Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training最新文献

The vocational education and training (VET) sector plays a crucial role in Australia’s education system. Associated closely between the VET provision and industry, VET training quality is continually at the heart of debates in the process of implementing the Australian VET reform agenda. In response of key themes of this reform process, investigating the training efficiency of VET through the linked efficiency between teaching and industry responsiveness is imperative. The paper aims to address this objective by using the dynamic network data envelopment analysis in a balanced panel data for 2008–2012. This advanced model allows to assess simultaneously the efficiency of two nodes, teaching and industry responsiveness, and the overall dynamic training efficiency of VET based on fields of education in a network structure. We found that the overall training efficiency of VET is, on average, 0.835 while the mean divisional efficiencies of the teaching efficiency and industry responsiveness are 0.763 and 0.908, respectively. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to examine dynamic changes of the efficiency of the teaching and industry linkage following various period weights. Policy implications are drawn for the Australian VET sector.

The study aimed to identify and understand practices and strategies for enhancing learning through collaboration among a master’s degree in vocational pedagogy (MVP) program, vocational teacher training institutions (VTIs), and workplaces. Using in-depth semi-structured individual and focus group interviews, data were obtained from administrators, mentors, supervisors, students, teachers, officers/managers of the MVP, two VTIs, and four workplaces from central and eastern parts of Uganda. The data analysis was based on Engestrom’s cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) particularly the concept of expansive learning for resolving contradictions within human activity systems. The findings revealed a need for involving actors in timely planning and disseminating the activity plans, increasing duration for collaborative activities as well as involving the students in the tracking of MVP activity record in fostering the institutional capacity to plan and implement collaborative activities. To strengthen the institutional capacity to supervise learning under collaborative activities, findings indicated a need to engaging workplace mentors and facilitators in learning at the MVP as well as joint supervision and collaborative development of supervision guidelines. To foster the communication between partners, the findings revealed a need to institute a collaboration focal person, providing feedback to collaborating actors and government support on a policy encouraging workplaces’ involvement in vocational training. Relationship issues revealed a need to initiate collaboration based on a signed memorandum of understanding as well as organising workshops and symposiums to equip and orient actors to MVP work methods and practices. Due to contradicting learning cultures and traditions amongst the activity systems, some of the suggested strategies required renegotiating the system especially the university before being implemented to minimise further challenges.

Although apprenticeships ease the school-to-work transition for youth, many apprentices seriously consider dropping out. While associated with noncompletions, dropout considerations are important to study in their own right, because they reflect a negative quality of apprenticeship experience and can impact apprentices’ quality of learning and engagement. Few studies have addressed apprentices’ dropout considerations using comprehensive theoretical frameworks. To address this gap, this study examined how apprentices’ interest and anxiety growth trajectories predicted dropout considerations and associated with perceived resources and demands, grounded in expectancy-value theory (EVT) and the job demands-resources (JD-R) model. Australian apprentices (N = 2387) were surveyed at 6-month intervals utilising an accelerated longitudinal design, on their workplace interest and anxiety, job-related resources (role model, timing of choice, employer teaching, expertise, job security, and training wages) and demands (lack of information, career indecision, and excessive work). Latent growth models (LGM) within a structural equation modelling framework showed apprentices began with high interest which declined over time, and low anxiety which increased in the latter half of their first year until the end of their second year. Apprentices’ dropout considerations were predicted by initial interest and anxiety levels (at the beginning of their apprenticeship), and by interest losses during their apprenticeship (but, not by increases in anxiety). Almost half the variance in interest and anxiety trajectories was explained by apprentices’ perceived resources and demands: resources had a greater effect on promoting interest than reducing anxiety, whereas demands were more important in exacerbating anxiety.

Background

To examine relationships between teachers’ experienced classroom demands and autonomic stress reactions, we report the results of a pilot study. Based on an integrative literature review, we identified and described the following situational classroom demands: time and work pressure (including missing rest periods, time pressure, and pressure to get through the subject matter), vocal strain, uncertainty concerning the subject matter, uncertainty concerning didactical decisions, achievement-related diversity in class, lack of social appreciation, disquietude in class, classroom disturbances, behavioral problems of students, insufficient skills and concentration of students, and insufficient motivation of students.

Method

These identified categories of teachers’ situational classroom demands are the basis for the empirical item identification and selection (Study A). The identified items were used in a single-case, short-term longitudinal study in which we examined relationships between experienced classroom demands and autonomic stress reactions as well as between autonomic stress reactions and affective stress experience via first-order vector autoregressive modeling (Study B).

Results

Concerning our hypotheses, we found evidence that some of the experienced classroom demands (“I cannot respond to students’ different needs”; “There is disquietude in class”) had time-lagged associations with autonomic stress measures. Furthermore, we found that physiological arousal triggers affective stress experience due to a time-lagged effect.

Conclusion

The research approach and results of our pilot study can be the basis for further process-oriented research in vocational education and training (VET). From a practical point of view, our results on experienced classroom demands could be used in VET teacher education to prepare student teachers for specific skills to cope with such demands.

This study seeks to reveal the heterogeneity in occupation-specific wage returns among graduates of the German vocational education and training (VET) system. We distinguish between VET graduates with and without a higher education entrance certificate (i.e. an Abitur). To implement our hierarchical multi-level analyses, we exploit the latest wave of the BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey from 2018. By estimating occupation-specific wage returns, we reveal gaps between VET graduates with and without an Abitur. Additionally, we analyse several occupational characteristics to show how they contribute to the gaps in wage returns between our study groups. Our results show that employees combining an Abitur with a VET degree achieve higher wage returns than those VET graduates without an Abitur across all occupations. Employees holding a VET degree without an Abitur display greater inequality of occupation-specific wage returns. Among the occupational characteristics, task composition is the main driver of the differences in wage returns.

The aim of this article is to identify the main stakeholders of institutions of professional higher education in the field of internal security in selected countries, and the most important collaboration practices, and the factors that affect collaboration. Within the framework of a qualitative phenomenographic study, interviews were conducted with representatives of Estonian, German, Finnish, and Norwegian institutions of professional education in the field of internal security. The results showed that institutions of professional higher education differ from traditional universities in prioritizing their main stakeholders, putting employers first, and not students. In addition, the ministries under whose government they operate, and other higher education institutions were named as the main stakeholders. Collaboration with stakeholders is mostly based on common interests and personal relationships (e.g., mediation, networking, joint reputation building, collaboration councils), on some kind of formal basis (e.g., feedback system, collaboration councils) or subordination (e.g., execution of orders and instructions, trading). The aspects most influencing collaboration were considered to be the aspects related to trust and professionalism, and in particular informal collaboration was valued. The results of this study enabled the author to supplement a framework from a previous study, which originally described the theoretical collaboration of the stakeholders of an institution of higher education in the field of internal security; this was supplemented by adding the dimension of collaboration diversity.

Motivated by discussions of skill mismatches on local German vocational educational and training (VET) markets, this paper analyses how occupational segments of VET entry of individuals with lower and intermediate secondary school degree relate to local labor market characteristics. The econometric analysis applies data from a survey conducted with 9th graders within the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). Considering opportunity structures and the local competition for training positions, we find that the match between occupations' skill demands and individuals' abilities tends to be specifically close in diverse and competitive urban labor markets. In non-competitive peripheral labor markets, in contrast, graduates with lower school certificates seem to have a higher likelihood of entering VET in segments that are specifically attractive for graduates with upper secondary school degree. The results on the allocation of abilities and the weight of preferences under different labor market conditions have different welfare implications from an individual, regional and general economic perspective.