Search Results for
"Vocational education"

This article critically evaluates recent research from the National Centre for vocational education Research (NC VER) on the occupational structure of apprentices and trainees. This study argues that the research is flawed by the NCVER's demand that traditional trade apprenticeships and traineeships be regarded as a unitary vocational education system, New Apprenticeships. It is argued, firstly, that such an approach obscures the occupational and skill structure of traineeships. In contrast to the NC VER research, this study finds that traineeships are highly skewed towards occupations such as labouring and elementary clerical occupations. Secondly, using New Apprenticeships as the level of analysis leads to an inadequate policy response to skill shortages and the needs of individuals disadvantaged in the labour market. Thirdly, research based on the New Apprenticeships concept incorrectly implies that the qualifications and career paths of apprentices and trainees are equivalent. Finally, a related issue is the lack of commensurability of vocational qualifications at the same AQF level, and the problems to which this gives rise for the national system of classifying vocational occupations. It is concluded that in general apprenticeships and traineeships should not he regarded apriori as offering ‘equivalent’ training and qualifications, though claims for equivalence could be made on a case-by-case basis on the weight of evidence. © 2002, Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The role of skills and skills development through training in the contemporary economy is a matter of considerable academic and political debate. Public policy in many countries focuses on the development, through training, of what are seen as a high skills employment and business environment (Brown et al, 2001). At the same time, most developed or high skills economies also depend to a significant extent on an alternative economy based on what are loosely and pejoratively described as ‘low skills’ jobs. Little critical analysis has been undertaken with respect to what such descriptors actually mean. This article addresses one sector of the ‘low skills’ economy, hospitality. This article considers skills issues in relation to the hospitality sector. It draws upon the work of Noon & Blyton (1995) in applying their approach to the classification and analysis of skills within hospitality. The article also draws on Ashton & Green’s (1996) critique of vocational education as a basis for understanding some of the problems inherent in skills development in hospitality. The article addresses the skills debate in hospitality in four key theme areas: the nature of work and skills in hospitality; de-skilling within the hospitality workplace; the technical/generic skills debate within hospitality; skills and the education/training process in hospitality. © 2002 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Marriage and family therapy programs need to go beyond the typical practices of recruiting and retaining students of color. Marriage and family therapy educators must assume positions of leadership by transforming graduate programs to reflect a deep, active, systemic commitment to both diversity and social justice. In this article, we argue that it is through this type of transformation that programs become truly ready to support students of color and to prepare all therapists to advocate for equity in a diverse, often unfair society. This article offers a model that addresses readiness, recruitment, retention, assessment, and professional development from this perspective.

This phenomenological research study investigated experiences and concerns that music therapy students have during their preclinical or practicum experiences. Interviews with students were intended to lead to an understanding of these experiences as the students perceived them. Eight students enrolled in undergraduate music therapy practica participated in open-ended interviews over the period of a year, with most students being interviewed 3 times. Six areas of interest emerged from the analysis: challenges encountered by students, means of dealing with challenges, involvement with clients, areas of learning, supervision issues, and structure of practicum. These areas and subcategories under them are presented along with transcriptions from the interviews to illustrate the points. Implications of the research for education and clinical training are discussed.

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Dental education is currently under scrutiny in order to most appropriately address community needs for the new millennium. Educational outcomes need to include a commitment to life-long learning, and an emphasis on professional ethics and moral responsibility. These needs are supported by new forms of information delivery with a focus on the electronic media, by student centred and self-directed coursework, and by clinical stimulation. Additionally, at the University of Sydney, selection will follow a first degree. This will allow candidates time for an informed decision to be made for their future professional career and for a period of experience in the tertiary education system.

Objective: To examine pre-service teachers' perceived confidence in teaching violence prevention and the potential effect of violence-prevention training on preservice teachers' confidence in teaching violence prevention. Methods: Six Ohio universities participated in the study. More than 800 undergraduate and graduate students completed surveys. Results: Violence-prevention training, area of certification, and location of student-teaching placement significantly influenced preservice teachers' perceived confidence in teaching violence prevention. Conclusion: Violence-prevention training positively influences preservice teachers' confidence in teaching violence prevention. The results suggest that such training should be considered as a requirement for teacher preparation programs.

An important skill in solving problems, especially ill-structured problems, is the production of coherent arguments to justify solutions and actions. Because direct instruction in argumentation has produced inconsistent results and cannot effectively support online learning, we examined the use of online argumentation scaffolds to engage and support coherent argumentation. In this study, we showed that providing a constraint-based argumentation scaffold during group problem-solving activities increased the generation of coherent arguments. The same scaffold further resulted in significantly more problem-solving actions during collaborative group discussions. The effects of the scaffold varied for problem type. Groups that solved ill-structured problems produced more extensive arguments. When solving ill-structured problems, students need more argumentation support because of the importance of generating and supporting alternative solutions. The close relationship between argumentation and problem solving, especially ill-structured problem solving, is significant. The effects of the argument scaffold consistently transferred to the production of arguments during individual problem solving. Students used the familiar argumentation scripts while solving problems individually.

In recent years the provision of vocational education and training has been recognised as having a vital role to play in improving Australia's economic performance and in alleviating the hardship of the long term unemployed. The importance of education and training gives rise to the issues of operating educational institutions with a high level of efficiency. In this article, Data Envelopment Analysis is used to derive estimates of the technical and scale efficiency of Victorian Technical and Further education Institutes in 1995. The results reveal substantial dispersion in technical and scale efficiencies. Regression analysis is used to identify variables which are associated with technical inefficiency.