i 2011 og 2013 som sier noe om hvor godt lærlinger i RM og HO-fag mener seg forberedt til læretiden. Noe uventet opplever HO-læringene seg bedre forberedt enn det RM-lærlingene gjør på tross av mindre praksis i den skolebaserte yrkesopplæringen. Til slutt diskuterer vi ulike forhold som kan ha betydning for dette resultatet og konkluderer med at det ikke nødvendigvis er graden av teori eller praksis i den skolebaserte yrkesopplæringen som er viktig, men hvordan teori og praksis integreres og om opplæringen er relevant for senere læretid.

Yrkesfaglæreren - Ny rolle, nye utfordringer

Halvor Spetalen — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0200

I denne artikkelen presenteres resultatene fra en undersøkelse om hvordan yrkesfaglærerstudenter i restaurant- og matfag opplever det å skulle bli yrkesfaglærer med ansvar for å lede yrkesopplæring i brede utdanningsprogrammer. Resultatene viser at studentene opplever det å skulle lede opplæring mot andre yrker enn sitt eget som utfordrende uten at dette innebærer en negativ innstilling. Utfordringene knyttes særlig til manglende kunnskap og erfaring fra andre yrker. Det er derfor en forutsetning at det organiseres et samarbeid med andre lærere, skoler og næringsliv i en skolebasert yrkesopplæring med brede utdanningsprogrammer.

Erfaringer med bruk av simulering som transferstrategi

Halvor Spetalen, Ronny Sannerud — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0200

I denne artikkelen stiller vi spørsmålet: Er simulering egnet som læringsaktivitet når spesifikk praksis er tenkt trent og overført fra en simuleringskontekst til en nærmere bestemt anvendelseskontekst? For å besvare dette spørsmålet presenterer vi erfaringer fra tre single-case der ulike former for simulering er benyttet som transferstrategi. Materialet fra disse tre casene viser at flere faktorer ved simuleringen og transferkonteksten har betydning for om simulering egner seg som transferstrategi. Dette gjelder særlig faktorer som kontekstlikhet, overlappende arbeidsoppgaver, vektlegging av grensekryssingen mellom simuleringskontekst og anvendelseskontekst og i hvilken grad anvendelseskonteksten inviterer til bruk av erfaringer gjort i simuleringskonteksten.

Learning study i gymnasial yrkesutbildning – En fallstudie från ett hantverksprogram

Ina von Schantz Lundgren, Mats Lundgren, Victoria Svensson — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0200

Internationella tester av elevers kunskapsresultat har bidragit till att kraftigt öka intresset för hur elevers studieprestationer kan förbättras. En samstämmig forskning placerar lärares undervisning högt upp på listan av faktorer som är betydelsefulla för att förbättra elevers lärande. En metod som visat sig användbar för att utveckla lärares undervisningsförmåga är learning study som framför allt använts av lärare som undervisar elever i lägre åldrar. Vi visar i den här artikeln, med stöd av en fallstudie, att det även är möjligt att framgångsrikt använda learning study-metoden för att utveckla lärare i gymnasieskolans yrkesutbildning och deras förmåga att undervisa där ämnesinnehållet ofta avser tyst yrkeskunskap och icke-kognitiva förmågor.

Pedagogical practices in VET: between direct and indirect teacher approaches

Arnt Vestergaard Louw — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0200

This article deals with pedagogical practices on the basic carpentry VET programme in Denmark. On the basis of an anthropologically inspired study among carpentry students at two VET schools, the prime objective of analysis is to understand the various pedagogical practices from the students’ perspective. Various different teaching situations are analysed and discussed with regard to their impact on the students’ motivation for participation as well as development of independent reflection skills. My argument is that the students look to the teachers for active support in their professional development. Without this active teacher support, the students become disengaged and demotivated and risk dropping out. This is especially clear at the beginning of the programme.

Yrkesforberedelse eller fagopplæring med fagbrev? Med design og håndverk som kontekst

Bjørn Magne Aakre — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0200

Artikkelen drøfter forholdet mellom yrkesforberedelse og fagopplæring med utgangspunkt i den kombinerte studieretningen formgivingsfag som ble innført i Norge i 1994. I 2006 ble den delt i et programfag under studiespesialiserende fag, og et nytt yrkesfaglig program med betegnelse design og håndverk. Hvilke interesser lå til grunn for endringene, hvor dyptgripende ble de og hvilke overveieleser kan en gjøre i ettertid om forholdet mellom yrkesforberedelse og fagopplæring? Artikkelen søker å svare på spørsmålene ut fra relevante dokumenter og to kvantitative undersøkelser med elever og lærere som informanter. Artikkelen konkluderer med at innholdet forble nokså likt, antall elever ble halvert og at frafallet økte. Det konkluderes videre med at mange forhold bidrar til å legitimere et fag og dets innhold som henholdsvis skolefag, vitenskapsfag eller yrkesfag. Legitimeringen preges ofte av motstridende motiver og interesser, og sjelden bare faglige begrunnelser.

Implementering av Kunnskapsløftet Samisk (LK06S) innenfor to yrkesfaglige programmer på en samisk videregående skole

Mikkel Anders Bongo — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0200

Denne artikkelen handler om implementeringsprosessene av Læreplanverket Kunnskapsløftet Samisk (LK06S) ved en samisk videregående skole. Mine forskningsdata bygger på og er hentet fra de to yrkesfaglige programområdene Design og duodji og Teknikk og industriell produksjon. Det første yrkesfaglige programområdet er et typisk samisk opplæringstilbud, og er dominert av kvinnelige elever mens det andre yrkesfaglige programområdet er et tradisjonelt nasjonalt yrkesfaglig opplæringstilbud og dominert av mannlige elever. Fokuset i denne artikkelen vil være: Hvordan implementerer skolens aktører læreplanverket LK06S innenfor to forskjellige yrkesfaglige programområder på en samisk videregående skole? Empirien som artikkelen bygger på omfatter både hvordan aktørene i skolen oppfatter, hvordan de iverksetter og hvordan de opplever LK06S realisert og erfart (Goodlad, 1989). Skolens aktører er elever, lærere og rektor.

Vurderingspraksis i yrkesfag

Bjørn Magne Aakre — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0200

Artikkelen er et bidrag til temaet vurdering i yrkesfag, og legger særlig vekt på vurdering som ledd i utvikling av faglighet forklart som en syntese av kunnskaper, ferdigheter og generell kompetanse. Videre gir teksten noen betraktninger om yrkesfagene i dagens opplæring, og de spesielle utfordringer som er knyttet til vurdering for læring slik prinsippet nå er nedfelt i lov, forskrift og læreplanverk. Med støtte i erfaring, eksempler, praksis og forskning drøftes mulighetene for ny og bedre vurderingspraksis i yrkesfagene. Til slutt drøftes mulighetene for utvikling av faglighet med støtte ”Lesson Study”, eller “jugyou kenkyuu”, som mulig tilnærming i yrkesfag. Utfordringer knyttet til elever med spesielle behov tas også opp. I tillegg drøftes yrkesfagene i et internasjonalt perspektiv med blant annet referanse til World Skills, og yrkesfagenes organisering i noen utvalgte land.

Mestring og organisering i arbeid med mennesker - Om bra arbeid for grepa damer

Nina Amble — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0200

Dette er en presentasjon av Nina Ambles avhandling.

Yrkeslärarens frågandepraktik – kunskap och bedömning

Helena Tsagalidis — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0200

I artikeln kartläggs de frågor professionella yrkeslärare inom restaurang- och serveringsutbildning i gymnasieskolan ställde till sina elever i en autentisk undervisningssituation. Syftet var att klassificera och analysera frågorna med hjälp av frågetypologi, kunskapsformer och kunnandenivåer och dra slutsatser om relationer mellan frågande och bedömning. Empirin baseras på videofilmer i vilka undervisande yrkeslärare medverkar. Resultatet visar att yrkeslärarna främst ställde informationssökande frågor och därefter handlingsfrågor i syfte att dels kontrollera förmågan att genomföra uppgiften i enlighet med given tidplan, dels hur eleven lyckas med resultatet. Retroaktiva frågor ställdes mycket sällan även om de anses vara utvecklande för yrkeskunnande.

Synliggörande av tyst kunskap i gymnasial yrkesutbildning

Mats Lundgren, Ina von Schantz Lundgren — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0200

Yrkesutbildning skiljer sig från andra former av gymnasieutbildning genom att den innehåller praktisk kunskap som kan vara svårfångad, ofta benämnd som tyst kunskap. Tyst kunskap utgör en förutsättning för att yrkeselever ska kunna tillägna sig ett yrkes kultur, praxis och kunskapstradition. Med utgångspunkt i yrkeslärares berättelser beskrivs i artikeln med stöd av tre definierade kompetensområden, 1) yrkesfältet, 2) handlag i yrket samt 3) interaktion och social kompetens, hur yrkeslärare arbetar för att möjliggöra att ett yrkes tysta kunskaper kan läras i en skolmiljö. Resultatet visar betydelsen av att yrkeslärares tysta kunskaper blottläggs för eleverna genom att de i sin undervisning, berättar, visar och ställer frågor. Det är i dessa möten som den tysta kunskapens betydelse i yrkesutövning kan bli synlig för eleverna.

Møte med yrkesfagleg utdanning i den norske vidaregåande skulen

Ann Karin Sandal, Kari Smith — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0200

Artikkelen byggjer på ein kvalitativ studie av seks elevar sitt møte med vidaregåande skule, yrkesfaglege utdanningsprogram. Studien undersøkjer elevane sine perspektiv og refleksjonar kring overgangen mellom skuleslaga og vegen vidare i vidaregåande skule og ut i eit yrke. Overgangen til vidaregåande skule medfører kognitive og sosiale endringar for elevane, endringar som òg verkar inn på identitetsdanninga. Studien undersøkjer elevane sine opplevingar av desse endringsprosessane og kva konsekvensar det kan ha for vidare utvikling og læring.

FoU som arbeidsform i yrkesfaglærerutdanningen

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0200

Denne artikkelen bygger på et FoU prosjekt gjennomført ved yrkesfaglærerutdanning i restaurant- og matfag (YFL RM-fag) ved Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus i perioden april 2011 til mai 2012. Prosjektet hadde flere formål: 1) styrke FoU kompetansen blant lærere som leder yrkesfaglærerutdanningen i restaurant- og matfag ved HiOA. 2) samle og systematisere grunnleggende kunnskap (baseline) om forhold ved den skolebaserte delen av yrkesopplæringen i restaurant- og matfag (RM-fag), 3) knytte yrkesfaglærerstudentenes bachelorarbeider til den innsamlede empirien slik at resultatene fra baselineundersøkelsen utdypes gjennom studentenes bacheloroppgaver, og 4) utvikle yrkesfaglærerstudentenes FoU kompetanse gjennom aktiv deltakelse i konkrete forskningsoppgaver. Erfaringene så langt er at FoU-prosjektet har gitt mer systematisk kunnskap om den skolebaserte delen av yrkesopplæringen i restaurant- og matfag, økt kompetanse i å gjennomføre forskningsprosesser og samtidig utviklet en arbeidsform der yrkesfaglærerstudentene er medforskere på en naturlig måte.

A Taxonomy for Teaching Transfer Skills in the Danish VET System

Vibe Aarkrog — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0200

The article deals with transfer in the dual Danish VET system. Transfer is defined as the process of applying knowledge and skills acquired in an educational situation to working life. The existence of many identical elements in both training and transfer situations is known as ‘near transfer‘, and is most readily achieved when training is conducted within company premises. Students find the relevance of their theoretical training to in-company-based application highly motivating. Cognitively, transfer is facilitated by the concrete similarities between training and its application. However, the purpose of school-based education is to develop the students’ mastery of ‘far transfer‘, i.e., their ability to apply knowledge and skills to a broad range of situations. Therefore the pedagogy of VET should provide a progression from near to far transfer. The aim of this article is to describe and discuss some of the pedagogical challenges for VET of near and far transfer.

Yrkesfaglærere og elever i et globalisert samfunn - deres utvikling og ontologiske sikkerhet

Tron Inglar — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0200

Hvordan er det å være yrkesfaglærer og -elev i et globalisert samfunn? Svarene kan utgjøre viktig kunnskap for å forstå yrkesfaglærere og deres elever, slik at en kan organisere god lærerutdanning og yrkesopplæring. Giddens (1991:14-21) framsetter tre karakteristiske trekk ved dagens samfunn, atskillelsen av tid og rom, utløftingen av sosiale institusjoner og modernitetens refleksivitet. Jeg har valgt å betrakte yrkesfaglærerne i lys av disse fenomenene og har beskrevet ulike trekk ved deres utvikling som lærere og deres ontologiske sikkerhet. Mine hovedkonklusjoner er at de konsekvenser Giddens beskriver som et resultat av det globaliserte samfunnet, ikke preget yrkesfaglærere så dramatisk som forventet bortsett fra at de hyppige reformene i skolen ikke erfares som bare positive. Det var derimot informantenes mening at dagens elever var annerledes enn tidligere.

Spenningsfeltet mellom “nytte” for bedriften og “frirom” for studenten - Et samarbeidsprosjekt mellom skole og arbeidsliv for gjensidig påvirkning og ønske om forandring

Eva Schwencke, Anne Karin Larsen — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0200

Samarbeid mellom høgskole og arbeidsliv, høgskolens tredje oppgave, (Brulin 1998) gir store utfordringer i forhold til hvordan gjennomføre ”løpende dialog” om innhold i studieprogrammer og undervisningsopplegg. Det er ikke lenger ensidig bestilling fra næringslivet, som NHO-lederen påpeker i sin kronikk i Aftenposten (Bernander 2010). Spenningsforholdet mellom ”nytte for bedriften” og ”lærings- og frirommet for studenten og medarbeideren” er en av de sentrale utfordringene for utdanningsinstitusjoner som ønsker å være relevante partnere for kompetanseutvikling i arbeids- og næringslivet (Nielsen 1996, Schwencke 2006a og 2006b, Eikeland 2008). Samtidig ser vi at samarbeidet påvirkes av fleksibilitet og kontinuerlige endringer i arbeidslivet utenfor bedriften (Nielsen m.fl. 2010). Organisasjonsforhold, arbeids- og læringsmiljø, de ansattes faglige utvikling og yrkesstolthet påvirkes av disse grunnleggende endringene i arbeidslivet og i samfunnet forøvrig. Endringene i samfunnet fører også til at nye krav stilles til læringsformer både i yrkesutdanningen og i arbeidslivet.

Tvingande styrningsideal i en marknadsutsatt utbildning för vuxna?

Gun-Britt Wärvik — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0200

Denna artikel studerar frågan om hur omstruktureringen av svensk vuxenutbildning och arbetsmarknadsutbildning konkretiseras i yrkeslärares arbete. Omstruktureringen inbegriper bl a en marknadisering med upphandlingsförfaranden där en växande skara av anordnare tävlar om anbud med korta kontraktstider. Mer specifikt riktas här uppmärksamhet mot lärares användande av ett redskap för kvalitetssäkring, utformat av ledningen för en av de större utbildningsanordnarna i avsikt att dels uppnå extern legitimitet i upphandlingssammanhang och dels ge den egna verksamheten en viss riktning genom standardisering. En slutsats är att lärarna i mötet med pressen från deltagarna gör redskapet “tänjbart”, men att de också samtidigt, genom kvalitetsredskapet, medverkar till en omstrukturering av vuxenutbildningen.

Lesson study and Learning study – Metoder för att utveckla yrkeslärares undervisning?

Mats Lundgren, Ina von Schantz Lundgren — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 +0200

För att förbättra utbildningens kvalitet och elevernas studieresultat lyfts ofta lärares didaktiska kunskaper fram, liksom betydelsen av att lärare samverkar och reflekterar över hur undervisningen genomförs och bedöms. Vi argumenterar för att yrkeslärare genom att använda pedagogiska metoder som lesson study eller learning study kan utveckla sin undervisning, men vi diskuterar även vilka möjligheter och svårigheter som dessa metoder innehåller. Våra slutsatser är att även om dessa arbetssätt är ovanliga i gymnasieskolans yrkesutbildningar innehåller de goda möjligheter för att skapa nya perspektiv på yrkesundervisning till innehåll och form och att den på detta sätt kan utvecklas. En annan slutsats är att dessa metoder öppnar möjligheter för yrkeslärare och pedagogiska forskare att i samverkan utveckla ny praktiknära kunskap om yrkesutbildning.

Editorial: Technology-mediated learning in VET - Perspectives on changing educational landscapes in the 21st century

Giulia Messina Dahlberg, Susanne Gustavsson, Ingrid Berglund — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0200

No abstract available.

Editorial: Autumn 2019 - The most comprehensive issue this far

Per Andersson, Song-ee Ahn, Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen, Arnt Louw — Fri, 08 May 2020 00:00:00 +0200

No abstract available.

Editorial: Spring 2019

Per Andersson, Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen, Sofia Nyström — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0200

In this issue we present seven peer-reviewed research articles covering differ-ent aspects of vocational education and training in the Nordic countries. There are three articles from Norway, two from Finland, and two from Sweden. To make the findings accessible to a broader audience, we encourage publication in English, and in this issue three of the articles are written in English –one from each of the three countries represented. In addition to this, we have four articles in Nordic languages –two in Norwegian and two in Swedish. It should be noted that also the articles in Nordic languages have a translated title, abstract and key words in English, to make even these texts accessible to some extent to you who are not able to read Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish.

Editorial: Challenges and development in and of vocational teacher education

Ingrid Henning Loeb, Susanne Gustavsson — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0100

No abstract available.

Editorial: Autumn 2018

Per Andersson, Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen, Sofia Nyström — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0100

No abstract available.

Editorial: Spring 2018

Per Andersson, Sofia Nyström, Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Welcome to a new volume of the Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training. In this first issue of 2018 we are proud to present a new associate editor of our journal. Associate professor Hedvig Skonhoft Johannesen from OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University in Norway has joined the editorial group, and we look forward to fruitful cooperation with the journal.

In this issue of NJVET we have seven contributions – six peer-reviewed research articles and one magazine article – from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The topics of the articles address assessment in empirical and analytical approaches, VET students’ as well as teachers’ boundary learning, digital storytelling as an approach to vocational didactics, drop out from vocational education, and finally the quality of vocational education.

Editorial: Cultural historical theory & VET – A contribution to broadening the theoretical grounds of research in VET

Lázaro Moreno Herrera — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100

No abstract available.

Youth on the move: Tendencies and tensions in youth policies and practices. Kristiina Brunila & Lisbeth Lundahl (Eds.).

Arnt Louw — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0200

No abstract available.

How schools contribute to keeping students on track: Narratives from vulnerable students in vocational education and training

Evi Schmid, Beate Jørstad, Gøril Stokke Nordlie — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0200

This article examines characteristics, practices and conditions within schools that enable vulnerable students to succeed in school. Research suggests that factors related to structure, educational organisation or the climate within schools may play a part in either pushing out or holding on to students whose personal characteristics may put them at risk of dropping out. The study is based on 25 qualitative interviews with students in the second year of vocational education and training. All the students had a low grade point average from lower secondary school, and the majority had an immigrant background from Africa or Asia. The analysis shows that practice-oriented learning from authentic work tasks provided meaningful connections between schoolwork and students’ career choices and opportunities to experience success and mastery. Furthermore, positive expectations and the active support of teachers as well as mutual motivation and support among classmates contributed to students’ sense of belonging at school. The study discusses the importance of schools supporting less school-oriented young people in connecting and identifying with school, both with the social environment and with the educational content and learning methods.

For a real job? Views on the teaching of competence in working life by students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Marika Mäkinen — Thu, 09 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0100

In this study, twelve young students on the autism spectrum were interviewed on preparation for working life, employment guidance, the challenges and strengths of the autism spectrum, and suitable teaching methods. Interviews were supported by a structured and illustrated questionnaire. The data were analysed using key statistics. The results showed that, from the students’ perspective, the most important issues in preparation for work are familiarisation with different jobs, guidance in searching for a suitable job, evaluation of the suitability of the working environment, integration of occupational safety into work skills, and acquiring conversational skills in the workplace. The selection of a suitable working environment is clearly emphasised before transitioning to work. Acquiring and keeping a job require investing in social situations and skills in studying. The structuring should be flexible and adaptable according to situations and personal needs. Educationally, social interaction, social skills, and communication should form a coherent whole. The main goal for everyday life ought to be communicative and based on a structure for acquiring different skills. The results can be utilised in a vocational education and training (VET) context, because they support the importance of preparatory education as part of these studies. In addition, the results can also be used in on-the-job learning plans for VET.

Elevers formande av arbetsplatsförlagt lärande i svensk gymnasial lärlingsutbildning

Ingela Andersson, Viveca Lindberg — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0100

The article examines how students in Swedish upper secondary apprenticeship education contribute to the shaping of their education through their choices and actions in relation to work-based learning. Activity theory and the notion of interacting activity systems was used to emphasise the students’ perspective as active subjects. Data was collected through observations and interviews with 15 students in their second year of an apprenticeship. An initial qualitative content analysis revealed a pattern of actions that related to both school and work. The result of this analysis was further elaborated with activity theoretical concepts. Thereby dominating rules/norms and tools they made use of, contributed to identifying three potential objects for students’ actions: grades in vocational subjects, development of vocational skills, and inclusion in the workplace community. Depending on what objects the students held as superior and subordinate different outcomes could be achieved – an upper secondary vocational degree, development of vocational skills, and/or being employed while studying. One object did not necessarily exclude the others. It is concluded that the multiple expectations from students, school, and workplaces that coexist in relation to work-based learning need to be continuously communicated among all participants to strengthen the students’ possibility to achieve their desired educational outcome.

Et kvalifisert utdanningsvalg for dagens ungdom: Resultater fra et innovasjons-samarbeid mellom en ungdomsskole, en videregående skole og en bedrift

Sylvi Thun, Linn Thøring, Lisbeth Øyum — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0200

The purpose of this article is to investigate how an innovative collaboration between one lower secondary school, upper secondary school and industrial company can contribute to a more informed educational choice (vocational vs. programme for specialisation in general studies) among today’s youths. Eight lower secondary school students, five upper secondary school students, one employee in the participating industrial company, one teacher from lower secondary school, one from upper secondary school together with the section leader for vocational education programme (upper secondary school) have been interviewed. Thematic analysis has been used to analyse the data. The theoretical perspectives undertaken are self-determination theory and social-cognitive theory. Findings highlight that the study’s innovative collaboration gives youths an essential insight into the future school- and work practices. During the collaboration, the youths learn about the competence needs for future work life, and gain knowledge about their own learning potentials. Practical experience, new ways of collaboration, work centred communication, engaging and challenging training situations, experience of meaning, together with responsibility taking for own and other’s learning contribute to a more qualified education choice. We find that the pupils in lower secondary school experienced this innovative collaborative practice to produce more autonomous than controlled motivation, and more positive outcomes in terms of both behavioural, cognitive and affective dimensions of learning, at school.

Individual development in a neoliberal context: Climbing to a ‘glass ceiling’? A plea for liberal pedagogy in upper secondary vocational education

Maarten van Houten — Tue, 12 May 2020 00:00:00 +0200

This essay addresses the issue that a neoliberal focus might have an adverse effect on a secondary vocational education student’s personal development and opportunities in higher education. Originating from neoliberal conditions, in upper secondary vocational education there is a strong focus on marketable skills with limited space for acquiring critical thinking and analytical skills, resulting in impediments concerning admittance to higher education as well as low success rates of those admitted. Also, talent development and differentiation are contested under these neoliberal conditions. It is argued that liberal pedagogy is necessary as a means to scaffold especially critical thinking skills and to foster talent development in upper secondary vocational education to cope with this issue and to create more equal opportunities for vocational students from various levels. In the concluding thoughts those involved are encouraged to reconsider preparation for post-secondary education related to admittance and study success.

Som å ta av seg verktøybeltet: Kontraster og metaforer i overgangen fra fagarbeid til yrkesfaglærerutdanning

Nora Kolkin Sarastuen — Tue, 12 May 2020 00:00:00 +0200

This article explores the transition from work to higher education and how vocational teacher students talk about the transition from occupational work to vocational teacher education. Previous research has identified students’ experiences of coherence in higher education as a challenge, and in this article the aspect of coherence that explores the contrasts and conflicts between vocational teacher students’ past experiences as occupational workers and experiences in vocational teacher education (biographic coherence) is explored. It is a qualitative study with participant observations and focus group interviews with Norwegian vocational teacher students at their second year of a bachelor’s degree programme to become vocational teachers. The analysis shows that students use metaphors and contrasts when they talk about the transition from occupational work to higher education. The metaphors and contrasts elicit an emotional aspect of the transition from work to education, and how students use their previous experiences from occupational work to give meaning to experiences in education.

How Student Characteristics Affect Economy Students’ Digital Competences: A latent profile study

Lydia Schulze Heuling, Steffen Wild — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0100

The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) profoundly impacts in- dustry and work. It therefore is important for vocational education and training to em- phasize on the development of digital competences. However, we still know very little about how these skills are distributed among students in vocational education and train- ing (VET) in general, and the so-called ‘cooperative study programmes’ (CSP) in parti- cular. CSPs combine vocational education components with university coursework lead- ing up to a journeymen certificate and an academic degree simultaneously. This study analyses the digital competences of first-year students in a business-focussed CSP at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) in Germany, using a Ger- man version (the D21-Index) of the European framework for digital competences (DigComp) to assess students’ competence levels. A latent profile analysis revealed four competence profiles (reserved digitised, reserved appreciative, constructive digitised, and reflective digitised). Interestingly, our subsequent analysis showed that none of the student characteristics we assessed turned out to be distinctive for any of the four pro- files. Considerations of relevant inset points for VET institutions nationally and interna- tionally to develop tailored support of digital competence development of their students are integrated in the conclusions.

Nordic research on special needs education in upper secondary vocational education and training: A review

Camilla Björk-Åman, Robert Holmgren, Gerd Pettersson, Kristina Ström — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0200

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse the state of the art of research on special needs education (SNE) in the context of the Nordic countries’ vocational education and training (VET) systems during the period January 2010 to September 2018. Twenty studies remained after the search procedure and thematic analysis, 15 of which deal with the practice level and five with the organisation level. No studies were identified as belonging to the policy level. The following themes were found at the practice level: teachers’ work and role, teaching and learning, student transition and student dropout. Themes identified at the organisation level were changes to vocational policy documents and educational practices, and school organisation and its implementation. Finland dominates in terms of number of studies. Furthermore, the review shows that there were few studies in the area of SNE in VET. The results show that further studies are needed to acquire more knowledge about SNE in vocational education.

Waiters' craft-related actions studied from the perspective of time-geography

Lars Eriksson, Inger M. Jonsson, Åsa Öström — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0200

The aim of this paper is to visualize, communicate and understand the vocational knowledge of a waiters craft, including how to perform table-setting and serving. The underlying theoretical perspectives are Culinary Arts and Meal Science, Craft Science, and Time-Geography. Basic time-geographical concepts used in the study are project, log, notation and constraint. The empirical data consist of two postulated serving methods wherein different procedures are identified. The data are based on the first author’s vocational experience and are described by logs of procedures. Questions in the logs concerning capacity, coupling, or authority constraints indicate limits to what is possible. Additionally, one of the serving methods is shown by a notation, displaying the waiter’s and the guests’ actions in relation to the procedures. The notation, complemented with a drawing of the room, provides knowledge about when, where, and for how long a serving procedure lasts. Through the use of time-geographical tools, the waiter’s craft procedures can be described and interpreted. Thus, it became possible to visualize, communicate, and acquire a deeper understanding of how the waiter in her vocational craft predicts and masters how time and materiality together with spatiality affect a meal event.

Relational pedagogy in a vocational programme in upper secondary school: A way to make more students graduate

Ulrika Gidlund — Tue, 12 May 2020 00:00:00 +0200

In Sweden, many students start but do not graduate from upper secondary school despite preventive efforts. The reasons for students dropping out of school have been examined and opposed, but there is still more to be done. The overall aim of this study was to contextualise and understand teachers’ and students’ experiences and perceptions of relational pedagogy in a vocational upper secondary programme in Sweden. The theoretical framework was relational pedagogy to investigate theoretical knowledge of pedagogical relations. The data for this qualitative study was collected through two focus group interviews with 10 teachers and 10 individual student interviews. Directed content analysis was used to analyse the data in order to pay attention to the core concepts of relational pedagogy as a theoretical encoding scheme. The findings show that teachers and students find their working and learning atmosphere much safer and more secure compared to earlier; both groups mentioned relational pedagogy as promoting student participation, engagement, and motivation in school. This study contributes with knowledge of how vocational teachers and students perceive working with relational pedagogy to promote learning and school attendance, but there is still a need to find out more about how teachers’ relational competence is acquired.

Digitala körsimulatorer i yrkesutbildning: Utmaningar och möjligheter

Susanne Gustavsson, Giulia Messina Dahlberg, Ingrid Berglund — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0200

This article discusses the didactical challenges and opportunities of driving simulator supported teaching and learning, mediated through digital technology in vocational educational and training through the example of driving simulators. We highlight relevant research on simulator-supported teaching and the need for practice-based, empirically driven research. The study is part of a larger project that focuses on the implementation of simulator environments in three secondary schools in the natural resource programme. The data consists of three action research projects in two of these schools where vocational teachers, together with researchers, plan and implement teaching with driving simulators as a new technology in their practice. The article is an example of how action research can contribute to critical evaluation and development of teachers’ professional work during the implementation of new technology. Results from these projects are analysed using the TPACK framework. The vocational teacher has a central position to ‘master’ the digital tool. Issues about fidelity, transfer and progression are discussed in terms of concepts that are challenged when new technology is introduced. Here, the vocational teachers professional and content knowledge as well as the teacher’s didactic and technical competence are central for the development of new strategies when the conditions for teaching change fundamentally.

Velferdsteknologi i helse- og oppvekstyrker: Digitalt kompetansebehov i yrkesfaglig utdanning

Solveig Dalehaug Havreberg, Ann Lisa Sylte — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0100

The fast-paced changes of the Western world community require vocational education and training (VET) that meets the future working-life needs for competence. One challenge in Norwegian health education is the lack of up-to-date teacher competence in welfare technology and digital competence. This article is based on a case study of how vocational teachers in health education programmes (HO) meet the future needs for competence in welfare technology. This research questions what can be changed in VET with these new technologies and how the technology challenges the vocational content of health and education work, and VET. This need for technological competence is also linked to the renewal of curriculum in Norwegian VET, which entails requirements for previous vocational specialisation. The study involved qualitative methods and development experiments. The results show examples of how vocational teachers and students at HO can meet the future needs for competence in welfare technology related to ethics. The results indicate the need for close collaboration between school and working life to meet the new technology-competence need in the content in both the HO education and the health care occupations. Didactical planned internship in companies using welfare technology, were important for the participants learning about digital tools.

Interaction between students and class teachers in vocational education and training: ‘Safety distance is needed’

Sanna Ryökkynen, Raija Pirttimaa, Elina Kontu — Fri, 10 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0100

Interaction between students and teachers is fundamental and has therefore been widely studied in education. However, there have been few studies on intensive spe-cial support being provided to vocational education and training (VET) students. Firstly, the focus of this article is on students’ perceptions of interactions with their class teachers. Students (aged 17–34 years) from four Finnish vocational institutions providing intensive special support were interviewed. According to the findings, the demands students placed on their class teachers and for interactions with them were modest and their perceptions of both were favourable. Interactions seemed to be study-orientated and class teachers behaved as active initiators, with students echo-ing their opinions. Students’ narratives excluded future career plans, talking about students’ strengths or future ambitions or dreams. Secondly, the aim of this study is to review Finnish VET critically. In the reformed VET system, competence-based ori-entation emphasises individual guidance and support. Therefore, as the dialogue between teacher and student seems to enable successful trajectories, it is essential to make this apparent. Part of education’s larger purpose is to make room for students’ voices and interpretations during their study, which includes both acquiring qualifi-cations to undertake certain work, and subjectification as an empowering element and socialisation of the social, cultural and political order.

Yrkeslärares bedömningar i gränslandet mellan skola och arbetsliv: Utifrån studier av svensk gymnasial lärlingsutbildning

Ingrid Berglund — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0200

Based on their dual professional identities, both as a professional and as a teacher, the VET teachers are well familiar with the working conditions in their vocational field and can therefore integrate these conditions into their teaching so that the students also can comprehend the prevailing working conditions. VET-teachers can thus be regarded as border workers between school and working life. In Swedish upper secondary vocational education, the VET teachers are responsible for following up, assessing and grading students’ vocational knowledge regardless of whether the education is carried out at a workplace or at school. Assessing and grading students’ knowledge in vocational subjects is the formal assessment assignment of VET teachers. In parallel VET teachers also make informal assessments based on their knowing of the conditions of work and workplaces that vary between different vocations and workplaces. The article highlights how VET teachers border work is manifested in assessment actions in the case of students’ transitions between school and workplaces based on studies of the Swedish upper secondary apprenticeship education.

Dropout prevention in vocational education: Evidence from Finnish register data

Ville Vehkasalo — Tue, 12 May 2020 00:00:00 +0200

A large-scale dropout prevention programme was implemented in Finnish vocational education in 2011–2014. We used detailed register data to evaluate the programme’s effects and to circumvent the attrition bias of pretest-posttest surveys. Our data included approximately 24,000 randomly sampled students, both from the participating schools and the non-participating schools, before and after the programme. We estimated the effect of the programme on study completion and dropping out using pooled cross sections and difference-in-differences regression methods. Both study measures have improved during the last decade, but our results suggest that the programme was not effective in increasing study completion or in reducing the number of dropouts. The likely causes for the improved levels of vocational degree completion include recent macroeconomic fluctuations and legislative changes in teenagers’ eligibility for unemployment benefits.

Simulation-based training in VET through the lens of a sociomaterial perspective

Sofia Nyström, Song-ee Ahn — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0100

This article aims to review the pedagogical research on simulation training in voca-tional education and training (VET) and to discuss the emerging teaching practice from a socio-material perspective on learning and practice. Literature reviews on research into simulation training with pedagogical interests show that there are three main themes: 1) the effect of technology-enhanced simulation training, 2) the fidelity and authenticity of simulation and learning, and 3) pedagogical consideration and under-pinnings. The article draws on a sociomaterial perspective on learning and practice to problematise and discuss the findings of previous research. This theoretical perspec-tive makes it possible to discuss how technology, educational practice and social rela-tions are intertwined and precondition each other.

Through the lens of sociomaterial theory, the article discusses how the introduction of the new technologies brings about changes and expectations of what can be learned, how the teaching practices are enacted and how this affects the relationship between teachers and students.

Both novice and expert? How apprentices develop vocational competence in workplaces where technology is continuously changing: Examples from the Norwegian media graphics programme

Nina Aakernes — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0100

This article explores how young apprentices develop vocational competence through apprenticeship in workplaces where technology is continuously changing. The article draws on results from a longitudinal study that followed seven apprentices enrolled in the media graphics programme in Norway through their two-year apprenticeships.

The results showed how the apprentices developed vocational competence in the community of practice in the workplaces by taking an active part in the daily produc-tion, experimenting with different solutions, reflection, and by advice and discussions with their instructors and co-workers. However, the apprentices also had to deal with work tasks where the solutions were not yet known in the workplace. The article shows how the apprentices combined learning from colleagues with learning from other resources such as software courses and use of the internet. The results showed how the apprentices’ competence development can be a resource for the co-workers and can facilitate the development of the enterprise. Furthermore, these results pro-vide new perspectives on competence development in the community of practice. The study showed that the apprenticeship has an innovative potential and is an essential way for young people to develop vocational competence in a world of work where technology is continuously changing.

Relevant opplæring i yrkesopplæringens første år: Elevers erfaringer med yrkesrelevant opplæring

Åse Norunn Nedrebø Bruvik, Grete Haaland — Tue, 12 May 2020 00:00:00 +0200

During the last years, vocational education in Norway has been organised through eight different educational programmes. Each programme makes the basic year for many different professions, students may be heading for. The national regulations for Norwegian vocational education and training describe a clear intention of professional relevance for each student and competence development through democratic participation. The aim of this research was to investigate how the basic year in vocational programmes works, related to these intentions from a student perspective. This study provides both qualitative and quantitative results.

Despite the fact that most of the students, before or during the first year, have decided on their future profession, the survey shows that the basic year in Norwegian vocational education is not, or only partially relevant to their vocational plans. The students find that their possibilities to influence in deciding their learning tasks and the educational content is minimal. Interpretation and understanding of curriculum, learning assignments and educational content are decided by the teachers or others, not the students.

Virtual welding: A didactic perspective

Steinar Karstensen, Arne Roar Lier — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0200

This research was conducted as part of a Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programme in Technical and Industrial Production and is a collaboration between Aas upper secondary school in Akershus and the Department of Vocational Teacher Education at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). Starting in autumn 2017, simulated welding has been the first step in the use of simulation teaching in order to produce qualified professionals. In TVET education, Virtual Reality technology is a new training tool for welding, and little is known about the pedagogical approaches and didactic challenges.

This article is based on interviews that were conducted with teachers and their immediate supervisors to gain insight into their prior knowledge, the approaches they intended to use, and their initial experiences of the introduction of simulation-based teaching. The research consists primarily of qualitative analyses, based on a phenomenological approach. The focus for the article is the possibilities and limitations of a virtual welding machine, as well as how it might be introduced as an educational and didactic tool in upper secondary school.

The article provides useful knowledge for those who will be using some form of simulation in teaching in general and for simulated welding in particular. This applies to both current TVET teachers and those undergoing Technical and Vocational Teacher Education.

Five years with vocational teacher education online

Runar Oudmayer, Steinar Karstensen — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0200

After running online Technical and Vocational Teacher Education (TVTE) classes for five years we have collated our experiences and thematically probed them through the following questions: (1) What are the pedagogical and didactic considerations with online TVTE (2) What are the technical challenges? (3) What opportunities and limitations have emerged? (4) How do the teachers and students experience online teaching? (5) How do teachers compare online teaching with on-campus teaching? Our experiences where accumulated through the TVTE in the Technological Programme (TP) at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet), and are based on both teacher and student responses, learning logs, evaluations, and anonymised student data.

In short, online study has helped us to achieve a larger geographical spread of students. The students experience online study as flexible, as they do not have to meet on campus every week. The technology has worked and allows for further development of the subjects being offered. It appears to be an equal opportunity offered compared to the campus-based with greater flexibility according to where the student is located. The workload also appears to be manageable for teachers who are engaged in the online class environment.

Motivational sources of practical nursing students at risk of dropping out from vocational education and training

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0100

The aim of this study was to contribute to the understanding of the reasons for low or high academic motivation among practical nursing students at risk of dropping out from vocational education and training. The research data consisted of semi-structured interviews with 14 Finnish students, which were analysed by qualitative content analysis. The analysis identified six motivational sources. Two of these sources – Responsible agency and Completing out of necessity – were related to engagement in studying, whereas two other sources – Exhaustion from learning challenges and Tight-roping between competing responsibilities – were related to disengagement from studying. Emotional drive and Social orientation were ambivalent motivation sources, partly pushing towards engagement as well as to disengagement, depending on the circumstances. Overall, the complicated reasons for low or high motivation were found to be heterogeneous and, consequently, the ways to support students may also vary.

Constructing vocational education capital: An analysis of symbolic values in the Swedish VET system of 1918

Åsa Broberg — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0200

This article explores ways of creating educational capital in vocational education and training in Sweden during a period in the early 20^th century when vocational learning was first institutionalised as education. As such, at the same time it had to create itself and submit to the established educational system. This process is the focus of the article; it is examined by using concepts from Bourdieu’s capital-theory. In this perspective, vocational education and training as an educational form is considered part of the field of education. However, the main focus of the analysis is the newly formed education for vocational learning as a field of vocational education where a particular vocational educational capital was created. The aim is to illuminate ways of creating vocational education capital by borrowings, crossovers and reinventions of values from two traditions of learning and knowledge production: apprenticeship in the guilds and education in academia. The symbols from both crafts and academia were passed on into the early VET system through its institutions and actors. It materialised in titles, artefacts and rituals that that are presented in archives, journals and school memorial books.

Connecting school and workplace with digital technology: Teachers’ experiences of gaps that can be bridged

Ann-Britt Enochsson, Nina Kilbrink, Annelie Andersén, Annica Ådefors — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0100

The aim of this study is to gain more knowledge about the gaps vocational teachers identify between school and workplaces in upper secondary vocational education, and their experiences of using digital technology as boundary objects to bridge these gaps. This study builds on theories of boundary crossing and is carried out through in-depth interviews with six vocational teachers. For the analysis, a model is used, where the concept learning mechanisms is borrowed from Akkerman and Bakker. In our model, the learning mechanisms coordination, reflection and transformation represent three levels to which all the gaps identified by the teachers relate. The teachers’ pedagogical aims are qualitatively different on the different levels. At the basic level, coordination; gaps with the aim to control and to keep in touch with students in their workplaces, are identified, whereas at the next level, reflection; the gaps that need to be bridged, concern creating better conditions for the students to reflect on and connect with what they have learned in the different learning arenas. Those teachers identifying gaps on the most elaborated level, transformation, want to create a complete educational experience for their students, as they try to find a seamless way of crossing the boundaries between school and the workplace.

Becoming a construction worker in the connected classroom: Opposing school work with smartphones as happy objects

Stig-Börje Asplund, Janne Kontio — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0100

This article aims to fill a very specific and acute gap; in addition to the few studies on youth and digitalisation, smartphones and other mobile tools, it is very clear that the field of research concerning these issues in regards to vocational education and training is close to non-existent. By examining male Building and Construction programme students’ collective use of smartphones in interaction during classes, this study contributes to increased knowledge about some of the challenges and possibilities that arise with the digitalisation of vocational education and training. The study uses new and innovative methods regarding how students’ digital activities in the classroom could be captured and studied, and approaches video recorded data through the lens of Sara Ahmed’s ideas of happy objects (2010), and the concept of community of practice (Wenger, 1998). The analyses show how the identity constructing processes that take shape when the students orient towards the smartphone as a happy object intersect with the students’ future vocational identity as building and constructing workers, as well as explicating an anti-school culture.

Svensk yrkeslärarutbildning efter reformen 2011: Lärarstudenters uppfattningar om antagning, VFU och läraranställning

Hamid Asghari, Ingrid Berglund — Tue, 12 May 2020 00:00:00 +0200

Through a survey to former vocational teacher students at two universities in Sweden, we explore their perceptions of admission, practicum internship during vocational teacher education, and employment as a vocational teacher after education, since teacher education reform in 2011.

The questionnaire used in the survey was answered by 140 former teacher students and the result contributes with knowledge about which vocational subjects were applied for, and which subjects the students later were admitted to, how long the former students’ professional experience was when they applied for the education. The result shows that measures should be taken to support the application process. The study also illustrates how students perceive their practicum at schools and to what extent they were taught in their vocational subjects, and how they value the supervision during the practicum at schools. Here, we can draw conclusions from the questionnaire about differences between different vocational programmes regarding the supervision. Finally, we examined what happened after the vocational teacher education and we see that a large majority of former students have employment as vocational teachers, but that the possibilities of competence development and the broadening of the competencies for more vocational subjects vary.

Integrated teaching for vocational knowing: A systematic review of research on nursing-related vocational education and training

Maria Christidis — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0200

The aim for this review was to systematize, describe and critically analyse previous research concerning school-based integrated teaching for vocational knowing in nursingrelated training in upper secondary and in higher level education. Searches were conducted in four databases, two specifically for Swedish hits, and two for international hits. Also, search was made in a Nordic journal on vocational education and training. References in included studies were also assessed for further inclusion of studies. Altogether, 14 studies were included and assessed for quality and coherence with GRADE CERQual. Review findings comprised three types of integrated teaching, through embeddedness or streaks, problem-based learning, and between school and workplace; vocational knowing relating to a professional and academic context; and methodological significance for the vocational knowing highlighted in the studies. In conclusion, the methodological approach typically used in the primary studies related to a quantitative approach, which was also discerned as quality measure. The primary studies brought forward a partial understanding of integrated teaching and vocational knowing, which is dependent on the methodological approach. In order to enhance understanding about the research topic, there is a need for more studies on integrated teaching utilizing a qualitative approach.

Vocational students’ identity formation in relation to vocations in the Swedish industrial sector

Lisa Ferm, Daniel Persson Thunqvist, Louise Svensson, Maria Gustavsson — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0100

This article investigates vocational identity formation among students studying vocational education programmes that focus on vocations within Sweden’s industrial sector. The empirical material is based on twenty-eight qualitative interviews with students enrolled on industrial programmes at four upper secondary schools. Taking a situated learning perspective as our starting point, the study reveals how the students’ vocational identity formation can be understood by examining their learning trajectories, which are shaped by their social backgrounds, their perceptions of workplace-based learning and industrial vocations, and their thoughts about their vocational futures. The findings demonstrate that students’ vocational identity formation is not a single linear process. On the contrary, three learning trajectories emerged which correspond to three different student groups. The students oriented towards commitment intended to work in industrial vocations, while the students oriented towards flexibility were open to the possibility of careers outside the industrial sector, and the students oriented towards ambivalence had no obvious plans for their vocational futures. In conclusion, this article suggests that in order to better understand the formation of vocational identities, the notions of learning trajectory types and social categorisations need to be considered in greater depth and understood in relation to the upper secondary school environment.

Educational time-out between a rock and a hard place: Vocational students in search of coherent life narratives

Kaja Reegård — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0200

This article analyses students in upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) for retail and office work in Norway who deploy gap year justification in search of an educational time-out. The international literature on gap year, emphasises that this is a way for privileged students of getting ahead in the competition for access to elite universities. Based on qualitative interviews of VET students, the article finds that this perspective is, however, very different from the (un)planned ‘gapping’ reality of the working-class students of the study. The findings show that the students have worked out neither activities for the gap year nor what they plan to do after their time off. Rather, the findings reveal gapping to be a strategy to postpone essential choices of what and who to become. By examining the ways in which VET students in weakly established vocational trades make meaning of their seemingly open-ended educational journeys, the article explores how their interpretations of the opportunities they face are informed by legitimising individualised gapping discourses.

Forhindringer for samarbejde om pædagogisk udvikling mellem skoleledere og lærere: Belyst gennem et aktionsforskningsprojekt i erhvervsuddannelserne

Henrik Hersom, Dorrit Sørensen — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0100

The article is based on analysis from an action research project carried out on four vocational schools in Denmark. The project has been launched to find possible solutions to a recognisable problem that educational development projects do not have sufficient visible contagion on existing school practices. The initiators of the project have the assumption that collaboration between school leaders and teachers on the development of educational practice can be a way to strengthen an organisational framework towards a collective approach to development and thus support the transition from development to new practice. The results of our analysis point three overarching conditions that create obstacles for collaboration between school leaders and teachers and thereby for educational development work in the form of exploratory and experimental work to be translated and incorporated into daily practice. The first factor that creates obstacles is related to political and governance matters. The second factor is the contradiction between development and operation. The third factor is the difference between management rationale in management and teacher work. The analysis shows that different interests and perspectives on what constitutes an educational practice seems to create tension. Such tension can hinder new knowledge and the development of practices that are the very purpose of the action research approach.

The human right to work: The tension between intrinsic and instrumental values in five teachers’ stories from the industrial technology programme

Hamid Asghari, Birgit Schaffar-Kronqvist — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0200

In this article, we discuss a tension between the intrinsic and instrumental value in relation to work and human life. This tension is reflected in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which regards work as an intrinsic value for a human life, as well as in the (neoliberal) labour market, that values work and workers for their instrumental ends. In the light of this tension, we analyse how five vocational teachers’ life stories express it through descriptions of their experiences, decisions and teaching. The methodological starting point of our study is based on a narrative perspective, where vocational teachers’ stories are at the centre. Our analytical tools are taken from Bamberg (1997), who discusses how people position themselves in their own stories. In light of four positions as outlined by Bamberg, we discuss three tensions: 1) The right to work as universal and under conditions at the same time, 2) Work as a place for belonging under the shadow that only profit counts, and 3) Performing a good job, while balancing professional pride and the concern for oneself. In our conclusions, we suggest that vocational teachers should provide their students with wider civic knowledge about their rights as well as about possible forms of influencing structures in the labour market that vocational teachers are in part preparing their students for.

‘The mannequin is more lifelike’: The significance of fidelity for students’ learning in simulation-based training in the social- and healthcare programmes

Vibe Aarkrog — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0200

The article concerns fidelity in relation to using mannequins in simulation-based training in social- and healthcare education. The article addresses two issues. What influences fidelity, and how does the degree of fidelity influence the students’ learning processes? Simulation-based training is organized in three phases; briefing, scenario, and debriefing. The article focuses on the scenario phase. A central issue in relation to the scenario phase is fidelity; i.e. the degree to which the scenario matches the practice it is intended to simulate. The article deals with the factors that influence the students’ perception of fidelity and with the impact of degree of fidelity on the students’ learning processes. The empirical data include obser-views, combining observations with interviews with students and teachers in social- and healthcare colleges. The analysis shows that a high degree of fidelity simulation in the sense of employing a mannequin has advantages, such as engaging students in learning and enabling them to try out practical skills. Moreover, the degree of fidelity should be adjusted to the students’ practical experiences in order to optimize their learning process. Lower degrees of fidelity may have a positive impact on developing creative thinking and reducing the students’ anxiety. The implication for developing practice is that the social- and healthcare colleges employ a multifaceted approach to fidelity based on ensuring optimal learning conditions for the students. The implication for further research is to specify and systematize the interrelation of learning outcome targets, students’ qualifications and the usages of different degrees of fidelity.

A recruiter, a matchmaker, a firefighter: Swedish vocational teachers’ relational work

Åsa Mårtensson, Per Andersson, Sofia Nyström — Mon, 15 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0200

A central part of Swedish vocational teachers’ work concerns their students’ work-based learning (WBL). The focus of this article is the character of the relational work carried out by teachers of vocational education and training (VET) concerning WBL. The qualitative study is based on 15 interviews with teachers on the upper-secondary level Child and Recreation, Building and Construction, and Handicraft programmes. The study is based on a situated learning perspective, and uses the concepts of community of practice, broker and boundary crossing. The findings highlight three central aspects of VET teachers’ relational work with WBL: recruiting workplaces for WBL, matchmaking between students and workplaces, and ‘firefighting’ to prevent and deal with problems that occur during WBL periods. The study contributes to the understanding of the work of VET teachers, as they cross the blurred boundaries between school and working life and strive to create a good learning environment for all students during WBL periods.

Student engagement at the beginning of vocational studies

Satu Niittylahti, Johanna Annala, Marita Mäkinen — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0200

This mixed-methods study examined student engagement at the beginning of vocational studies. The focus of the study was on students’ certainty about their career choices, how they experienced the social environment in vocational education and the relationship of these factors to student engagement. Firstly, 364 first-year students (aged 15–17) participated in the quantitative survey. Secondly, 17 students were selected for interviews. According to the results, student engagement at the beginning of vocational studies is related to overcoming uncertainty. In addition, students’ engagement and career choices are strengthened by the support and confirmation they receive, the students’ interest in their studies, their general abilities and their coping skills. Having friends at school diminished feelings of insecurity while co-operating with friends eased their sense of inadequacy. According to the results, teaching and the organisation of schooling may promote or hamper learning and active participation. Therefore, student engagement in vocational education seems to be strengthened through interactions with other students, friends and peers, and the teachers and other adults in the student’s life. This supports a more collective and collaborative view of engagement.

Bachelorutdanning for yrkesfaglærere, i et historisk og utviklingsorientert perspektiv

Klara Lillevik Rokkones, Jarle Landro, Britt Karin Utvær — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0100

The article describes the development of the Bachelor’s Programme or Vocational Teacher Education (VTE) at Institute of Teacher Education at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The programme is important, as vocational education is increasingly prioritized as a growth area for the future, integrating practical skills with academic knowledge. Initially we provide a historical overview on the preparation and the establishment of VTE at NTNU in Trondheim. This is followed by a presentation of the content and organization of the bachelor programme of today. After that, the results of a review of student dropout is discussed and we go on with describing some changes that have been made, as a part of the programme’s quality development. The article concludes by describing how we intend to continue the work of recruiting students, strengthening cooperation between universities, schools and working life, and becoming involved in internationalization projects across Europe, through strategic partnerships and student mobility. Finally, we describe how we work to reach the goal to become a robust and full-fledged research environment.

Svårigheter i att definiera begreppet kompetens

Birgit Schaffar — Tue, 28 May 2019 00:00:00 +0200

This article discusses theoretically and philosophically difficulties in defining the notion of competence. ‘Competence’ is a key-concept in today’s educational discussion, where it combines both a psychological meaning of an inner disposition, and a sociological meaning as a category that organises tasks and power-relations in public and private institutions. A short historical overview shows that ‘competence’ has a complex etymology that explains these different layers of possible usages and the different ontological and epistemological assumptions that arise from them. Still, the article argues that an ambiguous notion is not a notion with an indistinct meaning. In concrete situations, ‘competence’ just has different meanings. Inspired by Wittgenstein, the article takes a philosophical view on science and methodology and argues that the strive to define ‘competence’ unequivocally can be understood in different ways. Notions have to be defined unambiguously to make empirical measurements possible. But definitions are running the risk to ignore important meaningful usages for the sake of what is empirically possible to measure and what kind of political interests there are in measuring certain aspects of a complex notions. Finally, it is argued that an ambiguous notion implies risks of undermining critical voices in the discussion about global educational policy.

Bedriftenes perspektiver og behov når elevene er i yrkesfaglig praksis

Anne Breen, Merete Chatrin Rekdahl — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0200

Vocational education (VET) requires collaboration between schools and workplaces in order to get a coherent education of good quality. The Norwegian vocational education has a model of four years where students complete two years of education at school, and the remaining two years as an apprenticeship in a company. The subject Vocational indepth learning is introduced to strengthen the transition between school and companies, and gives the students an opportunity to train in companies during the two first years in school. Previous studies show that cooperation between school and companies is random and has potential of improvement. Previous studies focus on the perspective of schools and students. In this article, we enquire the companies’ perspectives and needs. We have investigated the companies’ reasons to receive students and the students influence on the work places. Our findings show that the main motivation for receiving students is to ensure recruitment. We also find that the presence of the students affects the working environment and may lead to higher work satisfaction for the mentors. Within certain areas, the students also contribute to development of the employees.

Å utvikle yrkeskompetanse gjennom arbeidslivspraksis i helsesekretærutdanningen

Kjersti Lisbeth Johnsen, Hilde Hiim — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0100

This article presents findings from a three-year research and development project where a high school and a hospital collaborated on the education of medical secretaries. The aim was to strengthen the medical secretary students’ development of vocational competence through close collaboration between the school and the hospital on practice periods for the students. The results are based on qualitative data from observations of the students during practice, observations of students when experiences from practice were presented at school, group interviews with students, teachers and instructors, and analyses of students’ reflection logs.

The findings show that cooperation between the parties to define key functions and tasks in the work of medical secretaries, and to structure practice periods around these tasks, contributed to the students getting a great learning benefit from practice. The students expressed that they understood what the vocation was about, began to identify with it and felt the need to learn theory. However, they wanted better coherence between learning in practice and at school. The results suggest that mandatory practice periods and common structure for learning content in practice and at school should be main principles in the new curriculum for education of medical secretaries from autumn 2020.

Att vetenskapligt förankra ett yrkeslärarprogram: Erfarenheter från ett utvecklingsprojekt

Anna Annerberg, Anna Karin Fändrik — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0100

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.

Yrkesfaglæreres profesjonelle kompetanse: En kvalitativ undersøkelse med Norge og Japan som kontekster

Bjørn Magne Aakre — Tue, 23 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0200

The purpose of this article is to explore the characteristics of vocational teachers’ professional competences. Norway and Japan were chosen as contexts in the hope of finding possible contrasts and new perspectives. Grounded theory (GT) was used to generate concepts and theory from data collected through observations, interviews, and written sources. The results were summarized in two main categories: professional development and professional competences. The survey concludes that professional competences of vocational teachers are shaped by national culture, content of education, professional career and globalization. Furthermore, it was found that vocational teachers in Norway and Japan have different educational and vocational backgrounds, and their professional practices differ in autonomy and career development. Significant difference on vocational students’ completion rate in Norway and Japan was found. However, it is difficult to say how these differences are related to the competences of teachers. Professional ethics became a particularly interesting field to study, but also difficult considering the cultural differences. It is recommended to do further studies on this theme.

Lärande för hållbar utveckling i yrkeslärarutbildning

Susanne Gustavsson, Ingrid Henning Loeb, Charlotta Kvarnemo — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0100

This article draws on data from a module on education for sustainable development (ESD) in vocational teacher education. There are two kinds of data: 47 group work projects, where the assignment was to design an ESD activity in upper secondary vocational education, and a web questionnaire (average response rate of 80 %). The purpose is to describe and discuss how ESD can take form in vocational teacher education, and how the students value the knowledge that they have acquired when working with the module. The results give a positive picture of many different pedagogical approaches of planning an ESD activity. The variety of the contents of the activities stretch from having specific vocational focus, to broader societal perspectives. The planned activities for the pupils also differ, from participating in classroom exercises to activities based on actionand student-based planning. The different pedagogical approaches are exemplified and discussed. The results from the questionnaire show that over all, the students are positive to the content of the ESD module and the work that is carried out within this part of the course. These results are related to previous studies with critical aspects of teaching ESD.

Uppgifter som medierande artefakter inom yrkeslärarutbildningen

Katarina Lagercrantz All, Jan Pettersson, Marianne Teräs — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Vocational teacher students accomplish a number of different assignments, which are meaningful for their learning and future work as vocational teachers. In Sweden, this education is relatively short (90 ECTS), partly conducted as distance education. The students enter the education with previous vocational knowledge and experiences. The aim of this study was to explore and describe assignments the students face during their vocational teacher education. The study questions focused on what is a form of assignment as mediating artefact and what kind of vocational knowledge is required? Conceptual background involved the concepts of mediation, artefact, vocational knowledge and knowledge culture. The data consisted of 13 course overviews. The results suggested dominance of individual written assignments. Even though some assignments were identified as ‘doings’ like teaching. The assignments were complex involving several vocational knowledge dimensions and the students needed to navigate between different knowledge domains. Furthermore, the students were asked to integrate their previous vocational knowledge with pedagogical knowledge. The assignments as mediating artefacts were connected to different knowledge cultures.

Exploring recontextualization of didactic ability and vocational teacher students’ professional learning through video analysis

Daniel Alvunger, Viktoria Grahn Johansson — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0100

This article explores how vocational teacher education (VTE) students experience professional learning through the use of video analysis, their reflection among peers and their meaning-making of the ‘didactic ability’ concept during the beginning of their education. The empirical data consists of an online survey and semi-structured interviews with five vocational teacher education students. Bernstein’s concept of ‘pedagogic discourse’ and a conceptual framework of recontextualisation in vocational education and training developed by Evans, Guile and Harris guide the research. The findings strongly support observations from previous research that emphasise that the use of video promotes and supports teacher students’ professional growth. The VTE students develop a new understanding of how to organise content and to analytically handle the relationship between theoretical aspects and professional action. The emerging meanings of didactic ability are a new discursive understanding of work-knowledge and the teaching content, as well as a strategic structuring of the content for sense-making, transcending the theory and practice divide through visual artefacts and practical tasks and the ability to use different teaching strategies. Language, actions, content and meanings in terms of workplace codes tend to ‘move’ and to be recontextualised from the school’s pedagogic discourse.

Yrkesämnesdidaktik på universitet: Mål, innehåll, arbetssätt och examination

Annelie Andersén, Hamid Asghari, Maria Petersson — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0100

The purpose of this article is to investigate learning goals, content, working methods and examinations in the vocational didactic sections of the vocational teacher education programme. In a case study, a total of forty study guides from one vocational teacher education programme have been analysed in order to answer what central content is highlighted, how the goals are examined, and what course literature is used in vocational subject didactics in a selected vocational teacher education programme at a Swedish university. The aim of the analysis, based on Hiim’s (2010) model, is to find both clearly expressed and more latent elements. The results answer questions on what the subject didactics contain in three different courses. Vocational teacher educators plan their teaching with regard to the goals of vocational subject didactics, but the interpretation of goals varies among different educators and within different vocational subjects. The result also gives some indications of what could be general differences and similarities within and between different didactics teacher groups and/or vocational subjects. The analysis of the study guides also shows that educational background and the form of employment of educators seem to be of importance.

Kvalitetsutveckling av digitala trepartssamtal i svensk yrkeslärarutbildning

Michael Walkert — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0100

This article describes the developmental work of feedback for students during their practicum periods at the vocational teacher education programme at Karlstad University. The vocational teacher education programme is based on distance studies which implies that the students can be spread all over the country. Although the students participate in some campus meetings, the university teachers are not able to visit students during their practicum periods of the programme. A digital conference tool, Adobe Connect, is therefore used for communication with the students and their supervisors in practicum. This article describes the developmental work of using the digital conference tool, which includes a filmed sequence of the student’s teaching. The filmed sequences are later shared and discussed in a group of fellow students and a teacher. The article also describes how a model inspired by the research-based Plato manual of discussing these teaching sequences is taking form. The intention of using this model is to proceed towards a joint research-based approach among the colleagues, and in this way improve the feedback to students regarding teaching strategies and instruction.

Utfordringer og muligheter i møtepunktet mellom yrkesfaglærerutdanningen og praksis i videregående skole

Jorunn Dahlback, Hanne Berg Olstad, Ann Lisa Sylte, Anne-Cathrine Wolden — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0100

In 2020 a new school reform will be implemented in Norway, with required vocational specialisation the first year in upper secondary school. The aim of this article is to analyse challenges and opportunities in the meeting point between vocational teacher education in Design and Craft (YFL) and the field of practice, to meet the required vocational pecialisation. Previous research has established that there is a relevance issue in vocational education and training (VET). There are challenges with a lack of coherence between the vocational specialisation in VET and the work-life needs for competence. The research focus is about coherence between the upper secondary schools’ didactical organization in VET programmes for Design and Craft and the content of YFL. The research methods are interviews with VET teachers, and qualitative questionnaires and interviews with YFL students in the period 2014–2017. The results show that there is partly low coherence between the teacher’s didactical organization and choice of teaching methods, and the content in YFL. The lack of coherence can be addressed to VET teachers’ focus on discipline-based VET with a lack of early vocational specialisation. However, the results also show new opportunities for how to develop more relevant VET for the work-life needs for competence, which is coherent to the occupational-related content in YFL.

Å vurdere yrkeskompetanse: Hva er yrkeskompetanse, og hvordan kan den vurderes?

Hilde Hiim — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0200

The aim of vocational education is that students develop initial vocational competence. However, what is vocational competence, and how can it be evaluated and assessed? In this article, questions of evaluating vocational competence are investigated from epistemological perspectives. First, I will examine definitions of competence in official documents and in research and look at research that can illuminate vocational competence and assessment in vocational education. Then, I will direct the focus towards epistemological perspectives on vocational competence and analyse what kind of implications the understanding of vocational competence has for curriculum and assessment. A main question is which forms of evaluation and assessment are relevant to stimulate and express students’ development of vocational competence. Questions concerning the relationship between vocational competence, curriculum frameworks and forms of evaluation are analysed in light of rationalist, pragmatic and critical epistemology. I will argue that theoretical, practical and social aspects of vocational competence constitute a whole that also includes professional judgement, and that this must be expressed in the assessment. The article ends with a summary discussion of some important challenges and principles for relevant evaluation of vocational competence.

Udvikling af diplomuddannelse i erhvervspædagogik på baggrund af resultater fra projekter

Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0100

In Denmark, it is mandatory for vocational teachers to complete Diploma of Vocational Pedagogy. The objectives of the diploma are defined by the rules and regulations for diplomas in general but it also has to support the national policy for vocational educations. Moreover, the diploma has to support the strategies and agendas of vocational colleges and vocational teachers. University colleges supply this diploma. University college teachers teaching in the programme have to develop their pedagogical and educational competencies in order to support these agendas. One way to explore the need for development of the programme is to participate in projects. Using Engeströms theory and methodology, the paper analyses how results from three research and development projects can form the basis for development of Diploma of Vocational Pedagogy. The analysis stresses the history and contradictions in each project seen from the perspectives of each teacher’s subjectivity. The result is a method that can indicate how findings from projects can be used in the development of Diploma of Vocational Pedagogy.

Deep learning evaluation in vocational teacher education: Conducted on the principles of authentic and dialogical collaborative knowledge construction

Sanna Ruhalahti, Helena Aarnio, Heli Ruokamo — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0200

The vocational education system is being challenged to achieve a greater amount of deep learning. To facilitate the inclusion of more deep learning in the teaching and learning process, curriculum restructuring is required. This article reports the results of a study that investigated the kind of authentic and dialogical collaborative knowledge construction toward which the DIANA model (Dialogical Authentic Netlearning Activity) directs vocational student teachers (n=76). The results indicate that using authenticity as the basis for a learning process enabled individual study circles (f=19) to define questions that were meaningful to them but mainly directed the learners toward superficial learning-oriented activities. Notably, despite engaging primarily in superficial learning-oriented activities, the results indicate that dialogical collaborative knowledge construction still directed the learners toward deep learning, demonstrating how learning changed and was enriched during the process. The framework re-designed for evaluating superficial and deep learning will facilitate the examination of vocational teacher education learning activities in the future.

To kontekster - to skrivepraksiser? Skriving i skole og bedrift i fag- og yrkesopplæringen

Ellen Beate Hellne-Halvorsen — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0200

The topic of this article is literacy and writing practices in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). In Norway, TVET is organised as two years in school context followed by two years in enterprise. Based on a socio-cultural theoretical approach, the research question is: How is writing practiced in school and enterprise – as similar or as different practices? Writing skills are integrated in curriculum and part of vocational competences. Teachers and trainers are committed to work with and develop writing skills to students and apprentices. Different contexts may imply different writing practices by transfer and transformation from school to enterprises. My research shows that this is not the case, as writing in both contexts is mainly mediating learning outcomes from the school-based curriculum and not related to writing competences required in work life. The main purpose of writing practices is to assess and control skills and knowledge, related to vocational specific terminology and argumentation. Teachers and trainers appear to be main target group and not writing to different target groups in students´ and apprentices´ future working life as trained workers. These findings also indicate that generic or trans-contextual writing skills are not prioritized in neither of these contexts.

Tävlingsdomarnas bäst praxis-bedömning av yrkeskunnande i en yrkestävling

Helena Tsagalidis — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0100

This article presents the results of a study of a youth cooking contest for upper secondary schools in Sweden, which was part of the Swedish SkillsCompetition. The material consists of observations, in the form of shadowing, of the competition judges during the competition, and conversations with judges before and during the competition. The text has a vocational knowledge and skills perspective and relates to answering the question: what vocational knowledge and skills are valued as significant by the competition judges in the school competition? The analyses employ the concepts of key qualifications, specific vocational knowledge and skills, and forms of knowledge, that together contribute to understanding how vocational knowledge and skills can be described and valued. This article focuses on the competition judges’ best-practice assessments of five contest teams’ performance, from preparation of menu to tasting of it and their work afterwards. It also demonstrates that professionalism (skilful performance) and judicious action are the most important aspects of what the competition judgments focused on in this competition.

Unge voksnes beslutningsprocesser i relation til frafald: En empirisk undersøgelse blandt unge voksne i erhvervs- og almen voksenuddannelse

Mon, 11 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Dropout is a substantial and permanent problem in educational policy. As a consequence, dropout is a recurrent theme in educational research projects including a current Danish research project about dropout among young adults in vocational education and training and basic general learning for adults. Research into dropout mostly focuses on reasons for dropping out and only to a small degree on the students’ considerations and decision-making processes in relation to dropout, the latter being the focus in this research project.

Focusing on the student decision-making processes, the article presents the results of an empirical study based on interviews with 35 students who were considered to be at risk of dropping out. Four categories of decision-making process were derived from the empirical data: the stable course and the unstable courses which include three types of development: the positive development, the turbulent development, and the negative development. The decision-making process is guided by several factors. However, students’ goal-orientation seem to be crucial in order to understand the structure and direction of the decision-making process. The types of development are discussed, concluding in implications for further research as well as for practice.

Boundary processes in connection with students’ workplace learning: Potentials for VET teachers’ continuing professional development

Susanne Köpsén, Per Andersson — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100

This article reports on VET teachers’ engagements in boundary processes between schools and workplaces in connection with students’ workplace learning, the conditions for such boundary processes, and how these activities may enable VET teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD). Thirty VET teachers have been interviewed and their replies have been analysed in a theoretical framework of situated learning. The VET teachers described two main forms of boundary processes: boundary encounters and brokering by VET students. These processes support the occupational learning of VET teachers to different degrees. Teachers’ access to the workplace and their engagement and involvement in work and social interactions influence the potential for learning. Structural factors in school practices determine the nature of the boundary processes experienced by VET teachers and hence, the conditions for VET teachers’ CPD.

From school to work: Coherence between learning in school and learning in workplaces for apprentices in the Media graphics programme in Norway

Nina Aakernes — Tue, 22 May 2018 00:00:00 +0200

A key challenge in vocational education and training (VET) programmes is the lack of coherence between the school-based and the enterprise-based parts of learning. This study explores the conditions that are important for the perception of coherence between learning in school and workplaces by interviewing apprentices enrolled in the Media graphics programme in Norway. In addition to the views of apprentices, the study also includes the perspectives of other participants in the vocational education system, such as media teachers and instructors in the workplaces and apprenticeship training office. The interview data revealed that the media education in school had facilitated the students’ learning primarily by allowing them to work on authentic media productions. Despite this, however, some of the apprentices experi-enced a lack of coherence between learning in school and learning in enterprises, mainly because there were few opportunities to specialise in their chosen vocation in school, and limited cooperation between schools and workplaces about placement periods.

Yrkesfaglig praksis i bachelorutdanningen for yrkesfaglærere: En kartlegging av studentenes erfaringer

Klara Lillevik Rokkones, Berit Stjern, Åse Strand, Britt Karin Utvær — Tue, 23 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0200

This study examines experiences of vocational teacher students in practice at work places. The aim is to develop and ensure that the practice is in accordance with the purpose of the Vocational Teacher Education programme in terms of relevance, coherence and supervision. The analysis is based on open and closed responses to an annual student survey during a period of ten years. The study shows that vocational practice at work is of great importance for learning about different professions and work functions in the students’ study programme. Vocational practice at work is found to be helpful in the process of making teaching more practical, linking theory and practice together in a better manner, guiding students in their choice of career and network building. The study also demonstrates that there is a stronger link between students’ satisfaction with vocational practice, relevance and guidance in their third year of study, than was the case in their first year. There appears to be a development from the first to third year of study where students go from experiencing the study more fragmented, to viewing the whole of the study and its purpose more clearly. Experience of relevance, along with good supervision, largely explains how satisfied the students are with the vocational practice.

Kollegial professionsutveckling för skolledare och lärare inom gymnasial yrkesutbildning: En fallstudie av en forskningscirkel

Mats Lundgren, Anna Karin Fändrik, Nicola Nerström — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0200

This article describes how school leadership in a vocational secondary school used a research circle to establish collegial learning. The goal was to develop the teaching skills of teachers and, as a result, also develop the ability of students to assess their own knowledge and understanding, as well as their capacity to learn. The results are based on data from a qualitative case study in accordance with an action research tradition. The article reflects a contemporary education policy debate on the role of teachers in relation to students’ poorer study results. The teachers that participated developed and tested subject-specific self-assessment matrices in mini-research projects. Many of the students seemed to benefit little from using these matrices. Possible explanations may be that the students felt no motivation neither to improve their knowledge and skills nor to raise their grades. There did, however, seem to be differences between theoretical and vocational subjects. The research circle served to develop collegial learning among the participants and also played a role in the establishment of a school development group.

Transfer and reflection in the Danish dual model: Findings from development projects in the Danish vocational education and training programmes

Arnt Louw, Noemi Katznelson — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0200

This article deals with the question about transfer between school and work in the Danish dual vocational education and training (VET) model. The article is based on an evaluation of 21 development projects carried out by VET teachers and internship supervisors aimed at improving the connections between school and internship periods. The evaluation provides a case for discussing the students’ connections making and the function of the Danish dual model on a general level at the end of the article. Connections between school and work in VET relying on the dual model are of great importance. They help the students create a sense of coherence in their education and support transfer of learning from one setting to another. Nevertheless, these connections are not easily established. The central point of this article is that the task of establishing these connections is too often individualised, making the student responsible for a successful establishment of an internship connection, rather than having that task dealt with at the institutional level. The article argues that when connections are established at an institutional level it helps VET students create a sense of coherence in their education. For instance, increasing the cooperation between VET teachers and internship supervisors enables students to better reflect upon the connection between the professional experience of their internship and the more general learning obtained at school.

A qualitative vocational education and training: Education for quantity or quality?

Helena Tsagalidis, Maria Terning — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0200

This article discusses the contemporary discourse of ‘quality’ in upper secondary vocational education in Sweden. The study is based on a selection of government policy texts that preceded the reform of upper secondary education in 2011. The purpose is to present how the concept of quality gets its meaning, and to discuss this from a perspective of competence, knowledge and qualification in order to renegotiate the concept of quality. Hence, the article also discusses how an extended quality concept could contribute to a changed view of Swedish upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) from an economic, individual and social point of view, in terms of both content and attractiveness.

A widened approach to quality in VET could lead to a change in the view of, and the discussion about, VET as such. Our purpose is to emphasize the importance of a broader understanding of how quality in VET can be understood and offer a more nuanced and expanded understanding to the contemporary discourse of VET quality, and thus offer opportunities for a more attractive VET.

‘Hinged’ activity systems: Expanding the utility of activity theory

Lewis Hughes — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100

As a derivative from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), where gaining insight into the circumstances of an activity is among its applications, this article presents an approach to initiating and structuring activity system guided conversation where the intent is to strengthen stakeholder empathy and partnership in action. Whilst this paper is not, in-itself, an outcome of so-focused research, it is a sharing of insights accruing from ethnographic research largely in the vocational education and training (VET) arena and, in particular, ongoing exploration of the circumstances aiding and inhibiting Australian VET teachers including researching and drawing upon the research of others as part of their professional practice.

In essence, this article posits that activity system – as derived from CHAT – guided conversation has much utility in achieving empathetic partnerships between stakeholders in an activity where their respective interests might otherwise be in conflict. Accordingly, the notion of the ‘Hinge’ is offered as a device to expand the utility of Activity Theory. The ‘Hinge’ being constructed by conversation agreeing the ‘Object’, which is the most influencing of ‘Rule’, ‘Community’ or ‘Division of Labour’ and then the nature of enabling ‘Tool’.

Transforming vocational education and training in Finland: Uses of developmental work research approach

Marianne Teräs — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Vocational education and training (VET) is under reform in many Nordic countries. This article explores uses of developmental work research (DWR) approach in reforming and transforming practices of VET. DWR was initiated in Finland in the 1980s to enhance understanding about learning in organizations. The aim of this article is to elaborate the approach by examining studies made in the field of professional and vocational education and training, and thus to examine potentials and shortcomings of the approach. Eight DWR studies in the field of professional and vocational education and training are summarized, and three of them are elaborated. Contributions of the studies cover new tools, conceptualizations and methods for VET. Shortcomings bring forth researcher’s dual role and lack of evidence on sustainable development after study processes. In conclusion I state that DWR offers rich and solid theoretical and methodological tools for VET researchers. However, they need to develop concepts that combine different dimensions of research, and not to forget to elaborate their study results from societal and individual perspectives.

Contribution to the study of personality by ‘pioneers’ of the cultural historical school: Revisiting earlier research in search for learning

Lázaro Moreno Herrera — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100

In times when vocational education and training (VET) faces challenges from a vari-ety of research problems, for example, dropouts and motivation for vocational oriented studies, it becomes important deepening into different theoretical and empiri-cal sources. The development of a comprehensive theory of personality in cultural historical school is the result of the works of what we could well consider as research ‘pioneers’ within this school. The presentation and analysis presented in this article tries to contribute to VET research through systematising and drawing attention to some of the most relevant contributions of these pioneers. Critical remarks are presented though a critical review is not within the scope of the article. The analysis presented here is made with awareness of the complexities and the risks involved in all attempts to summarise what was a remarkable creative production in research that extended for decades. The reader should also observe that the scope of the presentation and focus of attention here is limited to the specific contribution of these leading scholars to the development of a theory of personality. Been this limitation highlighted the article expects to contribute to better understanding studies of personality within the cultural historical school henceforth serving to the advance of research within VET.

Att undervisa för utveckling av yrkeskunnande i vård och omsorg

Eva Maria Eliasson — Mon, 15 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0200

The aim of this study was to examine didactic principles in health care teachers’ description of their teaching practices, and how these principles were intertwined with vocational knowledge. In addition, characteristics of a health-care didactical approach were explored. Theoretical framework was based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective and Lave and Wenger’s situated learning. 17 health-care teachers, working with adolescents or adults, were interviewed. The findings showed that vocational knowledge and didactic principles were often intimately intertwined. Didactic principles were dialogicity, work-links, variation, relational environment and language development. The healthcare didactical approach highlighted the development of students, both as health-care givers and as persons, through interactions with teachers and peers, and the teachers acted as boundary-crossing role models. The health-care didactical approach also involved the students’ language development. Issues that need to be reflected on are if the emphasis on feminine-coded vocational knowledge is too strong in relation to the programme objectives, and if reading and writing as teaching forms are too marginalised.

Två yrkeslärares berättelser om bedömningshandlingar på industritekniska programmet

Hamid Asghari, Nina Kilbrink — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100

The focus of this study is on two vocational teachers´ stories of grade assessment. The teachers are Leif and Johnny, who teach in the industrial technology programme in two different upper secondary schools in Sweden. The research method we use in the study is life stories. From the vocational teachers’ stories emerge different categories of assessment criteria that show different considerations, as compared to the national knowledge requirements, when grading students with one of the five pass grades. The categories for passing grades are: the grade awarded as a prize rating, the grade awarded as being an okay-guy, the grade awarded in advance, and the grade awarded as a last chance. The categories show that the vocational teachers Leif and Johnny, in their assessment documents, do not always comply with the requirements that the syllabus and steering documents put on the knowledge assessment. Leif and Johnny use different forms of knowledge measurements when grading their students with passing grades. The forms are based on their social relations with their students.

VET as transformative, collaborative research: Cross self-confrontation, dialogical artefacts, and the development of organizational dialogue in a Swiss factory

Laure Kloetzer — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100

In this article, VET-related collaborative research is discussed as a potential transformative experience for workers/work collectives/work organizations. Three main ideas in the creation of dialogical frameworks for collaborative research are presented: (a) Vygotsky’s research focus on provoking development in order to study it (Vygotsky, 1934/1986); (b) Oddone’s ideas on close collaboration with professionals in ‘associated research groups’ to understand and develop work experience (Oddone et al., 1981); (c) Clot’s psychological concept of activity (Clot, 1999), which includes both ‘realised activity’ and ‘real activity.’ The methodology of cross self-confrontation (Clot et al., 2001; Kloetzer et al., 2015) is based on collective work analysis, thanks to the interplay of two activities – observation and dialogue – within various contexts and for different addressees. Carefully edited video recordings, which we call here ‘dialogical artefacts,’ support this activity of analysis and transformation. This methodology aims at triggering individual thinking, collective elaboration, and rich institutional discussions, with the goal of transforming everyday work organisation. The paper presents a recently completed research project in a Swiss factory, on knowledge transmission and the training of expert workers. The production of films as dialogical artefacts, and their effects in the research and factory, are discussed. In particular, the collaborative research process shows a transformation of the topics and style of dialogue across hierarchical levels.

Enhancing learning as theoretical thinking in robotic surgery

Laura Seppänen, Marika Schaupp, Mikael Wahlström — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Professionals in many domains need to deal with increasingly complex, technology-mediated and uncertain work. Thus ways of learning that continuously and flexibly create new knowledge are needed at work. The aim of this article is to describe the logic of theoretical-genetic generalisation, and to use this, in addition to other methodological resources from pragmatism and cultural-historical psychology, for devel-oping a learning method for robotic surgery. In theoretical generalisation, or theoretical thinking, the learner orientates him-/herself in two directions: towards producing general, abstract understanding of dynamic interrelations within a phenomenon, and towards flexibly tailoring good solutions for each particular situation. Based on our ongoing study of robotic surgery, we sketch three different designs for learning which are all based on video-supported joint reflection of real robotic surgical operations. We outline the necessary principles and steps of the method in this context, and finally, discuss the potential of the outlined method for learning.

Att problematisera ”problemet”: Bedömning och utveckling av problemformuleringar i lärarutbildningens självständiga arbeten

Peter Karlsudd — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100

How well a research problem is formulated in theses, according to many educators and textbook writers, is of great importance for the final quality of a thesis project. To investigate if there is a link between the construction and formulations of a problem and the grades well accepted and accepted, 58 theses projects were reviewed. 82 students were tested on their ability to evaluate, discuss and formulate research problems through specific exercises. The results of the comparison between how the research problem was designed and the theses gradings show that a well-formulated problem is not an absolute necessity for the grade well accepted. However, the results indicate that writers who strive to express higher ambitions when it comes to the problem have a greater opportunity to realize these in their thesis. Highly formulated problems have been well represented among the theses that receive the grade well accepted.

The conclusion of the study shows that a well constructed purpose and problem is of particular importance to achieve a good standard of a thesis project and the specific training efforts undertaken suggest that this training will continue as a regular feature of the programme.

Methodological challenges of investigating in-tellectual cooperation, relational expertise, and transformative agency

Ines Langemeyer — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Methodological issues arise with the research of societal practices of ‘knowing’. This object of study is understood as concrete human activity that always integrates mental, communicative and practical behaviour in interaction and cooperation with others. Especially with regard to contemporary forms of labour in the high-tech-world, this issue has become a salient task. As it is explained, it implies investigation of people communicating and reasoning while developing concrete forms of activity. In particular, the methodological issues concern the social and psychodynamic quality of this practice. Within the tradition of cultural-historical research and activity theory, mile-stones of this matter have already been reached. Cultural-historical concepts like the ‘motive’ of an activity as well as the ‘emotions’ that bias the ‘experience’ of ‘transformative engagements’ with the world show that their theoretical and methodological understanding are adept to approach the dialectics between the social and the individual quality of practice and agency in general, but also with regard to contemporary challenges of intellectualized cooperation in particular. ‘Double stimulation’, a concept coined by Vygotsky, is relevant in this context as well. However, the paper discusses critically whether it fits with the system theoretical understanding of activities and transformative agency as it can be found in Engeström’s writings. Finally, the core requirements for a VET-research methodology for intellectualized collaboration are resumed.

Digitale historiefortelling som kontekstuell læring i yrkesfaglig undervisning

Anne-Catrine Wolden, Ursula Småland Goth, Anne Karin Larsen — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Digital skills are needed in order to use digital media for learning purposes and to cope with today’s knowledge society. In recent years, digital storytelling has become a modern way of telling stories, and in learning facilities it has been used as a reflection medium. Vocational training often requires the dissemination of tacit and practice-based knowledge, and the trainers of vocational teachers have been lacking an appropriate approach. The aim of the study was therefore to evaluate digital story-telling as an educational approach in vocational education. Data were obtained by participatory observation and included 19 digital storytellings, text analysis of 18 subject evaluations and text analysis of 19 reflection notes. Data from visual material (digital storytelling) and textual analyses were categorized, grouped and then discussed and analyzed using phenomenological analysis.

Our findings showed that digital storytelling as an educational approach, promote learning outcomes through practical skills and increase the active use of subject terminology. The results showed further that digital storytelling promote reflection on one own and others’ actions and thus increase understanding of the actual work process in vocational education.

Digital stories as an educational approach can increase didactic skills and hence digital skills while allowing participants to learn from each other’s challenges.

Lärare eller hantverkare? Om betydelsen av yrkeslärares yrkesidentifikation för vad de värderar som viktig kunskap på Bygg- och anläggningsprogrammet

Mattias Nylund, Björn Gudmundson — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0200

This study examines the importance of vocational teachers’ professional identification for what they regard as important knowledge in the Building and construction programme in Swedish upper secondary school. The analysis is based on responses to a questionnaire completed by a large majority of teachers in the Building and construction programme in the Västra Götaland region. The responses suggest that the professional identification is an important factor not only for vocational teacher’s identification of important knowledge for students, but even more so for what they value as important knowledge in their own role as teachers. Two different types of vocational teachers emerge from the analysis: one who sees one’s self primarily as a craftsman and another who sees one’s self primarily as a teacher. While both types of vocational teachers place great importance on knowledge that can be traced back to a vocational culture, the ’craftsman’ clearly considers such knowledge as more important than, and more isolated from, pedagogical issues and knowledge stemming from a school culture. In contrast, the ’teacher’ considers the three fields as being almost equally important and regards vocational culture as more closely associated with pedagogical issues and a school culture.