Search Results for
"Vocational education"

Background: We sought to assess the way future general practitioners are promoted by their chief physicians. Methods: Semi quantitative questionnaires sent to 54 chief physicians (hospitals in cantons Zurich and Berne). Results: 42 (77.8%) questionnaires were returned. 41 (97.6%) chief physicians asked the assistant physicians about their intended career. 23 (54.8%) discussed with future general practitioners (GPs) specific learning objecsteiger tives. 32 (76.2%) chief physicians would have appreciated an official catalogue of learning objectives for future GPs. A GP-specific traineeship was lacking in most of the hospitals. Conclusions: The upcoming shortage of future GPs could be inhibited by an appropriate GP curriculum during the vocational training. © 2011 by Verlag Hans Huber, Hogrefe AG.

This paper presents an amalgamation of three sequential research projects conducted by EDGE Employment Solutions over the past decade. The first project, commenced in 1999, was a local initiative to increase the number of apprentices and trainees with disability being supported by EDGE. The completion rate for participants in this project was equivalent to that of people without disability undertaking apprenticeships and traineeships in Australia. However, it was found that Group Training Organisations, who hire apprentices and trainees to then place them with different employers, did not have the necessary skills or resources to place and support people with disability. To fill this gap, the second research project, undertaken in 2002, surveyed all 180 Group Training Organisations operating in Australia. This was followed by a site visit of six GTOs who were most successful in their disability efforts, to discern best practice in placing and supporting apprentices and trainees with disability. The third research project, which built on the findings of the previous two projects, was initiated in 2003 and enlisted 20 Group Training Organisations and 20 Disability Employment Services from around Australia to form partnerships to capitalise on their complementary expertise and resources. Apprenticeship and traineeship completion rates for participants in the third project surpassed those for people without disability in Australia. This paper presents and discusses the successful strategies researched and developed through these three projects. © 2011 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved.

This article draws upon, but also critiques, activity theory by combining analysis of how an activity theory derived research intervention attempted to address both everyday work practices and organisational power relationships among children's services professionals. It offers two case studies of developmental work research (DWR) interventions in UK local authorities, wherein multi-professional teams were attempting, at operational level, to develop and stabilise new work practices. Data are derived from the series of interviews and DWR workshops conducted in each research site. The data analysis draws attention to the ways in which multiprofessional innovations and professional development were sometimes constrained by managerial structures that were still embedded in 'traditional' professional silos. The paper also offers conceptual discussion of activity theory's potential shortcomings in addressing 'vertical' divisions of labour and the contradictions embedded in relationships between operational staff and their senior managers. © 2011 The vocational Aspect of education Ltd.

National and transnational qualifications frameworks are an increasingly present feature of the education and training landscape. The United Kingdom can be regarded as one of the pioneers of qualifications frameworks, with partial frameworks appearing from the mid-1980s onwards. However, approaches in England if not in the whole of the UK have remained fragmented compared with the best examples from other countries. The recently-introduced Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) introduces partial innovations particularly in enabling credit for smaller achievements and allowing employers and practitioner communities to contribute content into the framework. However, the framework is largely limited to vocational qualifications outside of universities; it is not particularly well integrated with the higher education, professional, and at present, school sectors; and it lacks responsiveness to innovations in qualification design. The QCF has been described as a 'strong' or regulated framework, although a more apposite term might be 'brittle'. © 2011 The vocational Aspect of education Ltd.

The devaluation and debilitation of education in general and vocational education and training (VET) in particular has been explored and described in recent years by a wide range of critical commentators. education stands in dire need of therapy, and this paper suggests a therapeutic process for rejuvenating and enhancing VET through attention to the moral and aesthetic values which, arguably, should underpin all genuinely vocational learning. These processes need to counter the claims made by Ecclestone and Hayes about the so-called 'therapeutic turn' in education. It is suggested that such claims are exaggerated and mistakenly based on a one-sided intellectualist conception of the educational task. On a more positive note, it is argued that the theory and practice of 'mindfulness'-present-moment attention and awareness-can serve to foster moral, social and aesthetic values which can be utilised to enhance and enrich vocational studies at all levels of the system. © 2011 The vocational Aspect of education Ltd.

Students in competence-based senior secondary vocational education are expected to actively construct personal knowledge during school-based learning and workplace learning. This study introduces the construct 'personal professional theory' (PPT) to monitor and analyse students' personal knowledge development. It aims to investigate the development of the content and nature of students' PPTs and their perceptions of learning processes in vocational education during school-based learning and workplace learning. One group of students (n=20) in the domain of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is followed during one cours of 40 weeks in which they alternately participate in school-based learning and workplace learning. A longitudinal design (t=4) including semi-structured concept maps is used to reveal the content and nature of students' PPTs (n=240). Semi-structured interviews (n=10) and log files (n=39) are used to explore students' perceptions of their learning process. No significant differences are found between the four measurements concerning the content and nature of students' PPTs. However, the actual content of students' PPTs shows a relatively unsteady and changeable pattern. Additionally, students perceive workplace learning as an essential process for the development of their PPT. It is concluded that the development of students' PPTs involves knowledge compilation as well as thematic turbulence. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.

This article examines the question of whether the effectiveness of training methods in vocational training settings is modified by trainee characteristics. General mental abilities, cognitive style and conscientiousness were measured as person variables that were expected to influence the effectiveness of training methods. Being trained on a simulated process control environment as an example for a complex technological task for 5 h, N = 38 participants received either drill and practice (D and P) or error training (ET) as two distinct training methods. A 70-minute transfer test followed 9 weeks later, in which the trainees had to manage familiar (near transfer) as well as unfamiliar fault states (far transfer). The results showed that high-ability trainees benefited more from DandP than from ET, whereas low-ability trainees benefited equally well from either training method. Furthermore, participants with a highly flexible cognitive style benefited more from DandP rather than ET. Also participants low in conscientiousness profited more from DandP. The findings are indicative of the tentative benefits of using learner-tailored training methods, suggesting that this person-centered approach is worthy of further exploration. © 2010 Springer-Verlag London Limited.

For the free movement of labour across the European Union, establishing transparency and comparability of qualifications across member states is vital. This book examines how qualifications, knowledge, skills and competences are understood in different national contexts and trans-nationally and reveals a complex picture of differences and similarities both within and between countries. Against the background of EU policy initiatives, and in particular the European Qualifications Framework, an important focus is on the prospects and difficulties of establishing cross-national recognition of qualifications. Drawing on case studies of particular sectors and occupations in England, France, Germany and the Netherlands, this insightful book, written by leading academics in the field, will be a vital resource for students and researchers involved with vocational education and training, continuing professional development, human resource management and European Union policy. © 2011 Michaela Brockmann, Linda Clarke and Christopher Winch. All rights reserved.

Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the self-reported confidence levels of final year students at the School of Dentistry, Cardiff University and at the University Dental School & Hospital, Cork, Ireland in performing a variety of dental procedures commonly completed in primary dental care settings. Method: A questionnaire was distributed to 61 final year students at Cardiff and 34 final year students at Cork. Information requested related to the respondents confidence in performing a variety of routine clinical tasks, using a five-point scale (1=very little confidence, 5=very confident). Comparisons were made between the two schools, gender of the respondent, and whether or not a student intended completing a year of vocational training after graduation. Results: A response rate of 74% was achieved (n=70). The greatest self-reported confidence scores were for 'scale and polish' (4.61), fissure sealants (4.54) and delivery of oral hygiene instruction (4.51). Areas with the least confidence were placement of stainless steel crowns (2.83), vital tooth bleaching (2.39) and surgical extractions (2.26). Students at Cardiff were more confident than those at Cork in performing simple extractions (Cardiff: 4.31; Cork: 3.76) and surgical extractions (Cardiff: 2.61; Cork: 1.88), whilst students in Cork were more confident in caries diagnosis (Cork: 4.24; Cardiff: 3.89) fissure sealing (Cork: 4.76; Cardiff: 4.33) and placement of preventive resin restorations (Cork: 4.68; Cardiff: 4.22). Conclusion: Final year students at Cardiff and Cork were most confident in simpler procedures and procedures in which they had had most clinical experience. They were least confident in more complex procedures and procedures in which they had the least clinical experience. Increased clinical time in complex procedures may help in increasing final year students' confidence in those areas. © 2011 John Wiley and Sons A/S.

This essay is concerned with organisational learning and, in particular, policy learning. Sometimes, organisations learn; sometimes they do not. Sometimes they use their acquired knowledge, but this is, not always the case. Inside organisations, particular values, rules and incentive systems are developed. In addition, organisations need to structure their responses to the outside world. The main challenge of this essay is to make sense out of a web of interests, prizes, penalties, habits and inertia that may drive the impulse to learn. Individual creativity and the types of organisational climates that stifle or stimulate learning are also be considered. The paper will present a number of concrete cases studies of both policy learning and non-learning situations. In some cases, the focus is on the learning that takes place within multinational agencies. In others, learning inside national training institutions is examined. The following lessons stand out:. (i)Organisational culture matters. (ii)The critical issue is not learning but using what was learned. (iii)The chances of learning are greater if the payoffs are positive. (iv)Power inside institutions influences learning and non-learning.To sum up, there is logic to the system but no single and simple pattern emerges. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.