Handbook of Technical and Vocational Education and Training Research
Edited by
FELIX RAUNER University of Bremen, Germany and
RUPERT MACLEAN UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Education, Germany
Section Editors: Nicholas Boreham, Peter Brödner, Jürgen van Buer, Thomas Deißinger, Martin Fischer, Philipp Grollmann, Winfried Hacker, Geoff Hayward, Uwe Lauterbach, Robert Lerman, Morgan Lewis, Georg Hans Neuweg, Paul Oehlke, Jeroen Onstenk, Jörg-Peter Pahl, Peter Putz, Felix Rauner, Eugenie A. Samier, Georg Spöttl, Lorna Unwin, Anneke Westerhuis
123
Editors Prof. Felix Rauner University of Bremen TVET Research Group Am Fallturm 1 28359 Bremen Germany
[email protected] ISBN: 978-1-4020-8346-4
Dr Rupert Maclean UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Education Hermann-Ehlers-Str. 10 53113 Bonn Germany
[email protected] e-ISBN: 978-1-4020-8347-1
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-8347-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008942082 c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Series Editor-in-Chief: Dr Rupert Maclean, UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training, Bonn, Germany Associate Editors: Professor Felix Rauner, TVET Research group, University of Bremen, Germany Professor Karen Evans, Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom Editorial Advisory Board: Dr David Atchoarena, UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris, France Dr András Benedek, Ministry of Employment and Labour, Budapest, Hungary Ms Diane Booker, TAFESA, Adelaide, Australia Mr John Budu-Smith, formerly Ministry of Education, Accra, Ghana Professor Michel Carton, NORRAG c/o Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland Dr Chris Chinien, Workforce Development Consulting, Montreal, Canada Dr Claudio De Moura Castro, Faculade Pitágoras, Belo Horizonte, Brazil Dr Michael Frearson, SQW Consulting, Cambridge, United Kingdom Dr Lavinia Gasperini, Natural Resources Management and Environment Department, Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy Dr Philipp Grollmann, Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BiBB), Bonn, Germany Dr Peter Grootings, European Training Foundation, Turin, Italy Professor W. Norton Grubb, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, United States of America Dr Dennis R. Herschbach, Faculty of Education Policy and Leadership, University of Maryland, College Park, United States of America Dr Oriol Homs, Centre for European Investigation and Research in the Mediterranean Region, Barcelona, Spain Professor Phillip Hughes, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Professor Moo-Sub Kang, Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training, Seoul, Republic of Korea Dr Bonaventure W. Kerre, School of Education, Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya Dr Günter Klein, German Aerospace Centre, Bonn, Germany Dr Wilfried Kruse, Sozialforschungsstelle Dortmund, Dortmund Technical University, Germany Professor Jon Lauglo, Department of Educational Research, Faculty of Education, University of Oslo, Norway Dr Alexander Leibovich, Institute for Vocational Education and Training Development, Moscow, Russian Federation Professor Robert Lerman, Urban Institute, Washington, United States of America Mr Joshua Mallet, Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver, Canada Ms Naing Yee Mar, UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training, Bonn, Germany Professor Munther Wassef Masri, National Centre for Human Resources Development, Amman, Jordan Dr Phillip McKenzie, Australian Council for Educational Research, Melbourne, Australia Dr Theo Raubsaet, Centre for Work, Training and Social Policy, Nijmegen, Netherlands Mr Trevor Riordan, International Labour Organization, Bangkok, Thailand Professor Barry Sheehan, Melbourne University, Australia Dr Madhu Singh, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, Hamburg, Germany Dr Manfred Tessaring, European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, Thessaloniki, Greece Dr Jandhyala Tilak, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, India Dr Pedro Daniel Weinberg, formerly Inter-American Centre for Knowledge Development in Vocational Training (ILO/CINTERFOR), Montevideo, Uruguay Professor Adrian Ziderman, Bar-llan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
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Handbook of TVET Research
Table of Contents
Section 2.0: VET Research in Relation to VET Policy, Planning and Practice
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Anneke Westerhuis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Introduction
2.1 VET Research and Social Dialogue Jonathan Winterton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Vocational Education and Training Research – an Introduction Felix Rauner and Rupert Maclean . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 Work – Education – Training: An Interdisciplinary Research Approach Manfred Eckert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Section 1.0: Genesis of TVET Research
2.3 Occupations and Occupational Areas A. Willi Petersen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Uwe Lauterbach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 1.1 Genesis of VET Research: Case Study of Australia Philip Loveder and Hugh Guthrie . . . . . . . . . . 32 1.2 Research on China’s Technical and Vocational Education Jiang Dayuan, Yu Zhijing and Yao Shuwei . . . . 37 1.3 French Research on Vocational Training: A Mirror of the Position and Structure of the Training System? Philippe Méhaut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 1.4 On the Genesis of TVET Research in Germany Felix Rauner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 1.5 History of Vocational Education & Training Research in the United States Cecilia Maldonado and Sterling Saddler . . . . . 57 1.6 Overview of Research Concerning Vocational Education and Vocational Training in Modern Japan Susumu Sasaki. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 1.7 UNESCO’s Research on TVET and Skills Development Keith Holmes and Rupert Maclean . . . . . . . . . . 68 1.8 Research on TVET and Skills Development by Selected Intergovernmental Organisations and Bilateral Agencies Keith Holmes and Rupert Maclean . . . . . . . . . . 75 1.9 Steps towards International Comparative Research in TVET Uwe Lauterbach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
2.4 Vocational Education Research as an Innovation Process Ute Laur-Ernst and Georg Hanf . . . . . . . . . . . 129 2.5 Research on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the Context of European Cooperation Pekka Kämäräinen and Martin Fischer . . . . . 135 2.6 Research and VET Reform Policy in Transition Countries Peter Grootings and Sören Nielsen . . . . . . . . . 143 2.7 Development Aid and VET Research Godehard Köhne and Reinhard Stockmann . . 149
Section 3: Areas of VET Research 3.1 The Development of Occupations Georg Spöttl and Morgan Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . 159 3.1.1 Occupational Research Werner Dostal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 3.1.2 Sector Analyses Georg Spöttl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 3.1.3 Historical Occupational Research Falk Howe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 3.1.4 Prognostic and Prospective Vocational Education and Training (VET) Research Philipp Grollmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 3.1.5. Qualification Research Otfried Mickler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 3.2 Research in the Vocational Disciplines Jörg-Peter Pahl and Felix Rauner . . . . . . . . . . 193 3.2.1 Business and Administration Antje Barabasch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
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3.2.2 EEE/ICT in Selected European Countries Klaus Jenewein, Alison Shilela and Len O’Connor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 3.2.3 Construction Johannes Meyser and Ernst Uhe. . . . . . . . . . . 214 3.2.4 Agriculture Martin Mulder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 3.2.5 Health/Care Ingrid Darmann, Regina Keuchel and Florence Myrick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 3.2.6 Education/Social Pedagogy Maria-Eleonora Karsten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 3.2.7 Nutrition Barbara Fegebank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 3.3 VET Systems Research Thomas Deißinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 3.3.1 Comparative Research on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) – Methodological Considerations Philipp Grollmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 3.3.2 Comparative VET Research – Methodological Considerations, Results and Current Questions Hubert Ertl and Dietmar Frommberger . . . . . 259 3.3.3 Historical VET Research. Case Studies 3.3.3.1 Research on Vocational Education History in China Qiding Yu and Zhen He . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 3.3.3.2 Vocational Educational Theory s Historical Research on Vocational Education and Training (VET) Günter Pätzold and Manfred Wahle . . . . . . . . 269 3.3.3.3 Historical Study on the Western School Model of TVET in Japan Tatsuo Horiuchi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 3.3.3.4 Historical Research in Vocational Education: A Case Study of the United States Cecilia Maldonado and Sterling Saddler . . . . 279 3.3.4 National and International Reporting on VET. Case Studies
3.3.4.3 Germany Heinrich Althoff and Elisabeth M. Krekel . . . . 292 3.3.4.4 VET Reporting: Case Study of the USA Lisa Hudson and Karen Levesque. . . . . . . . . . 296 3.3.4.5 National and International Reporting on VET. Case Study of the European Union Friederike Behringer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 3.3.4.6 National and International Reporting on VET – Case Study of OECD, ILO and the World Bank Simone Kirpal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 3.3.5 Development and Evaluation of VET Courses Thomas Deißinger and Jürgen Zabeck . . . . . . 310 3.3.6 VET Research on Pre-Vocational Education. Case Studies 3.3.6.1 Vocational Guidance and Work Orientation Heinz Dedering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 3.3.6.2 Prevocational Education: Case Study of UK Karen Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324 3.3.6.3 Pre-Vocational Education in the Netherlands Jeroen Onstenk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 3.3.6.4 The Development and Study of Pre-Vocational Education in Japan Moriki Terada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 3.3.7 Further Education and Training Research Rolf Arnold and Henning Pätzold . . . . . . . . . . 335 3.3.8 Vocational College Research. Case Studies 3.3.8.1 Study of Higher Vocational Education Research in China Weiping Shi and Guoqing Xu . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342 3.3.8.2 Research on Vocational Colleges and Schools Günter Pätzold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346 3.3.8.3 Vocational College Research: Case Studies of the USA Stephanie Riegg Cellini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
3.3.4.1 National Reporting on VET – Case Study of Australia Philip Loveder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
3.4 VET Planning and Development Jeroen Onstenk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
3.3.4.2 Report on Vocational Education in China Lin Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
3.4.1 Qualification and Curriculum Research Felix Rauner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
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Handbook of TVET Research
3.4.2 Competence and Expertise Research Peter Röben . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
3.6.6 Occupational Socialization Walter R. Heinz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
3.4.3 Cooperation between Learning Venues and Training Partnerships Günter Walden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
3.6.7 The Development of Moral Judgement Wolfgang Lempert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
3.4.4 Technical and Vocational Education and Training Research for the Professionalisation of Vocational Teachers Philipp Grollmann and Waldemar Bauer . . . . 385 3.4.5 Vocational Education and Training and Organisational Development in Companies Gisela Dybowski and Agnes Dietzen . . . . . . . 392 3.5 Costs, Benefits, and Financing VET Robert I. Lerman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398 3.5.1 Costs and Benefits of In-Company Vocational Education and Training Günter Walden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403 3.5.2 National Systems of Financing TVET Dieter Timmermann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412 3.5.3 National Arrangements for Financing Training in Companies Andrew Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
3.6.8 Vocational Identity Sabine Raeder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496 3.6.9 Professionalisation Harald A. Mieg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502 3.7 Shaping Teaching and Learning in TVET Lorna Unwin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508 3.7.1 Curriculum Research and Development Ulrike Buchmann and Richard Huisinga . . . . 511 3.7.2 Cross-Curricular Competencies Katharina Maag Merki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517 3.7.3 Shaping and Evaluating Vocational Training Offers Peter Gerds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523 3.7.4 Shaping Learning Environments Peter Dehnbostel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531 3.7.5 Task-Oriented Learning Falk Howe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
3.5.4 The Wider Benefits of Learning Leon Feinstein, Simone Kirpal and Inés Arévalo Sánchez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
3.7.6 Self-Directed Learning – Conceptual Clarifications, Theoretical Perspectives and Modelling Martin Lang and Günter Pätzold . . . . . . . . . . 543
3.5.5 The Contribution of TVET to Innovative Practices Klaus Ruth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
3.7.7 Learning and Teaching Research Gerald A. Straka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
3.6 Occupational Work and Competence Development
3.7.8 Research on Disadvantaged Groups Arnulf Bojanowski, Peter Eckardt and Günter Ratschinski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558
Martin Fischer and Nicholas Boreham . . . . . . 439 3.6.1 Learning in Work Processes – Competence Development Peter Dehnbostel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
3.7.9 Media Research and Development Antje Pabst and Gerhard Zimmer . . . . . . . . . . 565 3.8 Shaping Work and Technology Peter Brödner and Paul Oehlke . . . . . . . . . . . 573
3.6.2 Work Design and Work Organization Karlheinz Sonntag and Ralf Stegmaier . . . . . . 453
3.8.1 Work and Technology Research Felix Rauner and Paul Oehlke . . . . . . . . . . . . 581
3.6.3 Organisational Learning Michael Dick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
3.8.2 Participative Technology Development Franz Stuber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
3.6.4 Work Process Knowledge Martin Fischer and Nick Boreham . . . . . . . . . 466
3.8.3 Participative Organisational Development Franz J. Heeg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
3.6.5 Learning with Tutorial Working Systems Matthias Becker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
3.8.4 Participatory Prototyping Jürgen Friedrich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
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Table of Contents
3.8.5 Human-Computer Interaction Karl-Heinz Rödiger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Section 4: Case Studies of TVET Research Philipp Grollmann and Geoff Hayward . . . . 613 4.1 Pilot Test MME: Innovation Project at the Turning Point (BBF) Ute Laur-Ernst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617 4.2 Using the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition to Describe and Interpret Skill Acquisition and Clinical Judgement in Nursing Practice and Education Patricia Benner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624 4.3 The Automotive Mechatronics Technician: Steps in Research and Development towards a European Occupation Wilfried Kruse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632 4.4 Production and Qualification Fred Manske . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636 4.5 Training and High Performance Work Systems: A Case Study in Synergy Andy Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641 4.6 Youth, Work and Identity. Life Perspectives and Interests of Young People – a Research Project Andreas Witzel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647 4.7 Implementing Dual Vocational Education in China: A Case of Transnational Innovation Transfer through a German-Chinese Research and Development Project Zhao Zhiqun and Xu Han . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656 4.8 The Assessment: Knowledge, Skills and Competitiveness Ewart Keep and Ken Mayhew . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660 4.9 Learning to Cook: Analysing Apprentice’s Knowledge and Skill Construction in the Workplace Susan James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674 4.10 Transferability, Flexibility, Mobility as Targets of Vocational Education and Training – The COST Action A11 Frank Achtenhagen and Susanne Weber . . . . . 683
Section 5: Research Methods 5.1 Methodological Aspects Georg Hans Neuweg and Peter Putz . . . . . . . . 699 5.1.1 Subject-Related Research Approach: Vocational Work and Education Processes Felix Rauner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703 5.1.2 Situated Learning in Communities of Practice as a Research Topic Christoph Clases and Theo Wehner . . . . . . . . 708 5.1.3 Distance and Proximity in VET Research Lars Heinemann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713 5.1.4 Shaping-Oriented Research and Interdisciplinarity Gerald A. Heidegger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718 5.1.5 The Tacit and Implicit as a Subject of VET Research Georg Hans Neuweg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725 5.1.6 On the Implementation of Basic Methods in Vocational Training Research: (Observation, Experimentation, Interviewing, Content Analysis) Rainer Bremer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731 5.2 Research Methods: Interview and Observation Methods Winfried Hacker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738 5.2.1 Technical Interview Manuela Niethammer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740 5.2.2 Action-Oriented Specialised Interviews Matthias Becker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747 5.2.3 Task Analysis in Vocational Science Peter Röben . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751 5.2.4 Expert Skilled Worker Workshops Georg Spöttl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756 5.2.5 Knowledge Diagnosis Winfried Hacker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 761 5.2.6 Assessing Vocational Competences Bernd Haasler and John Erpenbeck . . . . . . . . 766 5.2.7 Situation Film Felix Rauner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774 5.2.8 Studies of Work Jörg R. Bergmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 780
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5.3 Experimentation and Development Peter Röben . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 786 5.3.1 Laboratory Experiments and Quasi Experiments Gerald A. Straka, Katja Meyer-Siever and Johannes Rosendahl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 790 5.3.2. Qualitative Experiments Franz Stuber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 795 5.3.3 Experimental Research Designs (ERD) in Vocational Education Peter F. E. Sloane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800 5.3.4 Participative Development Bruno Clematide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807 5.3.5 Interdisciplinary Development Felix Rauner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 813 5.4 Evaluation, Quality Development and Assurance Jürgen van Buer and Eugenie A. Samier . . . . 819 5.4.1 Evaluation Research Gerald Heidegger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 825 5.4.2 Participative Quality Assurance Philipp Gonon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 833 5.4.3 Output Orientation as Aspect of Quality Assurance Sabine Kurz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839 5.4.4 Educational Controlling Jürgen van Buer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847 5.4.5 Benchmarking in Vocational Education and Training Susan Seeber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 851 5.4.6 Programme Evaluation Ludger Deitmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 858 5.4.7 Knowledge Management Michael Dick and Theo Wehner . . . . . . . . . . . 862 Indexes References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873 Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1081 T h e A uth ors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 5
Handbook of TVET Research
Preface
9
Preface Research on technical and vocational education and training (TVET research) is by now an internationally established focus of ↑ educational research. The ↑ internationalisation of TVET research is expressed by the annual conferences of the European research network VETNET, the research and development programmes in the domain of vocational education conducted since the beginning of the European integration process, and the inclusion of this discipline into the international programmes of ↑ World Bank, ↑ OECD, ↑ ILO and ↑ UNESCO to promote the development of TVET systems, especially in ↑ developing countries. Even though vocational education and training is important for the global economy because it serves the qualification of skilled workers for the intermediary sector of the employment system, TVET research is still largely shaped by national traditions of vocational education. The insight that vocational education cannot escape the dynamics of internationalised technological and economic development and that the establishment of international ↑ labour markets depends also on the cross-border ↑ mobility of employees has led to a growing interest in TVET research. The editors of the present handbook wish to make a contribution to support this development process and to promote the discourse within the international community scientific community of TVET researchers. This project was facilitated by the fact that the handbook had been published in German already in 2005. Of course the internationalisation of the handbook necessitated a thorough revision of many chapters as well as the inclusion of additional chapters and sections. The question whether the study and development of vocational education can be considered a branch of educational research in its own right was answered in the affirmative by the authors in the most convincing way. Accordingly one of the sections is exclusively devoted to ↑ research methods. TVET research builds on the contributions of a number of different ↑ research traditions and disciplines. These range from ↑ qualification research in industrial sociology to the didactics of the various ↑ vocational disciplines. The core of TVET research has developed into an original and independent ↑ research field that cannot be regarded as belonging to any other research tradition. Admittedly there are many commonalities with pedagogy, labour studies, sociology, economics and engineering in terms of ↑ research questions, methods and results. Basic research with a view to the further development of TVET systems, occupations and occupational domains, and to the design and evaluation of vocational training processes, however, belong exclusively to the core of TVET research. The challenges for TVET research have increased with the acceleration of technological and economic change and the readjustment of the relationship of internationalisation and ↑ localisation in the qualification of employees. The latter can be viewed as the decisive factor for innovation and prosperity in the international competition for quality. With regard to the manifold tasks of TVET research, including the reflection of the foundations of vocational education, the shaping of vocational education and training in ↑ pilot projects or the monitoring of international ↑ TVET cooperation, this handbook aspires to be more than just a reference book to provide guidance and lexical knowledge on TVET research. The handbook is also intended as a tool that makes it possible to distinguish TVET research with all its domains in the competition with other research disciplines. This handbook is part of a library of handbooks on vocational education and training to enable the international TVET community to fulfil their tasks and organise their work more and more in a professional way. Parallel with the publication of this handbook, Rupert Maclean and David Wilson are publishing the International Handbook of Education for the Changing World of Work (MACLEAN / WILSON / CHINIEN 2008). This handbook consists of six volumes and stands out for an extensive portrayal of TVET taking into consideration all its abundant aspects and regional or sector related peculiarities. TVET research can bridge the gaps between TVET practice, ↑ TVET policy and educational research. This means that innovations in vocational education and training can increasingly draw on the resources of TVET research.
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Handbook of TVET Research
The present handbook with its 142 chapters is the collective work of 128 authors. Above all it is them to whom the editors wish to convey their gratitude. The handbook is the result of an excellent cooperation of one and a half years, to which all authors made valuable contributions not only with their texts, but also with their suggestions and their readiness to adhere to the very strict time-schedule. Special thanks are due to the section editors, who made an important contribution to the quality of the handbook by their conceptual suggestions and by the editorial supervision of the chapters in their sections with regard to style and content. With their help it was ultimately possible to present the first international Handbook of TVET Research in which the ↑ research tradition related to vocational education and training is comprehensively documented with its ↑ research problems, methods and results. We are well aware that this is no more than one more step towards the ↑ internationalisation of TVET research, albeit a big one. TVET research now has a reference point that allows for a more systematic differentiation and deepening of the international scientific discourse. The organisation of the project was done by Brigitte Schweckendieck and Daniela Marschall. In addition to that, Ms Schweckendieck edited the voluminous indexes and created the printing template for the work. Anne Kirkham and Wolfgang Wittig collaborated in the editorial revision of the chapters. We also wish to thank the publisher, Springer International, for the attractive realisation of the handbook. Without the support of the Institute Technology and Education of the University of Bremen and the ↑ UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre in Bonn this project could not have been realised. We, the editors, are responsible for the gaps that remain and last not least for the shortcomings of the handbook. We therefore wish to close with the invitation to the users of this handbook to send their critique and suggestions for improvements to us so that they can be considered in a future edition. Bremen and Bonn, October 2008 Felix Rauner Rupert Maclean
Introduction Vocational Education and Training Research – an Introduction Felix Rauner and Rupert Maclean
Introduction
Vocational Education and Training Research – an Introduction Felix Rauner and Rupert Maclean It was with the establishment of national and international research institutions at the latest that (technical and) vocational education and ↑ training research became a central area of ↑ educational research. The major steps in this regard were the establishment of the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training Research (BBF) (1970), which was subsequently named Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), the French Centre des études et des recherches sur les qualifications (Céreq) (1970), the All Union Institute for Technical and Vocational Education of the USSR in Leningrad (1963) and the establishment of the Center for Research and Leadership in Vocational and Technical Education (↑ NCRVE) (1965) in the ↑ United States, which was later (1977) promoted to the status of a National Research Center. On the international level one must above all mention the ↑ UNESCO International Center for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNESCO-UNEVOC) (2000) and the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (↑ CEDEFOP) (1975). The national and international interest in vocational education and training research is a consequence of the direct connection of vocational education not only with education policy, but also with economic and ↑ labour market policy. Vocational education is considered a key factor for improving or maintaining the competitiveness of enterprises and national economies. For instance, the Modernization Forum in the United States emphasises in its study “Skills for Industrial Modernization” (1993): “As the pace of economic and technological trade accelerates, the abilities of workers and enterprises to learn and adapt becomes a core element in the global competition among corporations and national economies” (MODERNIZATION-FORUM 1993, 4).
Public vocational education and training research is therefore as a rule closely linked to the mission of ↑ VET planning and embedded into the VET dialogue between industry associations, trade unions and the governmental departments responsi-
13
ble for vocational education and training (→ 2.0). The differences regarding the role of the scientific VET discourse and its proximity to the overall national system of educational institutions depend on the extent to which vocational education is integrated into the educational systems in question. In countries where a relatively broad university education of ↑ vocational schoolteachers is mandatory, the corresponding pedagogical study programmes, which are differentiated into ↑ vocational disciplines, constitute a research infrastructure that allows for a professional design of vocational education, learning and teaching processes. The ↑ internationalisation of technological and economic development and the emergence of transnational (skilled) labour markets – e. g. in the European Union – have intensified the convergence in vocational education (cf. GROLLMANN / SPÖTTL / RAUNER 2006) and given considerable impulses to the internationalisation of TVET research. The establishment of the United TVET Network on Innovation and Professional Development (UNIP) is a manifestation of this development. The variety of ↑ research questions and ↑ development tasks at the levels of vocational education and training systems (macro level), the organisation and design of vocational training programmes and institutions (meso level) and the analysis and shaping of education and learning processes (micro level) leads to the integration of different scientific disciplines and ↑ research traditions. TVET research therefore can be organised only in an ↑ interdisciplinary way, notably through the ↑ participation of disciplines like psychology, industrial sociology, sociology of work, sociology of education, organisation theory, natural sciences, engineering, pedagogy and economics. Didactical and domain-specific competences are especially brought in by vocational pedagogues as the latter normally have a qualification in a vocational discipline and its didactics (→ 3.2). Although the call for ↑ interdisciplinarity in the study of complex ↑ research fields and topics is repeatedly stressed from a scientific and political perspective, the practical realisation of ↑ interdisciplinarity turns out to be difficult. However, it is constitutive for TVET research to treat its research subject as an original one and to provide a sub-
14
ject-adequate foundation of the ↑ research methods (→ 5.1). The founders of TVET research already formulated this claim in their call for the development of a ↑ methodology for TVET research. For instance, the first ↑ research programme of the BBF included the “development of methodological and terminological instruments for the activities of the instruments, taking into consideration the interdisciplinary relationships” (BBF 1971b, 6 [translated from German]).
Since the beginning of the 1970s the practice of TVET research has taken shape and increasingly been organised as an international scientific community. The European research network Vocational Education and ↑ Training Research Network (VETNET), which was established in 1997, as well as the international network of ↑ UNESCOUNEVOC centres are an expression of this ↑ development. However, the realisation of the claim to clarify the methodological foundations of TVET research fell short of the of the objectives set by the founders of the state institutes for TVET research. The present handbook wishes, among other things, to make a contribution to filling this gap (→ 5; → 5.1). The roots of the internationally established TVET research date back to the Swedish reform pedagogy at the end of the 19th century, which succeeded in presenting the topic “education for the world of work” through its “pedagogical Slöj” at the five successive world fairs between 1876 and 1904. The achievements of these vocational pedagogical traditions were even awarded a gold medal at the world fair in Paris (REINCKE 1995, 7). An international community of vocational pedagogues from the Scandinavian countries, the ↑ United States, Russia and Europe treated this pedagogy at the interface between school and the world of work not only as a topic of educational practice, but introduced it also into the education of teachers and thus made it a topic of scientific discourse (HODSON 1901; LARSSON 1899). With regard to the development of TVET research in Germany Lipsmeier emphasises the scientification of the reflection, analysis and implementation of vocational education in the context of the activities of the German Committee for Technical Schooling (Deutscher Ausschuss für technisches Schulwesen, DATSCH) established in 1908 and the German Insti-
Handbook of TVET Research
tute for Technical Work Instruction (Deutsches Institut für Technische Arbeitsschulung, DINTA) founded by large-scale industry (LIPSMEIER 2005, 22). Already around the year 1900 an internationally comparative branch of ↑ educational research emerged, in which vocational pedagogues also participated. The centre of this comparative research was the “International Institute for Teacher Colleges” at Columbia University in New York where pedagogues like Dewey, Kandel, Monroe and Kerschensteiner met (LAUTERBACH 2003b, 220 ff.). The works of David Snedden in the early 20th century on the development of ↑ vocational curricula had a far-reaching impact. His concept of “Real Vocational Education” laid the foundations of VET didactical research in the ↑ USA (cf. also DROST 1967; SNEDDEN 1912; K LIEBARD 1999). This was accompanied by a fundamental debate on the function of vocational education, which continues to shape the vocational pedagogical discussion and TVET research to this day. The reduction of vocational education to the dimension of qualification according to the demands of the employment system was expressed by the curriculum approach by Bobbitt (1918). This approach viewed vocational education for the industrial development in the USA as a process that had to be organised according to the rules of scientific management as formulated especially by Taylor (cf. TAYLOR 1911). In contrast to this, John Dewey represented a theory of ↑ vocational pedagogy that situated vocational education in the context of democratic education (DEWEY 1916b). It was already at the beginning of the 20th century that tasks like the development of ↑ occupational profiles, the definition of ↑ specific domains and skills for skilled workers and the development of procedures to measure a candidate’s suitability for a specific vocational training course were covered by TVET research. This feature links TVET research to pedagogy as an action-guiding discipline as well as to labour studies as a discipline that aims at the analysis and shaping of work (EMERY 1959; H ACKMAN / OLDHAM 1976; ULICH 1994). In TVET research the development of occupations and occupational profiles, of vocational curricula and training media as well as training methods
Introduction
are among the central research and development fields. ↑ Curriculum research and ↑ media research are therefore organised as a combination of analytic and developmental research. TVET research is distinguished from ↑ educational research especially by the contents and objectives of vocational education as they developed historically along with the occupation-based organisation of work. This includes the development of occupations and domains, the change of professional work and the analysis and design of vocational education, qualification and learning processes. The vocational domains and their changes therefore become a reference point for the foundation of contents and objectives of vocational education, which also entails the allocation of entitlements for the employment system. Whereas the Abitur certifies the qualification for university studies, the conferment of entitlements at the end of vocational training often refers to quite specific competences that enable the candidate to fulfil professional tasks. Only the successful examination as a pilot leads to the licence to fly an aircraft. If the trained pilot cannot demonstrate in the final examination that he can transform the information displayed by the artificial horizon into the correct and situatively adequate operation of the aircraft in terms of elevators, yaw rudder and speed, he will be denied access to the ↑ profession of a pilot. This is a particularity of all forms of vocational education, which aims at the acquisition of professional competence for the exercise of specific occupations. With regard to the scientific study of vocational learning this situation leads to particular challenges, e. g. concerning the ↑ decoding of the knowledge and skills incorporated in the practice of professional work or the assessment and evaluation of professional competences. The term “vocational education” denotes the appropriation of the entire range of skills that are acquired within and for the employment system. Qualification, competence and education are therefore key categories that are presented in the different chapters of this handbook. This means that the relationships between socialisation and education, general and vocational education as well as ↑ vocational guidance and initial and continuing training are also treated as topics of their
15
own. It is for purely practical reasons that in the present handbook TVET research is confined, following the ↑ legislation on vocational education and training, to societal work in the employment system to the extent that the relevant training does not take place in higher education. Unlike the system of general education, vocational education and training is characterised by the crucial importance of learning in the ↑ work process (→ 3.6) as a dimension of intentional and informal competence development. TVET research also differs from (general) educational research because its focus is on the vocational learning of adults, which means that the theories of learning, cognition and development that are important for the analysis and design of education and socialisation processes of children are only marginally relevant for TVET research. What is important instead are development theories that can particularly be applied to the learning of adults (cf. HAVIGHURST 1972; ERIKSON 1966; DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1987; LAVE / WENGER 1991). Another particularity of vocational education is the fact that countries with comparable levels of economic development brought about highly different systems of vocational education and training. Vocational education is to a large extent shaped by the cultural particulars of the nation-states. Highly developed TVET systems with long-standing traditions, e. g. in the European countries, are competing under the conditions of economic and technological ↑ internationalisation with industrial cultures where occupational work and the related type of education have only little relevance. This applies e. g. to ↑ Japan (GEORG / SATTEL 1992), where accordingly no advanced TVET research has emerged. The situation is completely different in the ↑ United States, where there is a greater openness in higher education towards real life and practical contents. This has led to the establishment of vocational programmes at universities. Nurses, whose education e. g. in Germany takes place at technical colleges, study subjects like “nursing” in long-established faculties at American universities. As a consequence of a distinct tradition of ↑ vocational study programmes the ↑ vocational disciplines and ↑ research traditions in the domains of the personal service sector de-
16
veloped earlier in the United States than in countries with a clear demarcation of vocational and higher education (vocational guidance; ↑ vocational preparation). Similar differences in the international context are caused by the different modes of the transition from school to work with regard to the first as well as the second threshold (STERN / WAGNER 1999). The investigation of transition problems at the first threshold of the ↑ school-to-work transition and the ↑ performance of literacy studies on the basic competences of reading and writing as well as on elementary skills in mathematics and natural sciences have considerably grown in importance. This aspect will be treated in the topics maturity for training, ↑ vocational preparation and ↑ vocational guidance. TVET Research – an Interdisciplinary Research Field There is a particular affinity with regard to content and methodology between TVET research and labour studies. The difference lies in the ↑ domainspecific diversification of TVET research. Whilst labour studies, e. g. in the analysis and shaping of skilled work, is above all interested in the aspects of workload, health protection and work safety, TVET research is primarily focusing on the contents of work and training and also on the further development of ↑ occupational profiles and ↑ vocational curricula. The affinities and commonalities as well as the differences between the two ↑ research traditions have been pointed out in manifold ways (→ 3.8.1). Research in labour studies gave important impulses for the field of “work and technology” research. This term points at a programme of technology and work policy that emerged from the policy of work safety and “humanisation of work” (→ 3.8.1). The “humanisation of work” programme includes the aspects of qualification along the ↑ work process as well as the analysis and shaping of workplaces, work contents and work processes with regard to qualification (→ 3.8.1). The piloting of qualification-adequate work processes is a distinguished task of the “humanisation of work” and afterwards of “work and technology” research. In the early 1980s the critique of the reactive practice
Handbook of TVET Research
of estimating and mitigating risks that technological innovations (might) entail for the world of work led to the initiative towards a “work and technology” research to emphasise the aspect of shaping (RAUNER 1988a). The technological and economic determinism prevalent at that time in industrial sociology, sociology of work and ↑ qualification research was critically reflected upon (LUTZ 1988). Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman termed technological determinism “the single most influential theory of the relationship between technology and society” (MACK ENZIE / WAJCMAN 1985, 4). For TVET research, which in Germany participated in the promotion of a “work and technology” research and development programme via the BIBB, this entailed the consequence of taking the fundamental shift of perspective to the “shaping” paradigm into consideration in the course of its research and development activities. Since then vocational education and qualification is no longer interpreted as a mere dependent variable resulting from the demands of technological and economic change – as qualification requirement – but as a relatively independent variable in the interplay of technological innovation, the change of work contents and forms as well as the qualification of workers (→ 3.8.1). The analysis of the interrelationship between work, technology and education at the levels of learning and training processes, training programmes and educational systems led to the rejection of a type of TVET research that interpreted vocational education, following the tradition of technological and economic determinism, as adaptation to the changes in the world of work. This leads to a variety of linkages between scientific disciplines and research traditions that are occupied with these interrelationships. If one puts ↑ vocational pedagogy and ↑ vocational disciplines (→ 3.2) in the centre of TVET research one can distinguish five ↑ interdisciplinary fields. Occupation research as a central field of TVET research requires the cooperation of experts from vocational pedagogy, vocational disciplines and industrial sociology. The exclusive allocation of occupation research to only one of these disciplines would be accompanied by a narrowing of ↑ research questions. The same is true of the close
17
Introduction
cooperation between occupation research and ↑ labour market research. The occupational form of work is perceived under this perspective as an aspect of the employment system and the markets for skilled labour (KURTZ 2005; → 3.1.1). When the analysis and shaping of professional ↑ work processes are also viewed under the aspects of occupational socialisation (→ 3.6.6), development of ↑ professional identity (→ 3.6.8; → 3.6.9), professional competence development (→ 3.5.1; → 3.6.7) and VET didactics (→ 3.6), it becomes clear that occupation research is a central topic of TVET research. Occupation research and ↑ qualification research (→ 3.4.1) are closely linked fields of TVET research since the development of occupations is associated with the foundation and description of ↑ occupational profiles and their characteristic ↑ work tasks and qualification requirements, which have to be studied in this context. Qualification research, which is diversified according to occupations and occupational domains, requires the cooperation of the relevant ↑ vocational disciplines (→ 3.2). The latter typically build on the methods of curriculum and expertise research. ↑ Curriculum research is in turn closely connected to qualification research. The core question of curriculum research is the legitimation of educational contents and objectives in vocational education as well as the systematisation of these contents and objectives in ↑ vocational curricula and training programmes. To this day subject-related theories and concepts derived from developmental theory compete with such theories and development concepts that justify training contents by making reference to the objective features of scientific knowledge or to actual qualification requirements (→ 3.7.1). A particularity of curriculum research and development in vocational education and training is the systematisation of professional competence development as learning in the work process. The fact that skilled work is differentiated into occupations and the associated variety of technical and vocational education and training renders the establishment of a learning and teaching research organised according to occupations and domains quite difficult. Unlike general ↑ educational re-
search, which is in this regard above all concerned with ↑ teaching and learning processes in reading, mathematics and elementary natural sciences as a part of ↑ literacy research, TVET research has to distinguish between hundreds of different occupations. The existing research shows that this puts particularly high demands on ↑ interdisciplinarity and ↑ research cooperation. The characteristic learning in the work process, the organisation and shaping of learning-supportive work environments up to the design of the human-machine interaction also require the integration of expertise from labour studies and engineering. Research Methods It is hardly surprising that a research that is oriented towards ↑ interdisciplinarity is drawing, via the agents in the scientific process, on the methodology of various disciplines. The researchers use their specific methods according to their disciplinary background and constitute their research subject as a topic of sociology, labour studies, economics, engineering or natural sciences. Qualification research in the social sciences is an example for this (→ 3.1.5; → 4.5). In ↑ domain-specific qualification and competence research the crucial point is to view the social and cultural rules that shape professional agency together with objective rules, the validity of which, e. g. in skilled work in technical and mechanical trades, can be explained only on the basis of natural sciences and technology. The insight that professional agency and professional competence are characterised by the mastery of social and objective rules (cf. RÖBEN 2004a; MÜLLER 1978; HERITAGE 1984, 295 ff.) has far-reaching consequences for the methodological orientation of TVET research: “The mastery of the interplay of objective and social rules in the competence for professional agency necessitates a transdisciplinary research approach” (RÖBEN 2004a, 20 [translated from German]).
To this day TVET research is characterised, besides the recourse to the methods of empirical social research, by a pluralism of methods that build on everyday situations and which are applied above all according to criteria of practical plausibility. This practice is more common in the most heterogeneous ↑ research traditions than usually
18
assumed, for an explicit consideration of the practical methods only rarely takes place. An exception to this rule is Gerhard Kleining. Besides the methods of natural and cultural sciences or ↑ humanities he emphasised the methods of mastering everyday life as the ones “that so far have enabled the survival of mankind” (K LEINING 1995c, 12 [translated from German]). He summarises his methodological reflections on the relationship of everyday methods and scientific methods in the thesis: “Everyday methods are the basis of scientific methods. Qualitative and quantitative methods are everyday methods abstracted in different ways” (K LEINING 1995c, 14 [translated from German]).
If this thesis is accepted it is a logical step to present, after a period of diversification in TVET research and on the basis of a methodological debate and development in the past 15 years, a handbook in which TVET research is documented as a combination of ↑ research fields with mutual references among each other and with its variety of concepts, strategies and methods that are increasingly developed and adapted with a view to the research topics. The challenges for TVET research have increased with the acceleration of technological and economic change. Another challenge is the shaping of the relationship between ↑ internationalisation and ↑ localisation in the qualification of workers, which is the crucial factor for innovation and prosperity in the international quality competition. With regard to the highly diverse tasks of TVET research between the orientation towards the foundations of vocational education, the shaping of the latter in ↑ pilot projects or the monitoring of international ↑ TVET cooperation, this handbook aims to be more than just a reference work for guidance and lexical knowledge on TVET research. The handbook is also intended as a tool that makes it possible to distinguish TVET research with all its domains in the competition with other research disciplines. Structure of the Handbook The present handbook follows the structure of the German edition. The organisation of the chapters is based on the structure of TVET research as de-
Handbook of TVET Research
veloped there. It had to be taken into consideration that some topics that refer to the organisation and shaping of national TVET traditions cannot always be presented by means of comprehensive articles. In these cases we use the form of national case studies. For instance, the topic of ↑ vocational guidance is presented by means of case studies from Germany, ↑ Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The agreement with the publisher to take care of the internationalisation of the German edition could largely be fulfilled by means of the integration of additional chapters and the cooperation with additional authors. Nevertheless the handbook remains a work in which the practice of TVET research as it has emerged in Germany on the basis of an innovative system of vocational training and the education of TVET teachers at the master’s level plays an important part also for the English version. The first sections of the handbook present the genesis of TVET research as well as overviews of its ↑ research questions concerning ↑ vocational pedagogy and the various ↑ vocational disciplines. Moreover, TVET research is presented as a field of international and comparative research. Compared to research on general education, TVET research is more intensively embedded in tensions that emerge from the interests of the stakeholders in vocational education as well as from the interaction between ↑ TVET policy, ↑ TVET planning and TVET practice. The second section of the handbook therefore features chapters that particularly deal with the societal framework conditions in the national and international context. Unlike general and higher education, vocational education regards education also as a dimension of corporate ↑ organisational development and thus as a human resource. In politics the economic and labour market dimensions of vocational education are no less important than the dimension of ↑ educational policy. The research questions resulting from this situation are treated in the chapters of the second section. A focal point of the handbook is constituted by the section on fields of TVET research with its eight sub-sections. The reception of the handbook in practice will show whether there is a need for further differentiation and supplementation. Various
Introduction
suggestions of the co-authors led to additions and improvements already in this first edition. For example, an additional chapter 3.5 on “Cost, Benefit and ↑ Financing of VET” was included. This chapter features contributions on TVET economics. These range from the presentation and discussion of methods for the measurement of costs and benefits of vocational education to issues of the ↑ wider benefits of learning. The central research and ↑ development task of ↑ curriculum development is presented in six chapters, which describe the ↑ research field from occupation research, embedded into ↑ labour market research, to specific forms of the study of occupations in sociology, pedagogy and the ↑ vocational disciplines. Research in the vocational disciplines is of crucial importance in TVET research, for it is here that the contents and forms of vocational education are scrutinised on the basis of concrete occupations and occupational domains. The vocational disciplines, which are differentiated according to domains, face the difficulty that neither occupations nor occupational domains are categorised according to a generally accepted international classification system (→ 2.3). It is true that in the international practice of vocational education between six and 15 vocational ↑ subject areas like health care, construction industry, agriculture, manufacturing or business administration have emerged. But the different traditions of the occupation-based organisation of work and the related vocational education lead to considerable limitations concerning the international comparability of research findings in this field. This applies also to the corresponding vocational disciplines. In the present handbook eight areas of research in the vocational disciplines are treated, which does not fully cover the range of vocational disciplines. For pragmatic considerations the subjects agriculture, ↑ nutrition and housekeeping were put together. This is justified to some extent by the structure of the valueadded chain. The research field ↑ TVET planning and development represents an area that also contributed to the decision to recognise TVET research in the legislation on vocational education and to establish it in the form of state institutes. The topics considered
19
in this section directly relate to TVET planning and to qualification and curriculum research. Other topics rather point to the corresponding basic research like competence and expertise research. The research field VET didactics includes chapters that discuss questions of general VET didactics. The ↑ domain-specific issues of didactical research are assigned to research in the vocational disciplines (→ 3.2). The research field work and technology views work, technology and education as mutually linked cornerstones of a shaping-oriented research field that has its origins in the “humanisation of work” research. The topics treated here deal with the different forms of workers’ ↑ participation in the processes of shaping the world of work. This includes the question of the qualification for participation and co-shaping. In this research field ↑ interdisciplinary references to research in labour studies become visible in particular. Inspired by the Handbook of Qualitative Social Research (FLICK 1995a) and the review of the proposal for the present book a particular section with research examples was included, which allows for an illustration of TVET research and its genesis. The selection of these chapters was less based on representativity, but rather on originality and innovations in TVET research. Vocational education and ↑ training research is in a situation in which the research projects that may have an undisputed model character have yet to be identified. By means of the exemplary research projects the breadth and variety of TVET research and its epistemic and innovative potential for the scientific process as well as for educational practice will be documented. The chapters also represent quite different methodological approaches. In all of them the genesis, the epistemic interest and in some cases also the innovative interest are discussed. The originality of the research concepts is emphasised so that the scientific and practical relevance of the selected examples for the development of TVET research becomes clear. In the final section the methods of TVET research are reflected. In addition methods are presented that have a particular affinity to the topics of TVET research. The reason for limiting this section to a narrow scope of research and develop-
20
ment methods is in order to explain and illustrate the relationship between research subjects and methods by means of selected examples. Above all the chapters in this section will stimulate a more detailed reflection of the problems of the choice of methods and their adaptation to the research subject, and they will encourage the development and testing of new methods of TVET research. Various ↑ research methods that have no specific connection with TVET research are treated in a multitude of publications, especially from the fields of expertise and competence research, which were not included in this handbook
Handbook of TVET Research
Section 1 Genesis of TVET Research Uwe Lauterbach
Genesis of TVET Research
1.0
Introduction: Genesis of TVET Research Uwe Lauterbach
1.0.1
The Research Field of TVET Research
An overview of the worldwide historical development of technical and vocational education and ↑ training research (TVET research) is difficult to write. The definition of the ↑ research field of TVET research has always been determined by national definitions and structures, which in turn are shaped by cultural traditions. A course of study that counts as vocational education in one country may be a part of higher education in another, and it may be entirely absent in a third country because the professional domains and hierarchies are organised differently. Suffice it to mention the example of technicians, whose education is not only structured differently, but also takes place in different parts of the educational system in England (college, university), Germany (higher secondary level or non-university ↑ tertiary level), ↑ France (higher secondary level, lycée d’enseignement général et/ou technologique) and the ↑ USA (↑ community college). An examination of the classification system ISCED (International Standard ↑ Classification of Education) for educational programmes (see the following section), which is used by the ↑ UNESCO and the ↑ OECD for reporting on national education systems, makes this differentiation easily visible (OECD 1999a; 2004c, UNESCO 2007). In order to allow for an overview of national developments and to display worldwide trends the national fields of TVET in 176 states are listed and compared in the ↑ UNESCO ↑ statistics (ELLIS 2004). This task reveals the variety and systemic differentiation of TVET already by the classification between ISCED 2 and 3 (lower and higher secondary level), ISCED 4 (post secondary non-tertiary) and ISCED 5b (higher education). These educational tracks are highly different in their objectives and most likely are not present in any one country at once. Whilst ISCED 2 is focusing on literacy and basic vocational training and concerns
23
above all children and youth, study programmes at the ISCED 5b level, which are mostly taken up by adults as ↑ continuing education, presuppose a very good secondary education and practical experience at a complex level. This intricate variety of national TVET systems entails consequences for TVET research, for it has to be oriented first towards the national situation and thus a determined research field with associated ↑ research questions. Whereas the structural differentiations between countries are perceived in most cases, those demarcations of the research field that are related to cultural contexts are more difficult for TVET research between single national systems. It is enough to mention the semantic differences of the term TVET in the various languages. In the German-speaking area berufliche Bildung is used as a comprehensive term and denotes everything that relates, regardless of the ↑ learning venue, to the imparting (including informal self-learning) of skills and knowledge directed towards the exercise of a professional activity that is mostly defined by a recognised occupation. In the Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere, on the other hand, a more subtle differentiation takes place. This refers to the occupation, which may be classified, according to educational level (e. g. on-the-job training, secondary education, higher education) or social standing as occupation, ↑ vocation or ↑ profession. How difficult the definition of the research field can be already in one and the same language is shown by the different terminologies used by the UNESCO (technical and vocational education and training, TVET) and the EU (vocational education and training, VET). If these terms are translated back into other languages, problems of delimitation may be the consequence. This is, for instance, the case in France where there is a distinction between formation professionnelle and formation technique. Besides, this distinction of technical and vocational education also applies to the English-speaking countries. In the globalised world of today the national TVET systems are directly influenced by transnational developments. This is why the demand for international research and for the exchange of national research findings is increasing. How did the ↑ UNESCO as the ↑ UN’s educational organisa-
24
Handbook of TVET Research
tion with its worldwide activities respond to this challenge? At the 1974 General Conference of the ↑ UNESCO the field of political activities was described as follows: (a) an integral part of general education; (b) a means of preparation for an ↑ occupational field; (c) an aspect of ↑ continuing education (LEHMANN 1988, 55). The ideological root of this definition was the conviction that vocational education is one way among many others to prepare for professional work. In comparison to general education, TVET was assigned less relevance. Thus the ↑ research field was narrowly defined. In the meantime this position has undergone a profound change. “These statements represent a broadening of TVET from the narrow task of providing training for industry- and occupation-specific skills to the broader task of workforce development and ↑ lifelong learning for sustainable development and citizenship” (UNESCOUNEVOC/BMBF 2004, 4).
The field of TVET is not only broadened and situated in the social and economic contexts, but at the same time a reform of national TVET systems in the light of the new conception and challenges is called for. “[T]here is an urgent need to renew TVET. This should be the top priority for every country … This is a task that can only be accomplished if a country can succeed in articulating TVET with its system of education within a framework of an overall sustainable development strategy” (UNESCO-UNEVOC/BMBF 2004, 4).
This broad definition of TVET and its future tasks, which are specified in detail in the results of the Second International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education (Seoul, Korea, 1999), outlines today’s worldwide research field of TVET. 1.0.2
International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 1997b)
The well-known fact that the national systems of education and training are very different prompted researchers from universities and research institutes in the 1950s to initiate a discussion on the standards that have to be applied in the international comparison of educational systems. Their aim was the further conceptual and methodological development of international comparison in order to generate internationally comparable data and results (ROBINSOHN 1992, 7 ff.). As a con-
sequence of these stimuli the ISCED classification was developed as a standardised description of national educational programmes (PORRAS-ZÚÑIGA 1994, 959 f.). The ISCED system was first used in the 1970s for the compilation of worldwide ↑ statistics on education. In 1975 it was approved at the International Conference on Education in Geneva, a regular conference of national governments within the framework of the International Bureau of Education (IBE) (http://www.ibe.unesco.org/), and at the 1978 conference in Paris it was adapted with a view to the standardisation of pedagogical statistics. Further adaptations were necessary over time, above all for the increasing variety of educational opportunities. The current ISCED classification was approved by the UNESCO in 1997. In order to allow for international comparability of databases and classification systems within the INES (Indicators of Education Systems) framework (http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/international/ INES/), today the UNESCO, EUROSTAT for the European Union (for the ISCED classification of European qualifications and degrees see Eurydice 2004) and the ↑ OECD cooperate under the coordination of the OECD. The ISCED-97 system, which was published in 1997 by the UNESCO department of educational statistics, has been adapted and updated in the meantime by the OECD. Under the title Classifying Educational Programmes: Manual for ISCED-97 – Implementation in OECD-Countries it was published in several updated editions (OECD 2004c;). The OECD publishes detailed manuals for the classification of national educational degrees (OECD 2004c). These overviews allow for the internationally comparable categorisation of national educational programmes. For the industrialised countries that are members of the OECD, this educational reporting with indicators (Education at a Glance) takes place in great detail. The following description summarises the classification system ISCED 1997. The description is based on the original document of the UNESCO: International Standard ↑ Classification of Education ISCED 1997 (UNESCO 1997b).
Genesis of TVET Research
Pre-Primary Education (ISCED Level 0) Level 0 comprises the age levels from 3–5 to 5– 7 years. This elementary education includes all forms of organised and permanently institutionalised activities to support the willingness to learn and the emotional and social development of children. The term “institutionalised” draws a distinction between activities of institutionalised bodies (elementary school, pre-primary school, kindergarten, nursery) and activities that take place in private households and families. The typical entry age is three years.
Primary Education or First Stage of Basic Education (ISCED Level 1) Primary education starts at the age of five, six or seven years and lasts four to six years (↑ OECD average: six years). Educational programmes at the primary level normally do not require any prior formal education. In those countries where basic schooling comprises the entire period of ↑ compulsory schooling – where there is, in other words, no division into primary and lower secondary level – the primary level is considered, for the purpose of statistical classification, to be completed after six years.
Lower Secondary Education/Secondary Education First Stage or Second Stage of Basic Education (ISCED Level 2) Level 2 features a system of specialised teachers (specialists for each subject) and lasts until the end of compulsory schooling. The educational contents are expected to be designed in such a way as to complete the basic education that started at Level 1. In this domain the ↑ basic skills are applied and optimised. It is frequently at the end of lower secondary education that compulsory schooling, where this practice is in use, also comes to an end. In countries where the primary level is also part of a common basic education the second level of the latter should be assigned to ISCED Level 2. In cases where that basic education is not officially divided into levels the period after the sixth year (i.e. the seventh grade onwards) should be classified as ISCED Level 2. This level also includes specialised educational programmes for people with dis-
25
abilities and all types of ↑ adult education that are similar to education at ISCED Level 2 in terms of content.
Secondary Education Second Stage/Upper Secondary Education (ISCED Level 3) Upper secondary education serves general or vocational education. A degree indicates the qualification for work in a particular vocational domain and/or for admission to a higher school. The age level roughly ranges from 15–16 to 18–20 years. It normally includes two to five school years. The admission requirement is usually the completion of Level 2 or a combination of basic schooling and professional work experience. Secondary education second stage can be preparatory – for the first phase of the ↑ tertiary level ISCED 5a (university education) via ISCED 3a (like ↑ High School Diploma, Baccalauréat, Abitur, Matura etc.) and – for the first phase of the tertiary level ISCED 5b (practice-oriented tertiary education, e. g. study programmes for technicians) via ISCED 3b (e. g. apprenticeship training in the ↑ Dual System) or closing, i.e. serve the preparation for the direct enty into work via ISCED 3c. In upper secondary education a greater specialisation than at ISCED Level 2 can be observed. Very often teachers have to be better qualified and more specialised than at Level 2. The entry age for this level is usually 15 or 16 years. To be qualified for admission to educational programmes at Level 3, a person must have completed a full-time education of approximately nine years (starting from the beginning of ISCED Level 1) or acquired education in combination with professional experience. The completion of ISCED Level 2 or proof of the ability to master educational programmes at this level are considered minimum requirements. ISCED Level 3 also includes specialised education for people with disabilities and adult education. Excluded from ISCED Level 3 are supportive measures for participants in Level 2 programmes who did not achieve the learning objectives of these programmes. These measures are not equivalent to the programmes at ISCED Level 3 that were de-
26
scribed above. They have to be assigned, depending on their content, to ISCED Level 1 or 2.
Post-Secondary Non-Tertiary Education (ISCED Level 4) Level 4 is a transitional stage between the upper secondary level and ↑ tertiary education, even if from a national point of view a clear allocation of programmes to Level 3 or Level 5 might be possible. ISCED Level 4 programmes cannot be viewed as tertiary programmes as regards their content. Very often they are not located considerably above the level of ISCED Level 3 programmes. However, they offer the possibility to extend the knowledge of those who have completed Level 3. Usually participants are older than those at Level 3. There is no age limit. Programmes may last from half a year to three years. There is a distiction between ISCED 4a programmes, which prepare for ISCED Level 5a or are an entry requirement for that level, and ISCED 4b programmes, which do not give access to ISCED Level 5, but serve above all to prepare for entry into the ↑ labour market,
First Stage of Tertiary Education (not leading directly to an advanced research qualification) (ISCED Level 5) ISCED Level 5 programmes are more sophisticated than programmes of upper secondary education (Level 3) or programmes of post-secondary non-tertiary education (Level 4). Admission requirements are typically the successful completion of Level 3a or 3b, or comparable qualifications at Level 4a. Level 5 programmes have a minimum duration of two years. They do not lead directly to a doctorate or a comparable advanced research qualification (ISCED Level 6).
ISCED Level 5a Higher education lasts three to five years. Level 5a is in most cases completed by the acquirement of a degree (Bachelor, Master, Engineer) at a university of applied sciences or a university. This level includes all research-oriented study programmes that are not part of a doctoral programme. The content of these programmes has a stronger the-
Handbook of TVET Research
oretical and scientific orientation than the programmes at Levels 3 and 4. Admission to this level requires the successful completion of Level 3a or 3b or a similar qualification from Level 4a. All university degrees are classified at the tertiary level in a comparative perspective in terms of type of programme, position within the national structure of degrees or qualifications, and overall duration. Included are consecutive study programmes like the American Master’s degree. The entire period of study must be at least three years (full-time equivalent).
ISCED Level 5b Qualifications at ISCED Level 5b typically entail shorter periods of study than those at Level 5a. They are vocationally oriented, focus on practical work and are directed towards immediate entry into the labour market. Nevertheless there is some theoretical foundation. The degree awarded is relevant for the labour market. Direct access to the ↑ research programmes at ISCED Level 6 is not possible. Admission requirements for Level 5b are the completion of ISCED Level 3b or 4a in a specific discipline in combination with a vocational qualification.
Second Stage of Tertiary Education (leading directly to an advanced research qualification) (ISCED Level 6) This level is reserved for post-graduate studies tha directly lead to an advanced research qualification like the Ph.D. These programmes therefore focus on further studies and original research and not just on the attendance at advanced courses. 1.0.3
Determination of Consistency and Continuity of TVET Research through the Development of National TVET Systems
The national development paths of TVET systems are embedded into the respective historical processes. The field of TVET research relates to the relevant domains of the TVET systems in question. In the course of historical development the ↑ research field is continuously extended. The period covered may be only three decades (as in ↑ Aus-
Genesis of TVET Research
tralia) or last more than a century (as in Germany and the ↑ USA). In Germany Georg Kerschensteiner already in 1901 presented a ↑ comparative study of the TVET systems of Bavaria’s neighbour states in order to collect information for the further development of the technical ↑ school system in Munich (K ERSCHENSTEINER 1901a). This way he established a (comparative) research whose major epistemic interest was the development of the domestic system on the basis of understanding “alien” TVET systems as an important department of TVET research. In the ↑ USA the scientific investigation of TVET also started at the turn form the 19th to the 20th century when the first schools and departments of education, whose primary mission was the education of teachers, were established at colleges and universities. On the other hand the example of ↑ France shows that the “disesteem” of TVET, together with the dominant supply of qualifications for the ↑ labour market through the system of general education (including university education, naturally led to the consequence that an autonomous TVET system and the corresponding research activities did not develop as fully as was observed in Germany and the Netherlands. In all studies included here the monitoring and support of the development of the national TVET system is identified as the major reason for the genesis of TVET research. What is crucial for the positive reception by policy-makers and thus for the promotion of the continuity of this constellation is the expected positive contributions of a developed TVET system for the economic development and for the welfare of a country. Moreover, the integrative capacity of the TVET system with regard to socially ↑ disadvantaged and marginalised groups is emphasised. The systematic and comparative view across national boundaries, i.e. comparative TVET research, on the other hand, is chosen as a focal point only in the studies on ↑ China, Germany, France and ↑ Japan. Comparative TVET research is distinct from international TVET research in that the latter in most cases only accidentally extends beyond the national boundaries and in that the systematic comparison is not given priority.
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A further aspect of the founding periods in Germany and the USA is typical of the worldwide tradition of TVET research. The early researchers were neither TVET researchers nor vocational pedagogues. They were educational researchers in a wider sense and, in terms of scientific discipline, predominantly “pure” social scientists (psychologists, sociologists, political scientists) or pedagogues and philosophers, like John Dewey and Georg Kerschensteiner. Germany has a special position in the development of TVET research because since the academic drift (relating to the education at universities) of the teacher education for the TVET system a recruitment of graduates for academic careers and thus for careers in TVET research has become usual. This situation led to the effect that in Germany, unlike most other countries, a scientific discipline of its own called “↑ vocational pedagogy” could emerge, which in the beginning was present only in those places where TVET teachers were educated at universities (LIPSMEIER 1972). In the USA the research in TVET also has a long tradition, but in the context of teacher education in general and thus in the context of research in education. TVET research in the USA can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century. Since then it has remained vital especially with the help of federal funding programmes and less in virtue of the results of an independent research discipline. This situation, which is quite common, also leads to the consequence that there is a lack of qualified young researchers in TVET research. In ↑Australia this situation is currently being reviewed critically and support for researchers is advocated as it can be predicted that the present generation is “greying” and that young researchers in ↑ educational research rather specalise in one field and are less inclined towards the multidisciplinary domain of TVET research, which involves many societal spheres. Is it possible to overcome these problems by constituting an independent scientific discipline TVET research on the basis of a monolithic paradigm and a homogeneous methodological concept? The establishment of TVET research as a ‘monopolist’ in the domain of TVET can be justified neither from
28
Handbook of TVET Research
the perspective of the philosophy of science nor by considerations of research practice. Other social sciences and ↑ humanities like sociology, psychology, economics, law or philosophy, but also natural sciences and engineering have just as well a research interest in TVET and its contexts in culture, society, economy and technology. Their selfconcepts will continue to be defined via ↑ research objects and the epistemic interest. What is crucial for the attribution of a research object to TVET research is the pedagogical research interest as it is explained in the definition of TVET research (see the following section) that is used here. In that sense pedagogical TVET research has a guiding function, for it is this pedagogical approach that integrates and concentrates the divergent interests of researchers from a multitude of different disciplines. 1.0.4
TVET Research as Multi- and Interdisciplinary Research: Epistemic Interest, Research Fields and Research Methods
Research in TVET has a multi- or ↑ interdisciplinary structure and extends beyond the original core, systems research, which mostly accompanies the development of national TVET systems and works out a philosophical classification and justification of vocational education, as well as beyond methodological teaching research (teaching and learning research), which is important for the professional work of teachers at ↑ vocational schools. TVET research nowadays is concerned with phenomena of education and training that are directly or indirectly related to occupations, to the acquisition of (vocational) qualifications, and to (professional) work activities. It investigates the conditions, processes and consequences of the acquisition of these professional and general qualifications in the context of cultural, social, political, historical and economic conditions, e. g. personal and social attitudes and orientations that appear relevant for the ↑ performance of (professionally) organised ↑ work processes in initial and continuing training (including ↑ informal learning). The systems of vocational education have to be situated and viewed in the context of the entire education
system (ACHTENHAGEN 1999; DFG 1990; LAUTER2003b). This extensive definition of TVET research includes the various national ↑ research fields. These in turn are retrospective when they concentrate on the historical development of vocational education, up-to-date when the philosophy of the TVET system in question, its curricular structure or its quality in relation to the current challenges are investigated, or prospective when the contribution of a specific TVET system to the fulfilment of the expected future qualification needs is assessed. It is the societal and economic contexts that deliver the ↑ research questions for ↑ qualification research, ↑ labour market research or ↑ transition research (this sub-discipline is concerned with the transition – very often of particular social groups – from general to vocational education and from there to ↑ further education or professional work). TVET research as practice-oriented research supplies the public, the stakeholders involved, TVET planners and administrators as well as policy-makers with categorial interpretation schemes for the ↑ structuration of reality. This way TVET research helps to prepare solutions for future reforms. The definition of practical research objectives is closely connected to the controversial question to what extent TVET research actually can make a contribution to the improvement of the TVET system and offer solutions for the planning of practical actions. This functionalist paradigm of “change for the better” has been a constitutive and dominant part of theories from the beginning to this day. It is this very functionalism that demonstrates the close interrelationship between the current research topics and the political circumstances. At present, for instance, the quality of TVET in relation to the national TVET system or the autonomy of training institutions are in focus.
BACH
“The particular […] question raised is: how does the structure of a society, and in particular that of its schools, which can be conceptualized as systems, contribute to the viability of that society, its survival and ↑ efficiency: in other words, what link is there between structure and function?” (HALLS 1990, 36).
The ↑ research design of the studies is based on fundamental theories and paradigms that refer to specific concepts in the philosophy of science, e. g. positivism, evolutionary theories, the func-
Genesis of TVET Research
tion of experiments in social research, induction theory, world systems theory etc. (LAUTERBACH 2003b, 125 ff.). As TVET research, being an integrative discipline, discusses and adapts theories from the ↑ humanities as well as the social sciences, the discourse (regarding theories, methods and research topics) that is present in the corresponding disciplines will sooner or later take place in TVET research, too. Whereas up to the 1980s there were fierce fundamental arguments between different scientific schools, the war of paradigms has since then been replaced more and more by a community of scientists who no longer concentrate on these disputes, but use their research capacities to realise scientific products. Husén summarised with regard to the ‘realistic turn’ that the single denominations are not capable of answering ‘all’ questions and that their results are prone to sustain conflicts and to communicate an inadequate world-view (HUSÉN 1988). As regards the ↑ research field of TVET systems, two approaches can be distinguished. In the first one the TVET system is perceived and analysed as a closed social system. The second theoretical model situates the TVET system in the context of social forces. By means of an ↑ interdisciplinary ↑ research approach the social, political and economic functions that society assigns to the TVET system are examined (cf. K AZAMIAS / SCHWARTZ 1977, 159 ff.). The practice of research is dominated by projects that follow a pragmatic realism and look into single aspects of the national TVET system without calling the latter into question. These projects are in most cases commissioned by public bodies. The paradigms that define the topics of these research activities develop further or are linked to specific phases. Current research projects – besides the comprehensive approaches of the ↑ UNESCO – refer, for instance, to the ↑ mobility of citizens in the European Union with regard to ↑ labour markets and national TVET systems. Theories determine the ↑ research questions, which is exemplified in the EU by the replacement of the theory of convergence of national TVET systems with the theory of transparency of national systems. These theories are in most cases the extracts of research projects
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that were taken up by politics and led to a change of strategy. This proximity to society and politics generates different paradigms for the national styles of TVET research. Whilst in ↑ Australia a major ↑ research problem is more oriented towards the ↑ economics of education, like “important questions around the return on investment to enterprises from training”, in Germany or ↑ France there are, besides many functionalist empirical studies, fundamental research approaches that look into the parity of esteem of TVET in comparison to general education at the systems level or into equality of opportunities (socio-economic status, gender) at the individual level. This also includes research activities that build upon a humanistic instead of a functionalist paradigm. These investigate the societal issue of ↑ work process oriented “skilled work”, which is supposed to lead to the identification of the skilled worker with his work, under many aspects which are also practically relevant, including the context of the ↑ European Qualifications Framework. TVET research in the ↑ USA also is not confined to the functionalist research mostly commissioned by the federal government (department of labour, department of education). Research also examines the relationship between society and the TVET system as in the case of a priority programme on the dissemination of vocationalism, which “strengthened the field and helped to make it respected among other educators, business, industry and the general public”. In France, fundamental research questions like “socio-professional integration of young adults has developed considerably” are addressed as well. These are standing in the tradition of French sociology of education. In the context of ↑ internationalisation (↑ OECD, ↑ ILO, UNESCO) and the development of the European Union research questions that relate to these wider geographical and political areas gain relevance besides the national aspects. Here it is not only the research questions, which, as in the EU, start from the mobility principle of the European treaties and cover various aspects like quality, competences, mutual recognition, the European Qualifications Framework etc., but also the financial support of projects that more and more
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suggests itself as an alternative to national funding schemes. In the EU diverse national ↑ research traditions and developmental stages of TVET research encounter each other. The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Centre européen pour le developpement de la formation professionnelle, ↑ CEDEFOP) in Thessaloniki, Greece (http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/), being the institution of the European Commission that initiates and coordinates “European” TVET research, documents these national traditions in its European Reports on Vocational ↑ Training Research in Europe (TESSARING 1998c; DESCY/ TESSARING 2001; DESCY/ TESSARING 2005), which are published since 1998. The reports attempt to link these traditions to research aspects that are relevant for the EU and thus promote the establishment of a common basis for a European approach in TVET research. The first report Training for a changing society witnesses to the fact that fundamental systemic ↑ research questions were the starting point in this context, too. In the meantime special problems are addressed: Training and learning for competence (second report), Evaluation and impact of education and training (third report) and Modernising of vocational education and training (fourth report). Currently the fifth report is being prepared, which will feature a Foresight study on themes and issues. Since TVET has gained considerable importance in EU politics in the context of the ↑ mobility principle (with regard to the ↑ labour market, initial and continuing training, ↑ informal learning, ↑ lifelong learning etc.) and the objectives of the ↑ Lisbon declaration (2000), a multitude of projects in TVET research is directly commissioned by the Commission or by ↑CEDEFOP. Research activites relating to the monitoring of the development of national TVET systems in the context of ↑ TVET cooperation are pursued by the ↑ ETF (European Training Foundation, Torino, Italy) (http:// www.etf.europa.eu/), an EU institution, within the framework of cooperation with East European, Asian and Mediterranean countries by its own research and particularly by project contracts. European collaborative research activities are also possible within the framework of the EU’s ↑ Leonar-
Handbook of TVET Research
do da Vinci programme and its current Lifelong Learning Programme phase from 2007 to 2013. European TVET research is also stimulated by the Seventh Research Framework Programme of the EU (http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm) and by the support of scientific networks in the context of COST (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research) (http://www.cost. esf.org/), an organisation of the European Science Foundation (ESF) (http://www.esf.org). These two initiatives refer to the entire range of research from technology to social research, but can be used by TVET research. Unlike the EU’s afore-mentioned commissioned research, where many parameters like ↑ research field, epistemic interest and methods are often already fixed in the call for tenders, “independent” TVET research with its own project ideas that reach beyond the functionalist framework is given opportunities for realisation here. The extension of the research field in TVET research leads to the question of the dominant ↑ research methods. Here a certain pluralism can be found, too. Whereas in the beginning there was a dominance of hermeneutical methods all over the world – suffice it to mention John Dewey (EDMAN 1955; KONRAD 1998) – nowadays quantitative methods of the social sciences prevail. The choice of methods is the expression of a particular developmental level, a particular epoch of TVET research, and it directly corresponds to the research themes and thus to the type of studies. With the turn towards pragmatic realism since the 1980s the idea of ‘the one and only correct’ research method was also abandoned. Whilst in a total analysis of a TVET system mostly qualitative methods are used, quantitative methods are clearly preferred when a problem approach is at stake. Moreover, one has to distinguish between studies that focus on one country and studies that address a topic or national systems in a comparative perspective. The complexity of the field of TVET research and the structural impossibility to define it more precisely also have the consequence that methodological approaches are difficult to develop and that their implementation in research practice is quite complex. One can refer to the still missing international large scale assessments in TVET, which could not be realised so far for this reason. It
Genesis of TVET Research
is also for this reason that comparative evaluative and categorising total analyses of national TVET systems, which were popular up to the 1990s, are hardly ever conducted nowadays. A widespread type of research are case studies, which investigate various national phenomena on the basis of a clearly defined research field and epistemic interest and juxtapose the results. Here the cooperation of different researchers from various countries turns out to be particularly fruitful for the results. For the purpose of describing and analysing the state of development or the current state of a national TVET system, the European situation or any other geographical space, indicator-based educational reporting (mostly in the context of the entire national system of education) is becoming more and more important. Suffice it to mention the Conditions of Education (↑ USA) or Bildung in Deutschland. A valuable tool is the compilation of national data by Eurostat (http:// epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/) and Eurydice (http:// www.eurydice.org/), which has improved considerably over the last few years. The European Research Reports by ↑ CEDEFOP that were already mentioned allow for a quick overview of the variety of ↑ research methods used and the types of studies. 1.0.5
Who are the Customers and Who Carries out TVET Research?
This leads to the task for the agents who use the results of TVET research to prepare governance decisions, to evaluate their effects or to optimise vocational qualification processes. Besides the dominant state institutions one has to name above all the social partners (employer associations and trade unions). Therefore the national, supranational and international agents who are commissioning research projects can be found almost exclusively in the relevant institutions (like ministries of education, ministries of labour, ministries of science, European Commission etc.). The tenderers are diversified with regard to TVET researchers and institutions. As already explained there are, besides “original” TVET researchers, scientists from the most various disciplines. This statement also applies to the institutions carrying out TVET research. Besides classical university
31
institutes there are independent research institutions and private consultants. An intermediate position is assumed by institutes that are run or funded by the state like the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training/BIBB (Germany), the ↑ National Centre for Vocational Education Research/NCVER (↑ Australia), the Centre d’études et de recherche sur les qualifications/Céreq (↑ France), the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority/QCA in England or the ↑ National Center for Research in Vocational Education/NCRVE or, respectively, the National Research and Dissemination Centers for ↑ Career and Technical Education/NCCTE (USA) etc. Besides proper research they also contract research projects and carry out research coordination (at the mandate of the state executive) as well as documentation and ↑ reporting on TVET and TVET research. Similar tasks are fulfilled by EU institutions like CEDEFOP and ↑ ETF. An important part for the internal discourse and the external dissemination, and thus for the constitution of the discipline, is played by the scientific associations of TVET research. These have a long tradition in the USA (↑ American Vocational Education Research Association) and Germany (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft, DGfE). At the European level it is the European Educational Research Association (EERA). Like the DGfE in Germany the EERA is an umbrella organisation of researchers with different thematic and methodological orientations. Both organisations feature a commission, or, respectively, a working group for TVET research. Given their diversity, TVET researchers are also represented in other national and international scientific associations, especially in those of sociology, psychology and political science, but always among general pedagogues as independent associations or commissions for TVET research still do not exist in many countries. 1.0.6
Results and Perspectives
TVET research has a history that cannot be described as a closed development, given that the categorisation in one single discipline like education, sociology, psychology etc. is hardly ever possible. This constellation is typical. It also shows
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that TVET research is often inter- or multidisciplinary due to its complexity, and that – apart from research in established university institutes and research centres – a multitude of agents is (often only temporarily) active in this domain so that an overview of their research activities is almost impossible. Moreover, TVET research is often application-oriented and funded via projects. Accordingly this type of research is also attractive for consulting firms and private consultants. This diversity is also an effect of the proximity of TVET to the economy, the ↑ labour market and thus to politics. Education and TVET are in the focus at the national, supranational (EU) and international levels (↑ UNESCO, ↑ OECD) because it is hoped that their development will improve the qualification of the population and promote economic welfare. In order to find out more about these processes, manifold research activities are conducted. This policy-driven research is supported by interested political institutions with increasing financial means from the public budgets. At the moment this is done especially in the EU also with long-term funding perspectives. The agents within this scheme of commissioned research are quite different in terms of motivation and status. It might well be that “serious” sociologists, psychologists, economists etc. who are recognised in their own scientific community occasionally perform studies in TVET research.Sustainable perspectives with regard to the development and cultivation of paradigms, theories and methods in TVET research can be developed rather at university institutes whose primary mission is the edcuation of teachers for the TVET system, and at research institutes whose statutes prescribe that TVET is (also) addressed. Besides these it is especially the national and international scientific associations and the congresses they organise that can contribute to the constitution and consolidation of a recognised discipline TVET research via internal and external discourse. The continuity of this discipline is particularly dependent on the development of human resources. Up to now this took place rather by chance in most countries. Very often researchers came from one of the other social sciences. If no undergraduate programme is offered, the specialised education of
Handbook of TVET Research
young researchers as experts for the TVET system should therefore be promoted. As was shown here, the national, supranational and international conditions for the project of consolidating TVET research are particularly favourable at the moment.
1.1
Genesis of VET Research: Case Study of Australia Philip Loveder and Hugh Guthrie
This chapter describes the genesis and development of research in Vocational Education and Training (VET) in ↑ Australia over the last thirty years from the mid 1970s through to the mid 2000s, a period of significant and dynamic change in the vocational training landscape of this country. It traces the origins of research from the watershed Kangan Committee report of 1974 through to the present national program of research and evaluation. Finally, there is a discussion on the future of ↑ VET research in Australia that identifies some challenges facing research in the system. 1.1.1
Origins of VET Research in Australia: The Period from 1974– 1984
↑ Research in VET began, as with so many things in vocational education and training in Australia, with the Kangan Committee report of 1974. The committee was established by the Whitlam Federal Government in 1973 to provide advice to the then Minister of Education, Mr Kim Beazley (Senior) on matters related to the development of ↑ technical and further education in Australia. It was chaired by Myer Kangan, the Deputy Secretary of the Australian Department of Labour and a renowned educator. With the exception of ↑ curriculum development research, itself hampered by limited funding, little research into vocational education and training was being done in 1974 in Australia. Some occurred in State/Territory education departments, but the results of most of that research were not published. National research, conducted primarily in the higher education sector, did sometimes have rel-
Genesis of TVET Research
evance for technical education. Research in the schools sector was also significant. Research into vocational education and training was, and was to remain until the mid 1990s, a road less travelled. Of particular relevance to the growth of a ↑ research capacity was Kangan’s proposal for a threepronged attack to improve research effort in VET. First, it recommended the setting up of an ‘Australian ↑ Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Technology Centre’. Its purposes were to ‘adopt technology to vocational education, and research, develop and produce learning and other educational aids by itself or through others.’ It was intended that it should also: – Be a clearinghouse for research – Disseminate information from abroad – Commission relevant research – Publish a journal – Arrange for textbook publication – Train researchers This was the first conceptual thinking about developing a coordinated national ↑ research capacity in VET in ↑ Australia, initially to occur through a dedicated centre. (HALL, W. 1994) reported that while nothing came of Kangan’s recommendation at the time it was resurrected by the Committee of Inquiry into Education and Training (the Williams Committee) five years later (COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA 1979). That inquiry recommended the establishment of a National Centre for Research and Development in TAFE, which would be given the task of conducting projects in areas such as: – Planning and production of teaching materials – Analysing skills for occupations – Accrediting courses – Classifying courses and awards – Using technological aids in teaching – Development of self-paced learning programs The TAFE National Centre for Research and Development (later to become the ↑ NCVER) was finally established in June 1980, after the Conference of TAFE Directors and the Chairman of the Technical and Further Education Council (TAFEC) prepared a proposal for the Australian Education Council (AEC) meeting in October 1979. At that meeting a draft charter was accepted which made provision for the review of the Centre after three
33
years. The Memorandum of the Articles of Association was signed by all Ministers of Education in June 1981. The Centre was created as a company registered in the state of South ↑ Australia and limited by guarantee on 2 September 1981 and it started its national operations in November of that year. Much of the early research activity of the newly created TAFE National Centre was centred on curriculum and materials development, training standards and skills analysis, audit and competency-based ↑ training research. In fact, much of the history of ↑ VET research in Australia parallels the history of NCVER itself (see NCVER 2001a). The second research thrust of the Kangan report was to recommend the allocation of funds for research quite separate from the funds needed for the proposed technology centre. This finally became a reality following the establishment of the Australian National Training Authority (↑ ANTA) Research Advisory Council (ANTARAC) in 1994, following the 1993 report by Professor Rod McDonald and his colleagues from the University of Technology Sydney, entitled: No small change: Proposals for a research and development strategy for vocational education and training in Australia. In the report, they characterised VET research at that time as a fragmented activity that was underfunded and had little or no relevance to policy or practice in the VET sector. The publication of the report also coincided with the establishment of the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) in 1993 with a brief to oversee the development of the sector. The presence of this single agency meant that the report’s recommendations for a large increase in national funding for VET research could be acted upon quickly, in contrast to the general Australian Research Council (ARC) review of ↑ educational research in Australia (MCGAW/ BOUD / POOLE ET AL. 1992), whose recommendations for similar action were considered by a large number of agencies, none of whom had sole responsibility for action (SMITH 2001). The third research thrust was to recommend that funds should be allocated for the training of technical college teachers in ↑ research methods. In particular, this was seen as a way of building the ‘in-house’ research capacity as well as encourag-
34
Handbook of TVET Research
ing practitioners to undertake their own actionbased research projects. A second report on needs in Technical and Further Education was published a year after the Kangan report. This report suggested the setting up of a ↑ statistics working party. This was done and, after a variety of name changes, provided the antecedents of the present National Training Statistics Committee (NTSC) in ↑ Australia. 1.1.2
Maturing of VET Research: The Period from 1985–2005
The period from 1985 to the present, and especially since the mid 1990s, saw a significant increase in the volume and scope of ↑ VET research occurring in Australia. From the mid 1990s, the role of the ↑ NCVER in particular changed from being the major producer of research in Australia, increasingly toward being a manager, knowledge broker and disseminator of research on behalf of the sector. At the same time, it maintained its own active research and also became the custodian of the national VET ↑ statistics collection program. The report mentioned earlier: No small change in 1993 was a watershed in facilitating increased government funding into vocational training-related research. Historically, universities and Colleges of Advanced Education had little research interest in the VET sector, especially as little funding was available, directly from government or through the Australian Research Council. Also, the Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs), traditionally the educational training ground for VET teachers, had little or no research mandate. Until the CAEs became or were amalgamated with existing universities, therefore, there were few academic resources upon which to draw. Most VET ↑ research capacity, therefore, was either at the NCVER or in the State and Territory Government Departments concerned with vocational education and training. Traditionally, research was not considered a major role of the VET teacher/trainer, so little practitioner research was happening either. With government money coming on stream earmarked specifically for VET research, universities in particular started to develop research concentrations focussing on VET, usually associated with teacher training or ↑ adult education faculties or schools.
Researchers competed for nationally-competitive grants administered through ANTARAC until 1996 and NCVER thereafter. The ANTA Research Advisory Committee (ANTARAC), which had oversight for determining research priorities and ensuring they were aligned to ↑ policy and practice was established in 1994. The work of the committee (and later the National Research and Evaluation Committee – NREC, a sub-committee of NCVER’s board in late 1996) was the first time that a major, national approach had been taken to closely define research needs for the sector. ANTARAC played an important part in starting to build a research culture and interest in vocational education and training. This interest began to develop both in the VET sector itself, but also in a range of universities. In 1997, the NCVER was commissioned by ANTA and the federal government to manage the new grants program and developed the first national strategy for research for VET to support it (NCVER 1997). The strategy covered the period from 1997 to 2000 and identified both priorities for research and described approaches to be used to effectively disseminate the outcomes of the research. With responsibility for both the collection of national VET statistics and coordination of research in the sector, the NCVER was at the time unique in the world. Since then, there has been a further ↑ research strategy, which was published in 2001 (NCVER 2001b). This strategy was developed to support Australia’s national VET Strategy at that time: ‘A Bridge to the future: Australia’s national Strategy for Vocational Education and Training 1998–2003’ (ANTA 1998). Since then annual research priorities have been determined and published. Current priorities support the present national VET Strategy: ‘Shaping our future: The National Strategy for Vocational Education and Training 2004–2010’ (ANTA 2004a). The board of the NCVER also has an important role in advising the federal and state and territory ministers on research priorities. In 1997, the Australian VET Research Association (↑ AVETRA) was founded. It was established with initial financial assistance from the ↑ Australian National Training Authority Research Advisory Council and the National Centre for Vocational
Genesis of TVET Research
Education Research (NCVER). It is committed to furthering the contribution of VET research to the development of Australian ↑ VET policy, promoting independent and significant ↑ research in VET and promoting training in ↑ research methods for those working in or with the VET sector. At the same time, ↑ ANTA established a program of national key centres for ↑ VET research to enable concentrations of expertise in VET to be funded to undertake three-year programs of research into specific aspects of VET ↑ policy and practice. Three centres, at the University of Technology Sydney, Monash University and the University of Tasmania, were initially funded in 1997, with a fourth established at Melbourne University and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2000. The work of the centres has been very important in building ↑ research capacity in VET as well as in exploring major issues in the VET sector such as the economics of VET, ↑ workplace learning and rural and regional issues. Much of the research occurring during the early and mid 1990s centred around research into government and industry policy, the economics of training, ↑ labour market issues (especially research covering skills analysis, occupational trends and industry skill requirements), profiles of students and trainees and research into teachers and trainers. On top of this, research into ↑ curriculum development and delivery (pedagogy), a tradition of university faculties of education, was ongoing (MCDONALD / HAYTON / GONCZI / HAGER 1993). Research into VET in ↑ Australia is now increasingly driven by the needs of the stakeholders of VET: in particular, governments, policy makers and industry. The research themes relate more closely to economic and social policy imperatives. With the advent of national statistical collections and student outcome and tracer surveys, quantitative research as well as major ↑ longitudinal studies are becoming increasingly commonplace in Australia and allow the system to gauge the efficacy of particular policies and programs. The national VET ↑ statistics, surveys and research, for example, underpin the Annual National Report of the VET sector produced by the federal government each year and which is tabled in the Australian parliament.
35
More recently, there has been greater focus on particular clients of VET, in particular, Indigenous Australians, and interest in international ↑ benchmarking research to understand how well Australia is performing internationally. Australian research centres (including the ↑ NCVER) are increasingly participating in important comparative research with overseas counterparts, including through the ↑ United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organisation (UNESCO), the ↑ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the ↑ International Labour Organisation (ILO). ↑ Research in VET is now defined strategically around ‘themes’, these being determined by key stakeholders in the VET sector. Presently, the five (5) research themes NCVER uses, and which is the basis for consultation on research priorities, are: – Students and individuals – The ↑ VET system – VET in context – Industry and employers; and – Teaching and learning. Major syntheses of entire bodies of research are now occurring increasingly in VET, while NCVER has, for the first time in Australia, adopted a systematic review approach (based on the Cochrane Collaboration approach in the United Kingdom) to answering important policy questions by identifying and critically appraising available research evidence. In this way, the research can become a more valuable tool for decision-making for policy and practice (ANLEZARK / DAWE / HAYMAN 2005). NCVER, with federal government funding, has introduced a new ‘consortium’ stream to its VET research program. This approach maximises scarce resources and is intended to increase research productivity and quality through collaboration between a number of institutions and key researchers on topics addressed by each consortium’s work. It is anticipated that this approach will be more resource efficient, and provide for longer term and strategic research on issues of significance for the VET sector. Each consortium involves researchers drawn from two or more organisations. The length of projects is between two and two- and a half years, with a to-
36
Handbook of TVET Research
tal of over $1.3 million allocated to the current two projects around: – Tailoring VET to future work skill needs; and – Supporting VET providers in building capability for the future. ( S ELBY S MITH / H AWKE / M C D ONALD / S ELBY S MITH 1998) examined the impact of research on VET decision-making. From its earliest days the national managed program of ↑ VET research has placed great emphasis on research utilisation and dissemination by the VET sector. Agencies such as the ↑ NCVER actively promote research to industry and the wider community through targeted stakeholder forums, development of value-added research products and services and special briefings. To ensure maximum coverage and access to research information, the world-wide web is being used extensively, including on-line forums and ‘webinars’. NCVER, in particular, is adopting an increasing knowledge broker role on behalf of the VET sector in ↑ Australia and works closely with a variety of education and community partners to make for a more dynamic training system (GUTHRIE 2002). Special resources are now available for researchers including the NCVER-↑ UNESCO VOCED international bibliographic database which has over 30,000 entries from many different countries. 1.1.3
Future Directions and Challenges for VET Research in Australia
VET research has come a long way in Australia in the last 30 years from just a few disparate concentrations of research activity to a coordinated major program of research that links more closely with VET ↑ policy and practice. Research now plays a more important role in system improvement and national reporting and will continue to have an influence over teaching practice and quality improvement. Having said this, there are still criticisms in some quarters that VET research is still not having sufficient impact on national and state ↑ training policies. (SMITH 2001) reports that the traditional 12–18 month project-based model of ↑ educational research neither suits the needs of the busy policy maker who has to react quickly to changes in the policy landscape, nor the more ‘practical’ needs
of the ↑ VET practitioner. While at the same time, shorter, ‘snap-shot’ research as Smith refers to it only leads, inevitably, to conclusions that stress the need for more research. The need for longer-term, multi-sectoral and longitudinal research is becoming more important in Australia, as is research that links educational experience across general education, VET and higher education and the workforce. Policy makers require more information about the strengths and weaknesses of our system, what happens to our graduates in terms of ↑ labour market ↑ participation and further study outcomes after they complete their VET studies, and how the formal training system is meeting the demands of a changing society. The way to ensure that research continues to ‘hit the mark’ according to Smith is to ensure research becomes more thematic, clustered around priorities and key questions of importance to the VET sector and which uses a range of methodological approaches and involves the key stakeholders. The current National Vocational Education and ↑ Training Research and Evaluation (NVETRE) program managed by the NCVER as mentioned in the previous section, very much adopts the thematic approach emphasising the need to address issues of importance to the sector and the broader community. The way in which stakeholders prefer to access research findings is changing as well. Research ‘products’ that synthesise a range of research and provide evidence of the outcome of particular policy interventions is greatly valued. Replacing traditional research publications with shorter, more targeted publications that can be easily accessed and used in the sector, is being seen as an important strategy in making better use of existing research. Communicating the outcomes of research will continue to present a challenge, however, and ensuring that the key messages are in a form accessible to industry will mean using new and innovative strategies to get the word out, such as stakeholder forums and briefings. Of significant importance to the future of ↑ VET research in Australia is the need to train the next generation of researchers. Many who have become involved in VET research have come from careers without much formal research training according to Smith (SMITH 2001). On top of this, formal re-
Genesis of TVET Research
search training programs in the universities still tend to produce specialised academic researchers rather than the multi-skilled researcher that the ↑ VET system increasingly requires. Smith believes few of these new graduates are equipped to make a serious contribution to the field of VET research. Despite efforts by professional researcher bodies such as ↑ AVETRA to promote research within the sector itself, there appears to be a dearth of ‘practitioner-based’ research expertise. The result of all of these factors has been a ‘greying’ of the ↑ VET research community in ↑ Australia, and a key challenge will be to identify new pathways and develop training programs that teach the research skills required for the future pool of researchers. Finally, despite the significant inroads made, there are still some lingering concerns around VET research relevance and utilisation in Australia. Industry is still looking for research that answers important questions around the return on investment to enterprises from training. Issues around solving current and future skills shortages in industry dominate the Australian training landscape as do ways of fast-tracking VET trainees (especially apprentices) into the workforce to help meet the skill shortages being experienced in the Australian economy. VET research in Australia has, for some time now, been demand-side driven, being advised by extensive consultations with the sector; however, a considerable amount of research is still supply-side and investigator-driven. Ensuring that the beneficiaries of the research have the opportunity to communicate their own research needs is essential; however, actively engaging with the research community itself and participating in the research will be equally important in the future. In this regard, the researchers themselves will continue to play an important role. 1.1.4
1974 1979
1981
37
1985
Australian Journal of TAFE Research and Development launched 1989 International conference on national research and development in vocational education organised by the TAFE National Centre and held in Adelaide Australian conference of TAFE Directors initiates the TAFE National Centre’s second review 1991 Statistics division established and TAFE National Centre for Research and Development takes over responsibility for annual statistics collection under a contract from the Commonwealth Department of Employment Education and Training. Second review of the TAFE National Centre for Research and Development conducted by John White and Maratha Kinsman is completed. 1992 TAFE National Centre for Research and Development changes its name to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) A conference on what future there is for technical and vocational education and training was organised by NCVER and held in Melbourne 1993 Journal first published in 1985 changes name to Australian and New Zealand Journal of Vocational Education Research ‘No small change’ report published 1994 ↑ ANTA Research Advisory Council (ANTARAC) established 1996 NCVER takes new responsibility for national managed VET research and evaluation program under contract from ANTA The National Research and Evaluation Committee (NREC) established, replacing ANTARAC 1997 First national research strategy for vocational education in Australia published covering the period 1997–2000 2001 The second national research and evaluation strategy for vocational education and training 2001– 2003 published 2004 – Annual national research priorities for VET – 2006 2004, 2005 and 2006
1.2
Chronology of VET Research in Australia Kangan Committee recommends setting up an ‘Australian TAFE Technology Centre’ Williams Enquiry recommends establishment of a National Centre for Research and Development in TAFE National TAFE Clearinghouse established TAFE National Centre for Research and Development begins operations in November.
Research on China’s Technical and Vocational Education Jiang Dayuan, Yu Zhijing and Yao Shuwei
1.2.1
Theme and Visual Threshold
Although the ↑ vocational school as the symbol of modern and contemporary technical and vocational education’s (referred to hereafter as “TVE”)
38
Handbook of TVET Research
coming into being in ↑ China had already emerged in the middle of the 19th century, and the guiding ideology of theoretic construction of TVE can trace its roots back to the opinions of Huang Yanpei, the leading educator in the late Qing Dynasty (→ 3.3.3.1), due to the influence of political factors such as chaos caused by war, it was not until the end of the 1970s that research on TVE was conducted on a large scale and became systematic. Therefore, vocational and technical pedagogy (referred to as “TVP” hereafter) research on TVE is regarded as a new branch of science in ↑ China (JI / TANG / DONG 1995). Taking the above-mentioned facts into consideration, the discussion of this special topic will consider the aspect of changes in the past 20 years. As a science that studies the phenomena of TVE and reveals the laws of its development, vocational and technical pedagogy, is regarded as an important branch of educational science as a whole. It is a comprehensive discipline closely linked with many disciplines (LIU / LI / DONG 1986). The objects of its study can be summed up in three aspects: 1. The relationship between TVE, economic and social development and scientific and technological progress, that is, the external relationship; 2. The relationship between various key elements of TVE internally; 3. The objects of TVE (JI / TANG / DONG 1995). However, different opinions on the above definition have recently occurred. For example, some scholars think that as another type of education, TVE is different from general education/ pedagogy and has the rich connotation of being a ↑ vocational discipline (JIANG 2006). 1.2.2
Important Research and Achievements
Learn Eagerly from the West and Look Towards the Future by Viewing the Past At the beginning of the 1980s, the structural adjustment of secondary education started by the central government promoted the development of China’s TVE on a large scale. Due to the separation caused by the “Cultural Revolution”, people at that time were very unfamiliar with the outside world. In order to look for reference experience, some scholars started to introduce theories and best practices
of foreign TVE to China. Many translated works were published during this time, such as Vocational Education in West Germany (CHINA ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION 1980) and The History of Technical Education of Six Countries (SOCIETY OF JAPAN’S EDUCATIONAL HISTORY 1984) as well as The TVE System of Seven Countries (LIANG / JIN 1990). At that time the Suggestions on TVE of the ↑ UNESCO was translated and had a large influence due to its authoritativeness. Comparisons between Chinese and Foreign TVE compiled by the Foreign Education Institute of Beijing Normal University in 1991 made a breakthrough for the style of the previous translation works, which had mainly made introductions to countries, but now started to have overall comparisons in mind. With the continuous upsurge in the notion of “being oriented to the world”, some scholars tried to foresee the future by referring to “tradition”. In 1985 the National Association of Vocational Education of China (NAVEC) sorted out and published Selections of Education from Huang Yanpei. In 1991, The History of Chinese Vocational Education by Wu Yiqi became the first Chinese monograph on the history of TVE elaborating the tradition of TVE in ancient China and the theories and practices of modern and contemporary TVE. In 1994, The History of China’s TVE by Li Lintian reviewed the history of China’s modern and contemporary TVE in an all-round and systematic way (→ 3.3.3.1). In recent years, as one of the monographic series of books on research into the history of education in China, The History of Vocational Education written by Wen Youxin and Yang Jinmei (2000) has been published.
The Preliminary Construction of TVP The theoretical construction focuses first of all on sorting out the basic concepts such as definition, connotation, system, structure and function. In 1984, An Introduction to Vocational Education compiled by Gao Qi from Beijing Normal University was regarded as the first theoretical work on TVE of the new China. In 1985, An Introduction to Technical Education compiled by the Institute of Educational Science, East China Normal University, systematically discussed the basic problems of technical education and made a special analy-
Genesis of TVET Research
sis of the specific characteristics of technical education. In 1986, Vocational and Technical Pedagogy by Liu Jiannong elaborated on integrated vocational education and technical education and deeply explored the relationship between employment and educational structure. Afterwards more than 10 works on similar topics were published. During this time, Contemporary TVE in ↑ China by Meng Guangping (1993) approached the internal connections and laws of TVE through summarizing previous experiences in running schools on the basis of best educational practice. The Principle of TVE by the ↑ CIVTE (1998b) had value as a pioneering work because it absorbed the latest foreign research achievements and tried to start with occupation analysis to make research on the basic problems such as setting specialties and ↑ curriculum development. Meanwhile, progress was also made in the theoretical discussion in other fields of TVE. Monographs on the study of psychology, management and evaluation in TVE emerged. After entering the 21st century, research on TVE has been further broadened in terms of both range and depth. A new batch of works on TVE has emerged in large numbers, such as Vocational and Technical Pedagogy by Zhang Jiaxiang/ Qian Jingfang and ↑ Vocational Pedagogy by Liu Chunsheng/ Xu Changfa. In the field of comparative education, Comparative TVE by Shi Weiping (2001) made systematic and in-depth analysis on the systems, mechanisms and development modes of TVE in developed countries and areas. In 2002, Liu Laiquan selected the important documents by ↑ UNESCO on TVE which have been created since the 1970s and provided an authoritative global vision to the readers. The Study on the Development of Britain’s Secondary Vocational Education by Zhai Haihun (2005) examined both positive and negative experiences during the evolution of secondary vocational education in Britain in the 20th century. In addition, some valuable monographs on discussing the economics, psychology and curriculum of TVE have been published.
Researches of National Planning Projects Since 1980, research topics on TVE have been included in the national planning program of educational science. During the period of the “Sixth
39
Five-Year Plan”, a total of 6 issues of TVE were included in the national planning projects of educational science, including 2 key state projects, i.e. Study on the Education Problems in Rural Regions and Study on TVE; during the “Seventh Five-Year Plan” period, the number of projects increased to 10, including 2 key state projects, i.e. Study on the Strategy of Vocational Education in Former Revolutionary Base Areas, Areas Inhabited by Minority Nationalities, Mountain Area, Remote and Border Areas and Areas Inhabited by Overseas Chinese and Research on the Strategy of China’s TVE in 2000; during the “Eighth Five-Year Plan” period, the number of projects increased to 31, including 2 key state projects, i.e. Study on Huang Yanpei’s Thinking on Education and Research and ↑ Experimentation of China’s Vocational Education Reform Promotion through Learning from the German ↑ Dual System (→ 4.7); during the “Ninth Five-Year Plan” period, the number of projects increased to 41, including 2 key state projects, i.e. (WEN / YANG 2000, 302), Study on the Issue of Pluralistic School Running System of TVE in the Economically Developed Areas and Study and Experiment on the Theory and Mode of the Development of Rural TVE in China’s Central Area; during the “Tenth Five-Year Plan” period, the number of projects increased to 69, including 5 key state projects, i.e. Study on the Strategy of ↑ Human Resource Development in the West, Study on the Interaction of TVE and Labor Access System, Study on the Strategy of the Chinese Peasants’ Vocational Education in the New Stage, Study on the Development of TVE and Manufacturing Industry and Study on the Development Mode of TVE of “Interactive City and School”. Among these national planning projects, the research topics on the development of regional TVE and various kinds of TVE account for the majority. There are also other special subjects such as higher, secondary and primary TVE and TVE for handicapped children, ↑ comparative study on TVE, specialties setting, information network of TVE, TVE and the ↑ labour market, links and communication between TVE and general education. Generally speaking, these projects stress, in particular, problems at the macro level.
40
Several Fields of Focal Attention (a) Construction of the TVE system Establishing a modern TVE system is an important task of China’s educational reform. This is also an important issue that TVE research has explored for more than twenty years. In 1983, The Ministry of Education (MoE) entrusted East ↑ China Normal University to conduct a special subject research on the construction of the TVE system. The main achievement was to set up three series in the personnel structure, namely an engineering personnel series, a technical personnel series and a workers series; to set up senior skilled workers and technicians in the workers series and to set up relevant schools. This was the first systematic achievement of the exploration of the TVE system. Researchers generally think that TVE is a complex system that involves many aspects, such as school education, short time training, teachers training and management relating to each system. Among all these systems, school education is the core part (MENG / YANG / SUN / WEN 1993, 36–51). The relationship between TVE and economic structure is one of the fields of public concern. Some scholars suggest that economic structure is the basis of various structures in the social sphere and is in the dominant position. Therefore, the economic structure must be taken as the basis of the system and structure of TVE (JI / TANG / DONG 1995, 47). They suggested that the TVE system should realize “four adaptations”, namely adaptation to national economy and ownership, adaptation to employment structure, adaptation to development and change of industrial structure, and adaptation to technical development (MENG / YANG / SUN / WEN 1993, 36–38). During this time, people gradually accepted the idea of lifelong education. They realized that TVE should be a form of education that runs through people’s entire career rather than education that stops at an early stage (MENG / YANG / SUN / WEN 1993, 51). Other people meaningfully categorized the personnel structural theory which is basic for establishing the TVE system and categorized it as “pyramid” type, “occupational belt” type and “stepping” type (CIVTE 1998b). After entering the 21st century, the Chinese government has called for the establishment of a modern educational and ↑ lifelong learning system. An
Handbook of TVET Research
upsurge of research on establishing a new TVE system has quickly formed within the circle of VET. The annual academic conference held by the Chinese Society of TVE in 2003 with the priority of “building a well-off society in an all-round manner and establishing the modern TVE system” is the centralized reflection of this upsurge. Some scholars reflected on the defects of the existing TVE framework and believed that problems of unbalanced arrangement structure and noncomprehensive development exist. The main manifestations are the unbalanced development between different areas as well as within areas, the unbalanced educational safeguarding system of the group of people being educated, the imperfect system that establishes the VET and the fact that the pluralistic pattern of systems for running schools have not actually been realized (ZHOU 2002). Other scholars think that the major defects of the existing system are that it expects to meet people’s lifelong needs through one time education, which cannot completely meet people’s demand for study; that the individual’s specific character and receptive ability are not taken into account; that its model for running schools is too unitary; and that it depends on a general educational system and does not fully reflect the special characteristics of the various types of human talents trained by TVE (HUANG / SHI / GUO / YAN 2004). (b) Curriculum and teaching-learning process In the 1990s, more attention was given to the curriculum and teaching-learning process problem that had puzzled people for a long time. An important symbolic point was that the curriculum and teaching-learning processes of TVE were included in the national planning of research on education as an independent key point. They include the following: Study and Experiment on Curriculum Reform and Teaching Materials Construction of TVE during the “Eighth Five-Year Plan” period, Specialties Setting of ↑ Vocational Schools, Study and Experiment on the Reform of Curriculum and Teaching Materials of Specialties in ↑ Vocational School and Theoretical Method and Experiment Research on the Development of Curriculum Model of Various Levels and Types of TVE during the “Ninth Five-Year Plan” period and Study on Mainstream
Genesis of TVET Research
Ideas of German Vocational Education during the “Tenth Five-Year Plan” period. The Study on Modern Curriculum of TVE (1995) by Yu Li/ Guo Yang and Introduction to Curriculum of Vocational Education by Zhu Xiaobin (1997) are the early attempts at research on TVE curriculum. Study on Curriculum Reform of TVE by Huang Kexiao (1997) and Yan Xueyi proposed the idea of “pluralistic integration” that uses the advanced curriculum theory of foreign TVE for reference extensively, while carrying forward the advantages of the Chinese tradition. Principles of TVE (1998b) by the ↑ CIVTE tried to jump out of the framework of traditional curriculum structures and started with an analysis of occupation and education and their relationship to establish a new concept of TVE curriculum. During this time a batch of research projects with broad experiment scope, big influence and lasting time emerged. Examples include the study of a wide basis and flexible module (JIANG 1997) and Study and Experiment on Curriculum Reform and Teaching Materials Construction of TVE undertaken by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission. After entering the 21st century, the dramatic social reform and TVE with profound changes have hastened the birth of a large batch of new research achievements. Theory, Strategy and Method of Specialties Setting of ↑ Vocational Schools by Jiang Dayuan (2002) starts with ↑ vocation and vocational characteristics to define specialties, which is a breakthrough in the qualitative method of traditional disciplinary category. New Concept of TVET by Zhao Zhiqun (2003) starts from the mutual restricting relationship between technical development, work organisation and ↑ human resource development to introduce the comprehensive discussion and practice of action orientation and ↑ work process systematic study. Jiang and Zhao are also active advocators of the concept of action orientation and promote the idea that ↑ curriculum design should take the work process as the referential criterion (JIANG, D. 2002). Study on Practice-oriented Curriculum of TVE by Xu Guoping (2005) is a work with great influence recently and suggests that the fundamental problem of TVE curriculum is putting too much stress on
41
learning and the need to treat the working practice as the core of the logic of TVE curriculum. At the end of the 1990s, the “Program of Curriculum Reform and Teaching Materials Development in TVE Towards the 21st Century” started by the MoE was an important reform and research practice was directly promoted by the administrative department of education (VOCATIONAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF MOE/CIVTE 2005). With the great development of higher TVE, study on higher TVE and its curriculum also accelerated continuously. Furthermore, the Chinese Society of TVE organized research activities on the TVE curriculum and teaching reform. They were also very influential and strongly promoted the research in this field. (c) Disputes over the “status” of TVE and hot research topics in different stages The dispute over the “status” of TVE has lasted up to now. Some scholars disagree with the view that vocational education and technical education are two types of education, which are both interrelated but different from each other. They maintain that vocational education should include technical education. Some people think that technical education and vocation education are not one system. Other scholars think that the connotation of TVE should be recognized from the angle of lifelong education, to include preparatory, professional and ↑ further education for obtaining employment. The biggest problem with calling TVE vocational education is that it is not advantageous to the training of technical personnel; and this is already very weak, therefore the general formulation of TVET that is used by most countries should be adopted (MENG 2005). Over the last 20 years, with the social reform process, some topics have become the hot points for research at different stages. They include the integration of agriculture, science and education, the relationship between TVE and ↑ labour market reform, ↑ higher vocational education and the integration of production, study and research.
Handbook of TVET Research
42
1.2.3
Research Institutions, Research Methods
Research Institutions After the “Cultural Revolution” had finished in 1976, in order to resume ↑ educational research work, the State Council approved the re-establishment of the Central Institute of Educational Science in 1978. The “Division of Educational System” was set up within the institute to further research on the reform of secondary education structure and TVE. This division was subdivided into TVE and ↑ Adult Education in 1986. In 1991 the ↑ CIVTE was established (→ 3.3.4.2), and the former division of TVE of the Central Institute of Educational Science was incorporated into CIVTE. Many state departments and commissions and the administrative department concerned with industry also have research institutions studying TVE. Most provinces such as Shanghai and Liaoning have independently established provincial level research organisations dealing with TVE. Furthermore, most provincial institutes of educational science, some higher educational institutions and secondary ↑ vocational schools have research institutes (offices) of TVE as well. At present, there are almost 100 central, provincial and city level research institutions of TVE with more than 500 full-time research staff throughout the country. The Chinese Society of TVE is a national civil academic organisation. Under it there are 18 special committees. They absorb more than 70 sub-societies of provinces and industrial departments, organizing and supporting mass research activities on TVE. The long standing NAVEC always attaches importance to research on TVE. It has research organisations, full-time and part time research personnel and publications.
Research methods Due to the understanding that “VTP is a sub-discipline of education science”, the establishment and development of VTP in ↑ China is still based on the theories of general education (ZHANG / QIAN 2001). In China, the following is widely accepted, namely that ↑ educational ↑ research methods can be grasped from three levels: 1. special methods
applicable to a certain disciplinary field; 2. ordinary methods applicable to all the sciences; 3. universal methodologies to understand and remould the world, explore and realize the identity of the subjective and objective world. ↑ Educational research comprehensively uses the methods of the second level to explore the educational phenomena under the direction of the methodologies of the third level. It is on this basis that the great majority of TVE researchers confirm and express their methods (MA 2002). Actually, a large proportion of research on TVE in China is description of experience. But the effort to reveal the linkage between phenomena and the development process of things through describing the characteristics of phenomena and then come to a conclusion is not easy. Therefore, in recent years, some scholars have attempted to develop a specific ↑ methodology for TVE research. They have brought forward the methodological proposal of “interplay between science and basis integration of experience and intellectual enquiries, combination of induction and deduction, unification of history and logic”
and made several significant attempts (ZHOU 2002). Over the last 20 years, “experimental research” has received universal attention. In TVE many experiments are not only used in the micro curriculum and teaching field, but also widely applied in the macro researches such as administration and comprehensive reform. As the importance and urgency of research on curriculum and teaching is becoming increasingly obvious, the concept that “a teacher is a researcher” is gradually becoming universally accepted. Research aimed at enabling teachers to conduct research on education “in education”, “through education” and “for education” is actively introduced to research on TVE (LIU / ZHOU 2005). Some regions such as Shanghai have trained a large group of backbone teachers and promoted the development of this cause through this concept. We can say that almost all the present research methods into TVE are transplanted from other disciplines. Although a large number of them are used widely, the internal logic of their development has not been established (LIU / XU 2002). The continual emergence of ↑ interdisciplinary subjects and cross-cutting subjects make educational research
Genesis of TVET Research
more and more complicated and pluralistic development takes place (MA 2002). Through the analysis of the research achievements of recent years, we can see that the research methods of TVE also have some obvious variation in trends: investigation is applied more and more universally; experiment is under further development; trace study starts to receiving attention; systematic methodology is introduced and used more and more frequently; intercultural research is beginning to be used; modern technological means are widely adopted. 1.2.4
Problems and Prospects
Although recently the theoretical framework of TVE has been provisionally constructed from research achievements, the disciplinary system still basically follows that of general education, and the study of its special characteristics and logical structure is insufficient; the study of many important fields such as the psychological, sociological, ethical, and economical problems of TVE has not been established or is in the initial stage. Analysis shows that at present the disciplinary framework of VTP is basically empirical with two main formats, firstly the disciplinary system of pedagogy, secondly the practice of TVE. The former is modelled on the existing system of educational science and arouses wide dispute and will fetter the train of thought of research; the latter reduces the theoretic level of the disciplines and influences the explanatory ability of theory to account for the phenomena of TVE (1998b). Some people think that the disciplinary construction of TVP should first establish basic concepts. Basic concepts such as “vocational education” still arouse many disputes, which shows that the study of TVE is still a long way away from “scientific research”. At present, Chinese theoretic circles already have many understandings on the logical starting point for educational science, but up to now no profound analysis of the logical starting point of disciplines related to TVE has been published (LI / LU 2005). Other scholars inspect the disciplinary characteristics from the angle of knowledge types and occupational activity and query the current situation that puts TVE as one of the general educational disciplines. They think that the development of vocational education should enable
43
the ↑ vocational discipline to become a proper disciplinary field that is “on an equal footing” with general pedagogy (JIANG 2006). From a broader developmental perspective, due to the close relationship between TVE and society, economics and employment, the “↑ interdisciplinary” ↑ research field relating to TVE is expanding day by day (→ 3.3.3.1). For example, from the angle of ↑ human capital theory, the study of the contribution of TVE to economic growth, and its influence on input-output benefit, demand and supply, price mechanism, market competition and the influence of some economic laws such as technical coefficients and marginal benefit to labour demand; from the angle of sociology, the study of the social function of TVE, relationships between TVE and social roles, social hierarchy, social flow and social psychology; from the angle of labour science, the study of the relationship between TVE and employment policy, labour regulations, labour protection, labour remuneration and vocational flow. Furthermore, the multi-disciplinary cross development about educational theory as educational culture and educational anthropology will also influence further trends profoundly.
1.3
French Research on Vocational Training: A Mirror of the Position and Structure of the Training System? Philippe Méhaut
Research in the field of vocational training is relatively underdeveloped worldwide and in this regard contrasts with research in general education, the contributions of which, particularly concerning access inequalities or social inequalities, are internationally recognized. 1.3.1
The Relative Underdevelopment of French Research?
In order to understand the state of French research, one must first of all be familiar with the characteristics of the French vocational education system.
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Compared to countries with an apprenticeship tradition, the French ↑ initial vocational education system was developed late and has remained socially and economically undervalued. Indeed, the French system is traditionally represented as being meritocratic and as privileging general education (VERDIER 2001). Vocational education is the “poor relation” of the education system. The apprenticeship training system was dismantled in the 19th century as a result of the abolition of the trade guilds and corporation during the French Revolution. It was slowly reorganised again at the beginning of the 20th century, but not until the 1950s was a structured system – which contained apprenticeship and technical learning centres – rebuilt under the authority of the Minister of Education (TANGUY 1989). But the system was unstable (it declined again in the 1960s and 1970s) and was quantitatively dominated by general education (not until the 1990s did young people with vocational qualifications outnumber those with general education qualifications) (CHARLOT / FIGEAT 1985; TERROT 1997; M ÉHAUT forthcoming). And to characterise vocational training one often refers to “orientation related to ↑ school failure”: the best pupils are directed towards general education with a view to continuing their higher education, while those with poorer results are progressively directed towards vocational training. This has probably had some impact on the state of research in this field: few researchers have focused their attention on vocational training as a subject of research; until recently state incentives concerned themselves more with general than with vocational education; interest in vocational training only started developing 40 years ago (TANGUY 1983). This new interest has been stimulated by the creation of professional Baccalaureats, which have resulted in the development of the ”vocational education track” functioning side by side with the general education track. A report conducted at the beginning of the 1980s (CARRAZ 1983) underlined how little developed research in vocational education there was: less than 15 articles out of the one thousand published in sociology journals were related to vocational training (French journals of sociology and labour sociology). Similarly, economists showed little interest in the subject and there were no scientific jour-
Handbook of TVET Research
nals that specialised in professional training (TANGUY 1983). Although things have changed since the 1980s, the fact remains that research in this field is underdeveloped, particularly if one compares ↑ France to Germany or Holland. In a study of European projects and networks, Manning (2006) counted 11 French participants in the Vetnet network between 1998 and 2003 (compared with 53 English participants, 31 German participants, 28 Finish participants, 34 Dutch participants...). The study also shows that France is under-represented in the 29 European projects analysed (projects of the type ↑ Leonardo, Socrates, FP4 or 5). Other countries in Mediterranean Europe are also underrepresented and their difficulty with the English language does not fully explain this phenomenon. In fact, the situation seems to reproduce the “↑ societal effect” which was highlighted by Maurice, Sellier and Silvestre (1982) in their comparative research on France and Germany. To understand the differences between the blue-collar positions in the two countries, they showed that one needed to grasp on the one hand the structure of the educational system (strong vocational education in one country, not in the other), the work organisation and ↑ mobility patterns and, on the other hand the relationship between these three fields. 1.3.2
A Problem of Definition and Scope
A second characteristic of the French system is the compartmentalisation into initial education and ↑ lifelong education and training. The system of ↑ initial vocational education functions mostly under the authority of the Ministry of Education and has been progressively decentralized under the regional authorities since 1982, with frequent conflicts with other ministries, particularly the Ministry of Industry. As for lifelong education, this falls under the Ministry of Labour. Since the 1980s, this compartmentalisation of tasks has evolved, and there has been a gradual transfer of responsibilities to the Regions. There is little connection between the two systems; similarly, research in initial education has little connection with research in lifelong education. This distinction between initial and lifelong education is particularly marked in France, as well as in other countries with a full-time schooling tra-
Genesis of TVET Research
dition. It is less relevant in countries with a ↑ dual system including promotional training of the type known as “Meister” or “Techniker”, which in France would be part of the “lifelong training” system. It is not relevant either in countries with a “commercial” vocational education system (↑ Australia for example) that trains young people (who in France would be in “initial education”) and adults in the same manner. Thus, French research in education is divided into two categories: on the one hand, the works that deal essentially with initial education (at school or in apprenticeship, or increasingly as part of the new so-called “vocationalism” that has developed at university (MÉHAUT forthcoming); on the other, the studies of ↑ lifelong education and training, that is about training designed for young people who have left the initial education system (training of young unemployed people) and for adults. Thus, for example “L’introduction à une sociologie de la formation” (“Introduction to a sociology of training”) written by Y. Palazzeschi (1998) exclusively discusses practices in “lifelong” education. Although precise numbers in this regard are not available, it is often said that research in “lifelong” education is more developed than research in “↑ initial vocational education”. This was due to the fact that research in initial vocational education was relatively underdeveloped and also to the fact that, in the past, lifelong education was valued and considered as a means of social promotion (DUBAR / GADÉA 1999; DUBAR 2002). Thus, because initial vocational education was underdeveloped, the ideal of social promotion via lifelong education was propounded. To this first segmentation of research is added a sub-segmentation per discipline. With some rare exceptions (see below), no scientific communities are organized around the theme of vocational education. Each scientific discipline develops its own research on the different types of education. Significantly, the directory of the CNRS research laboratories (the largest research organisation in ↑ France) does not provide any identification keywords for the themes of vocational education and/ or training. These keywords are only occasionally provided as a sub-theme of research. Thus, studies about vocational training can be conducted by
45
researchers in economics, sociology, psychology, law, political sciences... In universities, “educational science” became an autonomous discipline in 1967. However, laboratory research in this discipline remains underdeveloped, is not, for the most part, internationally oriented, and is poorly ranked by the academic community (CHARLOT 1993). Furthermore, the research focuses mainly on the “general” education system. Finally, one could mention a third level segmentation; it is less visible nowadays, but was significant in the past decades. It opposes studies dealing with what would nowadays be called the non formal or informal aspects of vocational training, that is, for example what was known as “popular education” related to the associative or activist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The recent debates concerning lifelong education have led to new oppositions but also to new connections between the “vocational” world and the other worlds of education. 1.3.3
The Institutions and Organisations of Research in Vocational Education
Pioneering institutions have played an important part in the development of research. This is, for example, the case with the CNAM, which carries out research in the field of ↑ adult education (it is one of the missions of the institution), including studies on ↑ adult pedagogy and on the characteristics of the different groups concerned. Another institute, the INETOP, was founded in 1928 and is linked to the CNAM. The research it conducts is centred on the psychology and guidance of students and adults. It publishes a newsletter in which studies in labour and educational psychology are presented. But it was only toward the end of the 1960s that research in the field gained real momentum and structure. The creation of the Céreq in 1971 and its subsequent growth are of great significance. Operating under the shared authority of the Education and Employment ministries, this research centre has a mission to produce prospective studies on employment and work, on the professional integration of young people, and on the functioning and evolution of the vocational training system (both initial and continuing) (DUCRAY 1971). Its tasks are similar to those of its German counterpart, the BIBB,
Handbook of TVET Research
46
although it has no competence with regard to curricula and pedagogy, and focuses more on studies and research. Ever since its foundation, the Céreq has relied on a network of associated centres (6 initially, 18 today) located in university research laboratories (in ↑ economics of education and labour initially, but now including sociology, educational science, management and political science, among others.). The Céreq employs approximately 80 researchers, and 50 university researchers collaborate with Céreq on a regular basis in its research and projects. It is probably France’s largest and best-organised community of researchers dedicated to the subject of vocational education. The National Institute of Research in Pedagogy (INRP), which also has partner teams, has, as its name indicates, competence in the field of pedagogy. Its main orientation indicates the primacy of general education. In 1983, G. Vergnaud underlined the low volume of and lack of cohesion in the research on the didactics of vocational and technical subjects, whether subjects taught as part of vocational training or of general education. In 2005, the INRP presented 23 completed studies on the subject of technological pedagogy and one ongoing study. These included works related to the teaching of technological disciplines in primary and middle school. Alongside the network institutes – and sometimes linked with them in accordance with the disciplinebased segmentation mentioned above – there are, within universities and the large research organisations, a number of laboratories that do devote resources to research in education: roughly more than 200 research organisations could be said to be concerned with the whole field of the research in education (from historical sciences to psychology, management, economic and educational sciences). They mainly belong to universities and are often very small. And within these organisations, vocational education is under represented, existing more as projects taken on by one or two researchers, and seldom as a central research theme of the laboratory. A recent trend is the development of research activities within the university institute for teacher training. Some of these are more and more involved in the field of vocational education.
1.3.4
The Support and Financing Organisations
As in other areas of research in ↑ France, the education and research ministries provide both financial (human resources) and structural support to the laboratories and institutes. But in view of the relative underdevelopment of research in the field of vocational training, particular attention must be paid to contractual financing and to the incentive systems, which tend to be highly dispersed and very unstable. In the mid 1970s and early 1980s, large-scale calls for tenders for studies in education, training and the ↑ labour market contributed to the development of research in these areas. Within the CNRS and the Research Ministry, two ↑ interdisciplinary organisations played an essential part, between the mid 1980s and the early 1990s, in the development of research in the subject of vocational training. In particular, they promoted research on learning processes (didactics in vocational teaching, apprenticeship in the workplace, the role of the new educational technologies, the articulation between the training system and enterprises...). The disappearance of these organisations opened a void that was only filled when, at the very beginning of the 21st century, the ministry of research issued new calls for tenders for research on education and training. But this policy was dropped again in 2005. This instability is not conducive to continuity in research or to an accumulation of scientific knowledge. On the contrary, it contributes to the underdevelopment of this field of research. Beside this financial support for research, the government finances, or used to finance, more applied studies, often used to support decision-making. It was the case with the Labour Ministry, which through its working group on vocational education, used to finance experimental studies on lifelong education, including works on didactics and learning processes. The creation of a Department of Research, Studies and ↑ Statistics, covering both research on employment and research on vocational education, has led to a slowing down of the research on vocational training, promoting, instead, economic and statistical studies centred on the relationship between unemployment and education. Within the Ministry of Education, the department
Genesis of TVET Research
in charge of relations with employer and employee representatives have a research budget through which studies concerning the creation of and changes to vocational diplomas are financed. 1.3.5
The Main Research Themes
It would be impossible in this chapter to provide a complete and systematic overview of all the studies conducted. We shall content ourselves with presenting some of the permanent and central lines of research and with suggesting some possible new orientations and questions. Studies have often addressed the question of inequalities in the educational system. Largely inspired by the sociology of the 1960s and 70s, these studies have aimed to understand the differentiated processes of access to general education and to vocational education, the phenomenon of social reproduction, and the inequalities of access to lifelong education. They are relying more and more on panel data econometric modelling. Research on the socio-professional integration of young adults has developed considerably (TANGUY 1986). This is a French specificity that is partly explained by the significant lack of connection between the world of education and the world of work, and by the high unemployment rate among young people. The Céreq has played a major part in promoting research, particularly through its surveys on the integration and trajectories of young adults, the results of which are made available to the scientific community. Although they are not limited to the field of vocational training, these studies generally aim to analyse the differences of access to employment and the different trajectories of young people according to the disciplines studied and the types of training received. Some of these studies concur with those more classical studies of the ↑ economics of education that aim to evaluate the ↑ efficiency of the ↑ human capital, and with the studies conducted in ↑ France on the comparative ↑ efficiency of general education and of vocational training. Seen as highly centralised and administered according to State regulations, the French system was, for a long time, wrongly seen (TANGUY 1989) as being homogenous. Little interest was shown in the strategies of different stakeholders and in the
47
differences between training institutions. Several factors have contributed to opening and developing this area of research: the realization that it was necessary to take into account the “differential effects of training institutions” (and of class) to understand the inequalities of access to education and the different outcomes of education; the gradual decentralization of the system has introduced new actors and more leeway (increasing role of the worker and employer representatives in lifelong education, the role of the Regions...); the development of a quasi market in the field of lifelong education and the reinforcement of competition between the different initial education institutions and of the autonomy of universities. A growing amount of research addresses the consequences of decentralization, the evaluation of regional policies, the different strategies of training institutions, the involvement of trade unions and of employer associations. These themes are also discussed in studies that focus specifically on lifelong education, its financing and modes of regulation. The organisation of labour and its evolution, that of activities and of the knowledge mobilized at work have become important areas of research in France (for a critical review of the research conducted between 1970 and today, see IRIBARNE 2001), and can be approached from macroeconomic and social perspectives (the models of ↑ labour organisation, the crisis of Taylorism-Fordism), they may also be approached from the standpoint of sector or ↑ profession (work in such or such an industrial sector, the work and skills of people working in the electronics industry...), or from a technological and organisational perspective (introduction of numerically controlled machine tools, of e-mail...). The controversies between researchers remain strong (IRIBARNE 2001), even though, in the last decade, the topic “employment-unemployment” has tended to overshadow that of work. Many of these studies are not strictly related to vocational training, but rather, are more directly related to the sociology of labour, ↑ ergonomics or management. But several of these studies precede the creation or remodelling of professional branches. The goal is, for many of them, to evaluate the future evolution of ↑ professions and competence, the nature of the knowledge required for the different professions
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Handbook of TVET Research
(MINISTÈRE DE L’EDUCATION 2001). The rise of employment in the service sector, the discussions concerning the notion of competence, but also the increasing interest in the informal forms of knowledge and ↑ skill acquisition at work have given a new orientation to research, a research that used to focus mainly on the industrial world. Finally, another category of research, which we shall call research into ↑ vocational didactics, tends to concentrate on learning processes and conditions. As underlined by Vergnaud (1983), the aim is not merely to optimise knowledge transfer, but also to explore and understand the very structure of knowledge as well as the processes and concepts at play. If the didactics of “general” subjects is relatively developed, few studies in ↑ vocational didactics have been undertaken. On the one hand, research tends to concentrate on general disciplines. On the other, there aren’t enough guidelines to structure the research. In the last twenty years, however, studies have been conducted on various learning situations at work, about dual vocational training systems, about the use of new educational technologies. The main goal is to understand the processes of transition from experience (or practice) to conceptual understanding. Although these studies are concerned with “lifelong” education, they also suggest new approaches to the topic of “initial education”, particularly through their criticism of discipline-based approaches and of the underestimation of the importance of ↑ informal learning. 1.3.6
Conclusion
This short overview, beyond painting a slightly pessimistic picture of French research, leads to two suggestions. Any area of research, whatever it might be, cannot be explored without taking into account the state of the economic and social practices associated with it. Here, the state of development and the economic and social status of vocational training are determining elements. But one cannot ignore the dynamics within the various disciplines or the organisation of ↑ tertiary education and of research, which are not entirely dependent on these practices. In ↑ France, the high compartmentalization of research within social
science, the compartmentalization and instability of institutional and financial support (and this does not only apply to the field of vocational training) are an obstacle to the emergence and above all to the accumulation of studies that would provide a sufficient volume of knowledge likely to generate scientific legitimacy and to produce results that could be accumulated and understood by the actors of the system.
1.4
On the Genesis of TVET Research in Germany Felix Rauner
1.4.1
Introduction
In the German edition of the present handbook Antonius Lipsmeier (2005) presented the pedagogical dimension and Jörg Pahl (2005) the occupation-related dimension of the genesis of TVET research in two complementary chapters. These were supplemented by a description of the genesis of TVET research in the GDR by Dieter Grottker (2005). Readers interested in a more thorough study of the emergence of German TVET research are therefore advised to consult these articles in the German edition of the handbook (RAUNER 2005). TVET research in Germany is institutionalised at the national level in the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung – BIBB). Qualification and employment research is located at the Institute for Employment Research (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung – IAB), a research institution of the Federal Employment Services. Besides these national institutions TVET research takes place at universities where it is operated by pedagogical institutes and departments responsible for the education of ↑ vocational schoolteachers. In addition, TVET research is represented by numerous external research institutions from the fields of social sciences and labour studies. Among these the Sociological Research Institute (SOFI) in Göttingen, the Institute for Social Research (ISF) in Munich, the Fraunhofer Institute for Labour Economics and Organisation (IAO) in Stuttgart as well as the So-
Genesis of TVET Research
cial Research Institute (SFS) in Dortmund and the Institute Labour and Technology (IAT) in Gelsenkirchen deserve particular attention. In the context of their ↑ research programmes, which emphasise sociological and work analytic aspects, these institutes also address questions of vocational education and training. Two academic associations represent TVET research in the strict sense. The TVET section within the German Society for Educational Science (DGfE) constitutes a scientific community of the German TVET teachers, which investigates vocational education from a pedagogical point of view. The working group of technical disciplines (AG GTW) of the German Society for Labour Studies (GfA) represents the technical orientation of ↑ VET research in the technical ↑ vocational disciplines. Research in the nursing sciences has been established relatively late in comparison to the international development. 1.4.2
The Genesis of TVET Research at Universities
TVET research at universities is closely linked to the university education of ↑ vocational schoolteachers and to the respective professorships in VET and in the ↑ vocational disciplines and their didactic theory. University education of TVET teachers in Germany has its origins in the industrial regulation policies of the principalities of Baden and Württemberg in the early 19th century. The establishment of vocational schools for the training of skilled workers, and of vocational colleges and polytechnics, the predecessors of the technical universities, were an expression of this regional innovation policy. In the polytechnic at Karlsruhe, which later developed into the Technical University of Karlsruhe, vocational schoolteachers have been educated since 1834. In 1857 a special course of study was established for the first time (BRECHMACHER / GERDS 1993, 43 ff.). Other German states only followed this example at a much later date. The scientific education of teachers at universities, according to a widespread opinion held by industrial associations, trade unions and the DATSCH (Deutscher Ausschuss für technisches Schulwesen – German Committee for Technical Schooling), was thought to lead to a theoretical bias in professional education. This would be inconsist-
49
ent with the aim of practice-oriented professional training (LITT 1929). It was only in the first half of the 20th century that university programmes for prospective TVET teachers leading to the degree of Diplom-Gewerbelehrer were set up in Thuringia, Hamburg and Saxony. The establishment of university education for teachers in the large domain of business and administration was less problematic. From the beginning of the 20th century up to the 1960s the education of TVET teachers became disseminated by and large throughout all German federal states (op. cit., 47 ff.). Immediately after its foundation the GDR built upon the tradition of university education of teachers for vocational schools in Thuringia and Saxony and established a network of study programmes and pedagogical institutes for the major disciplines of vocational education (see GROTTKER 2005, 43). It was and still is a common feature of all these study programmes that they are completed with a “first state examination”, a qualification at the level of a Master’s degree, and prepare for a preparatory service (Referendariat) of about two years. It is only by passing the “second state examination” after the preparatory service that candidates achieve professional aptitude and thus fulfill the requirements for employment as teachers. The academic tradition of the habilitation as a requirement for the appointment of university professors and the close connection between research and teaching at German universities led, in the course of the establishment of university education for TVET teachers, to a distinctly pedagogical style of basic research. In East Germany alone there were five hundred Ph.D. theses between 1945 and 1989 (GROTTKER 2005, 36), divided into subjects from medicine and economics (Humboldt University, Berlin), agriculture (Leipzig) and engineering (TU Dresden, TU Karl-Marx-Stadt, TU Magdeburg). From these emerged, among other things, handbooks of ↑ teaching methods for the studies of methodology and didactics in the fields of ↑ mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, textile manufacturing, technical chemistry and construction (ibid., 43). The particular emphasis on empirical studies of the change of qualification requirements, above all in the technical trades, is the result of the co-operation with the Labour Studies
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Handbook of TVET Research
(HACKER / TIMPE / VORWEG 1973; HACKER 1978). Hacker, Nachfolger von Werner Straub (1937–67 Prof. für Psychologie), entwickelt seit den 1970er Jahren eine breit angelegte Arbeitswissenschaft, die auch international Beachtung findet (HACKER / MATERN 1980). […] (HACKER 1986a). […] ( H ACKER 1986a; H ACKER 1986b; […]). Aus den Untersuchungen entsteht das Tägigkeitsbewertungssystem (TBS), welches auch in der berufswissenschaftlichen Forschung angewandt wird (BERGMANN / SKELL 1996, 210)” (GROTTKER 2005, 42). (One investigates a practice in order to tell practitioners how practice ought to be. Labour studies very often has the shape of an analysis of the production process, which threatens to develop into some kind of Post-Taylorism. Keeping the minutes of work activities was not accompanied in the GDR by an explicitly ideology-critical and socially responsible technology scenario. The psychology of work by Winfried Hacker (Dresden University of Technology) always made efforts to counteract this. Hacker, successor to Werner Straub (professor of psychology from 1937 to 1967), has developed an internationally acknowledged concept of labour studies since the 1970s. The investigations led to the development of the Activity Assessment System, which is also used in occupational studies.)
Tab. 1: Universities with Study Programmes for TVET Teachers and Dispersion of Vocational Disciplines at German Universities (HB – Bremen; HH – Hamburg; MV – Mecklenburg-Vorpommern; Rh.-Pal. – Rhineland-Palatinate; Saarl. – Saarland; SA – Saxony-Anhalt; SH – Schleswig-Holstein)
Institute of the Dresden University of Technology, which became especially known within the international community from the works of Winfried Hacker (ibid., 42 f.). “Man erforscht eine Praxis, um Praktikern sagen zu können, wie Praxis sein soll. Arbeitsforschung erscheint häufig als analytische Zergliederung des Produktionsprozesses, aus der ein Posttaylorismus zu entstehen droht. Protokollierung der Arbeitstätigkeit zum Zweck der Effektivierung geht in der DDR nicht mit einem expliziten ideologiekritischen und sozialverträglichen Technikszenarium einher. Die Arbeitspsychologie von Winfried Hacker (TU Dresden) versucht gegenzusteuern
Pedagogical research at West German universities initially had a strong orientation towards history and the ↑ humanities (see LIPSMEIER 2005). In 1971 a constitutional amendment allocated the framework ↑ legislation on ↑ VET planning and ↑ VET research at the federal level. The institutional embodiment of this change was above all the BLK, i.e. the Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Bildungsforschung (Federal and State Commission for ↑ Educational Planning and Research Promotion). This body set up a large programme of ↑ pilot projects in vocational education and training (GERDS / FISCHER / DEITMER 2002). It was the objective of this programme to support decision-making in ↑ VET policy and VET planning as well as to initiate innovations in the domains of school-based and in-company vocational training. The scientific monitoring of the pilot projects initially followed the approach of conducting pilot projects according to a quasi-experimental ↑ research design in order to achieve decision-making criteria that were based on scientific foundations. Already in the mid-1970s this experimental approach was succeeded by a research practice which regarded ↑ pilot studies as innovation projects and
Genesis of TVET Research
tended to view scientific monitoring as a form of agency research (→ 4.1; → 5.3.3). From the point of view of TVET research at universities the BLK programme poses a great challenge with regard to the development of methods for empirical research on teaching and for ↑ evaluation research (DEHNBOSTEL / HOLZ / PLOGHAUS 1994). From 1989 on the BLK pilot projects were integrated into a new programme structure in order to improve the transfer effects of the pilot studies and to enhance the synergy effects between the projects within one programme. The programmes conducted since 1989, namely: – “Neue Lernkonzepte in der dualen Berufsausbildung” (New Learning Concepts within Dual Vocational Education and Training) (GERDS / FISCHER / DEITMER 2002; ZÖLLER / GERDS 2003) – “Kooperation der Lernorte in der beruflichen Bildung (KOLIBRI)” (Co-operation of Learning Sites in Vocational Education and Training) (EULER, D. 1999; EULER 2004a; 2004b) – “Innovative Fortbildung der Lehrer an beruflichen Schulen (innovelle-bs)” (Innovative ↑ Continuing Education for TVET Teachers) – “Selbst gesteuertes und kooperatives Lernen in der beruflichen Erstausbildung (SKOLA)” (Selfdirected and Co-operative Learning in ↑ Initial Vocational Education and Training) (http://www.blkbonn.de/modellversuche/programme_ab_1998. htm) each included between 20 and 30 single pilot projects and joint pilot projects. Usually these programmes were coordinated by university institutes in order to secure the scientific monitoring and coordination as well as the evaluation of the pilot studies (GERDS / FISCHER / DEITMER 2002). The ↑ participation of ↑ educational research at universities in these programmes made an important contribution to the expansion of this discipline. The research competences generated in these programmes could subsequently be employed in European research and development programmes on technical and vocational education and training that were established later (SELLIN 2002). The development of TVET research at universities into a well-established research sector within the academic system was only a question of time.
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“In 1984 the University of Bremen established a research centre on “Work and Education”, in which up to 40 researchers collaborated over a period of ten years on the basis of a programme developed and evaluated according to the criteria of the DFG. The results achieved within this research centre made their way into more than 50 publications (cf. ALHEIT 1994). In the project proposal for the establishment of this research centre it was defined as the central mission of the centre […] to arrive, via the analysis of socialisation and education processes focusing on work and occupation as the essential constitutive elements of the life contexts of the workforce and of social reproduction, at a comprehensive concept of education, which connects research and educational practice in the two domains [of vocational education and workers’ education, F. R.]” (A LHEIT 1994, 11 [original text in German]). From this emerged both the Institute Technology and Education (ITB) in 1986 and the Collaborative Research Centre’s 186 “Status Passages and Risks in the Life Course” in 1988. A large part of the latter’s twelve years of existence was devoted to questions of vocational socialisation and qualification, which were addressed from a distinctly subject-oriented perspective. “The DFG programme on the empirical analysis of teaching and learning processes in initial vocational education in the business sector (BECK / HEID 1996) is another example of TVET research developing in the context of university programmes for the education of vocational schoolteachers. The VET section at the Dresden University of Technology with its temporarily more than 70 researchers, which was closed during the German reunification process, demonstrates that universitybased TVET research was assigned considerable priority in the GDR” (GROTTKER 2005).
The foundation of a working group on technical ↑ vocational disciplines in the GfA and its biennial scientific congress have contributed to an extension of empirical TVET research as well as to the ↑ professionalisation of the education of TVET teachers. The following four research areas are characteristic of this ↑ domain-specific TVET research at universities (BANNWITZ / RAUNER 1993). (1) The development of occupations and ↑ occupational fields: this ↑ research field comprises ↑ research problems and ↑ development tasks, methods and outcomes that relate to occupation-based work and its genesis (historical occupation research) as well as to the development of the respective occupational fields and the occupations belonging to these (see HOWE 2004; HERKNER 2003).
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(2) Training contents, vocational education as dimension of analysis, design and evaluation of vocational training and qualification processes – pedagogical TVET research (→ 3.2) (3) Analysis, design and evaluation of ↑ work processes organised on the basis of ↑ occupational profiles, above all under the aspects of changing qualification requirements and the implementation of work models that facilitate learning: domain-specific qualification and expertise research (→ 3.4.1) (4) Analysis, design and evaluation of work systems, especially in the domain of programmable work systems: technical and scientific TVET research. To this category belong, for example, questions of the interaction between man and machine under the aspect of the tutorial quality of programmable work systems (cf. EICKER / PETERSEN 2001). Pedagogical TVET research has addressed an increasing variety of topics in the course of its development. – ↑ Historical research in this regard occupies particularly much space (→ 3.3.3.2). The works of Stratmann (1992), Pätzold (1989), Kipp (2000) and other educationists have led to an almost complete account of the history of vocational education in Germany. With regard to the impact of National Socialism on vocational education and training there are detailed studies by Kipp/ Miller-Kipp (1995) and Wolsing (1977). There is, however, still a gap in occupation-specific historical TVET research (→ 3.1.3). – Curriculum as well as teaching and learning research have undertaken a first step towards the development of this research field with the DFG programme on ↑ teaching and learning processes in ↑ initial vocational education in the ↑ business sector. The further deepening of this research requires close cooperation between pedagogical and ↑ occupational research (PAHL 2005). – The dual organisation and design of vocational education in the tradition of apprenticeship is one of the most closely investigated topics (PÄTZOLD / WALDEN 1999; EULER 2004a; 2004b). – Contributions to the subject-related topics of competence development and ↑ vocational identity as well as ethic competence were made especially by Wolfgang Lempert (2005) and the researchers of the above-mentioned Collaborative
Handbook of TVET Research
Research Centre “Status Passages and Risks in the Life Course” (HEINZ 2002b). 1.4.3
TVET Research outside the Universities
Just as in other industrialised countries there was an increasing demand for knowledge and methods for the establishment of improved models of vocational education and training in early 20th century Germany. A strong impulse towards the scientific drift of the reflection, analysis and implementation of vocational education and training was triggered by the activities of the “Deutscher Ausschuss für technisches Schulwesen” (DATSCH), which was founded in 1908, especially by its “Abhandlungen und Berichten” (“studies and reports”) (1910 sqq; see HERKNER 2003), and by the acitivies of the German Institute for Technical Vocational Instruction (“Deutsches Institut für technische Arbeitsschulung” – DINTA) that was established in 1925 by the industry (see BUNK 1972; critically K IPP 1978). This was the period when the relevance of psychotechnology for VET increased (cf. ERISMANN / MOERS 1922), e. g. in the investigation of vocational aptitude and of physical and psychological requirements for employees by Wundt, Stern, Ruttmann and Münsterberg, but also the age of the Taylorisation of work as scientific management with its degradation of the worker as a conscious entity, which also included considerable effects on industrial qualification processes (cf. LIPSMEIER 2003). It can be observed that in the 1920s there was at least the publication of important works that gave a boost to pedagogical TVET research, such as the handbooks by Ziegler (1916) and Kühne (1922), the “Handbook of Occupations” of the Reichsanstalt für Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenversicherung (RAVAV 1930) and the career advice handbook of the Reich Employment Services (REICHSARBEITSVERWALTUNG 1925), but also Feld’s Grundfragen (“Fundamental Questions”) from 1928 or Dehen’s study on industrial ↑ vocational schools (1928) may be numbered among these. There is no justification for the view that pedagogical theory and practice in the era of National Socialism, however intensive and linked to many con-
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crete results, may be qualified as TVET research. This is not only due to its ideological bias, but also to its hostility towards experience. The pedagogical studies which intensively discussed this era (cf. SEUBERT 1977; K IPP / MILLER-K IPP 1995) verify this judgement. Kell classifies the work done by National Socialist VET institutions as thematically belonging to TVET research, but raises fundamental objections towards its acknowledgement as research: “Political objectives, subjective theories and at best systematised, accumulated ↑ experiential knowledge most likely had a great influence on these works (K ELL 1999, 152)” (LIPSMEIER 2005, 22/23).
The Vocational Education and Training Act of 1969 established the Federal Institute for TVET Research (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildungsforschung – BBF), which took over the tasks of the DATSCH and supplemented them with a distinctly scientific programme. Besides this research mission it is predominantly through planning activities that the BBF supports and advises the federal government, the education ministers of the federal states to the extent that the latter have responsibilities in the domain of dual vocational training, but also the employers’ associations and trade unions in the organisation, design and further development of vocational education and training. The activities of the BBF were initially diversified into five areas of research and development: (1) Structural research, which is occupied with the fundamental questions of the ↑ VET system, and with the qualification changes in the world of work as far as the latter are manifested in changed qualification requirements. (2) ↑ Curriculum research. This ↑ research field was meant to deal with the investigation and design of professional learning or professional training processes. In the 1970s this area of responsibilities was assigned the coordination of ↑ pilot projects in the field of in-company vocational training. (3) Qualifications and occupations research. Its emphasis was and continues to be on the investigation of the changes in qualification requirements, on which the modernisation and redevelopment of occupations is based. (4) ↑ Media research and development. In the tradition of course-based industrial vocational train-
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ing the BBF has taken over the responsibilities of the DATSCH with regard to the development of course materials for ↑ in-company training. This shift was accompanied by research in the context of the introduction of new media and learning methods (→ 4.1). (5) Adult and ↑ continuing education research. The domain of continuing education is impeded in its development by a multitude of regulations and norms belonging to highly diversified legal spheres. This is paralleled by different responsibilities which are an obstacle to an effective development of ↑ lifelong learning. Accordingly the research on adult and continuing education is underdeveloped in comparison to the research on ↑ initial vocational education and training. (6) Costs and financing of vocational education and training. In the course of the decline of apprenticeship places for ↑ in-company training to a level of less than five per cent the question of the costs and benefits of vocational education has become more important. It was especially the observation that the relatively high ↑ training costs (net costs) in comparison to other countries with a dual apprenticeship training system are by no means an indicator for a high quality of the training, but rather the opposite (RAUNER 2005), has increased the interest in economic TVET research (SCHMIDT, D. 1995; LIPSMEIER 2005; PAHL 2005). The genesis of TVET research in Germany shows (LIPSMEIER 2005; PAHL 2005; GROTTKER 2005 and → 3.2) that, besides the scientific reflection of the foundations for the design and organisation of VET as the core mission for the BBF and later the BIBB, its focus is also supposed to be on developmental tasks like the preparation of ↑ training regulations and media, whose value is expected to rise with the growing knowledge of the aforementioned foundations. In this regard TVET research is deeply rooted in the tradition of those disciplines that consider research not as an end in itself, but as a means external to themselves, typically a developmental task. It is thus connected in particular to educational science (WENIGER 1953; K LAFKI 1991) as an action-oriented discipline, and with labour studies as a science that aims at designing the world of work (ULICH 1994; EMERY 1959; EMERY/ EMERY 1974; HACKMAN / OLDHAM 1976). In TVET research
54
the development of occupations and ↑ occupational fields, of training curricula and training media as well as training methods belong to the central areas of research and development. Therefore curriculum and ↑ media research are structured as a combination of analytical and developmental research. Within a ↑ research programme of eleven thematic fields that already had a broad design in the initial phase there was, in the areas of ↑ media development and modernisation of training regulations, a distinction between “work projects”, “problem analyses”, “preliminary studies” and “main studies”. With the research area of “↑ methodology of TVET research” the BBF emphasised its claim to understand TVET research not only as a discipline that acts within a framework defined by ↑ educational ↑ policy and practice, but also to develop this discipline according to scientific criteria within the academic system. The methodological groundwork project on the “investigation of ↑ interdisciplinary approaches to labour and occupational studies”, for instance, pursued the ambitious goal of developing a toolbox for curricula and training regulations (cf. BBF 1971a, 6). Even though basic research was no longer explicitly defined as a research area on its own subsequent to the transformation of the BBF into the BIBB, fundamental issues of vocational education continued to be explored by the TVET research conducted by the BIBB. The treatment of topics like “dicactics of modern vocational education and training” (DEHNBOSTEL / WALTERLEZIUS 1995), “vocational education and ↑ organisational development” (DYBOWSKI / PÜTZ / RAUNER 1995c) as well as “competence research” (FRANKE 2001) are manifestations of a research practice that regards the connection to the scientific process as indispensable. The difficulty of maintaining
Handbook of TVET Research
this orientation emerges from the dilemma of using the proximity to educational practice and educational policy for access to the field and for the implementation of research findings and to accept in turn the necessary integration into the consensual practice of the social partners and the ministries (SCHMIDT, H. 1995, 490). From the perspective of a TVET research that has the opportunity to develop under the conditions of institutional independence the Max Planck Institute for ↑ Educational Research formulated a programme for securing a “free TVET research” similar to the work programme of the BBF (LEMPERT 1973). The dilemma of this research programme, conversely, consisted in the fact that the emphasis on autonomy and “free research” went along with a greater ↑ distance to TVET practice and ↑ TVET policy. As a consequence this type of scientific orientation entailed a proportionately lower degree of practical relevance for developmental issues in vocational education. Simultaneously with the development of “public” TVET research in the Federal Republic the GDR had already assigned high priority to vocational education in its early years. From 1954 on, the political responsibility for vocational education was assumed by the minister for labour and vocational education. In 1966 an office for vocational education was established; and since 1970 an undersecretary has exclusively been occupied with the cross-cutting domain of vocational education and training. Vocational education was thus defined as an interministerial affair at the cabinet level unlike any other country. TVET research was institutionalised already in 1954 in the German Central Institute for Vocational Education (Deutsches Zentral-
Fig. 1: Functional Relations between Ministries and Research Institutes (GROTTKER 2005)
Genesis of TVET Research
institut für Berufsbildung – DZIB) and from 1973 on, subsequent to some renamings, as a Central Instititute for Vocational Education (Zentralinstitut für Berufsbildung – ZIB). “The research co-ordinaed by the ZIB has the following missions: (a) conceptional support of ↑ TVET policy and assistance for the state secretariat, (b) contributions to the pedagogical theory of vocational education and to teaching methods and (c) international representation of the discipline So the ZIB is participating in an international seminar in Frankfurt on initial and continuing vocational education and training organised by the Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterjugend and the Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (German Federation of Trade Unions) in 1981 (BARGEN / EBERHARD 1982, 106). Research and development at the ZIB are institutionalised instruments of TVET policy, the connection between politics and science being confirmed by the four decisions of the Council of Ministers from 1960, 1968, 1976 and 1983. Additionally an ideological determinant has to be observed as vocational education serves the goal of systematising the training of apprentices, which leads to special tasks for the research on teachers education (STORZ / GLATZEL 1979)” (GROTTKER 2005).
Grottker critically remarks that loyalty to the USSR remained a benchmark of scientific and political maturity. A professorship was open only to those candidates who underwent an additional study programme in the USSR after their doctorate (op. cit., 38). 1.4.4
TVET Research as an Independent Research Discipline
Up to the 1990s university-based and public TVET research in the BIBB and the IAB as well as sociological career and ↑ qualification research had only few connections with each other. Even the ↑ pilot projects on vocational education were organised as two separate programmes, namely, one for school-based and one for ↑ in-company training. The scientific communities were largely separated into an educational branch focusing on the school as a learning site, and a branch oriented towards initial and continuing vocational training in companies. A scientific community that assumes an intermediary position between these two tradi-
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tions is the branch of occupational studies, which is established both at universities and at the BIBB and which started early to engage, in its ↑ domainspecific research, in the investigation and design of vocational training processes across learning sites. This community initiated the establishment of a biennial VET congress, in which symposia organised according to ↑ occupational fields play a dominant role. „Die Gründung der ‚Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung‘ 1980 in Bremen stellte einen weiteren wichtigen Einschnitt für die Entwicklung der berufswissenschaftlichen Forschung und Lehre dar. Seither fand diese Konferenz in zweijährigem Rhythmus statt und hat für viele berufliche Fachrichtungen einen Dialog zwischen der einschlägigen universitären Forschung und Lehre sowie der Berufsbildungspraxis und der Berufsbildungsplanung eröffnet. Zugleich haben sich die ‚Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung‘ als eine Plattform erwiesen, bei der Forschung und Entwicklung als ein interdisziplinärer Aufgabenbereich und als ein Gegenstand des Dialogs zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis etabliert wurde. Der berufswissenschaftlichen Forschung kommt dabei schon wegen der berufsfachlich ausdifferenzieren Konferenzstruktur eine Schlüsselrolle zu. Die zunehmende Beteiligung der außeruniversitären Berufsbildungsforschung sowie der Repräsentanten der Berufsbildungsplanung an den ‚Hochschultagen Berufliche Bildung‘ hat zur Weiterentwicklung der Berufsbildungsforschung wesentlich beigetragen“ (PAHL 2005, 33/34). (The foundation of the “Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung” in Bremen in 1980 was another decisive step in the development of research and teaching in occupational studies. Since then the conference took place every two years and opened a dialogue between university based research and teaching and TVET practice and TVET planning for many vocational disciplines. The “Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung” also proved to be a platform where research and development was established as an interdisciplinary work area and as the topic of a dialogue between science and practice. Occupational studies already assume a crucial role because the conference is organised according to vocational disciplines. The increasing participation of non-university based research and of representatives of TVET planning in the “Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung” has made significant contributions to the development of TVET research.)
Thus the way was paved for the establishment of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Berufsbildungsforschungsnetzwerk (AGBFN), whose mission is to bring together TVET researchers from different communities. Despite the development of this research net-
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work and the establishment of TVET research as a research discipline of its own within the DFG the question of the adequate ↑ research methods for the constitutive subject matter of this area was left open. This question had already been discussed at the early stages of the BBF. Its founders had emphasised with their first ↑ research programme, which included the area “↑ methodology of TVET research”, that it was indispensable to establish the subject matter as an original one and the methods as adequate just because TVET research depends on the expertise of so many disciplines. Accordingly one of the basic research projects calls for the development of a methodological and terminological set of instruments for the work of the BBF considering the ↑ interdisciplinary connections (cf. BBF 1971a, 6). This ambitious goal was based on the misconception that research could be organised according to disciplines. It was only two decades later that the idea of a research process depending on the expertise of different disciplines became clearer (HEID 1995). This applies above all to research and ↑ development tasks. It is hardly surprising that research that is oriented towards ↑ interdisciplinarity draws, via the agents in the scientific process, on the methodological instruments of different disciplines. Scientists employ the discipline-specific methods according to their own disciplinary background and constitute their subject matter as a topic of the social sciences, labour studies, engineering or the natural sciences. Sociological ↑ qualification research is an example for this (→ 3.1.5; → 4.4). In ↑ domain-specific qualification and competence research it is crucial to observe the social and cultural rules which shape professional behaviour in their interaction with objective rules, whose validity, e. g. in technical work, can be established only by reference to natural sciences and technology. The insight that professional agency and professional competence are characterised by the compliance with social and objective rules (see RÖBEN 2004a; MÜLLER 1978; HERITAGE 1984, 295 ff.) entails far-reaching consequences for the methodological design of TVET research: The fact that professional competence includes the ability to cope with the interaction of social and
Handbook of TVET Research
objective rules necessitates a cross-disciplinary ↑ research approach (cf. RÖBEN 2004a, 20). The methodological debate was pushed forward through the foundation of the BBF, but the strength of this momentum soon decreased. It was only through the awareness of the limited scope of methods imported from other ↑ research traditions that the necessity of methodological innovations was acknowledged (→ 5.1). Chapter 5 of the present Handbook is based on a methodological debate and development process in TVET research that has been going on for more than three decades. It is only after the establishment of subject-related development methods (→ 5.1.1) that TVET research in Germany can be classified as an independent ↑ research tradition within ↑ educational research that is characterised by its own ↑ research questions, methods and results. 1.4.5
Future Perspectives
The future development of TVET research in Germany is closely connected to the further ↑ professionalisation of the pedagogical and ↑ domain-specific education of TVET teachers at universities. It is an open question whether there will be a cooperation between the universities and the federal states in order to establish the variety of ↑ vocational disciplines at the university level (cf. GERDS / HEIDEGGER / RAUNER 1999). If this effort is successful, then the infrastructure for TVET research at universities will be improved, too. The discussion as to how the vocational disciplines may make their mark as the basis of a domain-specific academic education for TVET teachers, which got underway after the international start-off conference in ↑ Hangzhou in 2004 (HANGZHOU DECLARATION 2005) provides a good setting for innovations beyond the national contexts. The prospects for also establishing TVET research as a sustainable international research tradition have thus improved considerably.
Genesis of TVET Research
1.5
History of Vocational Education & Training Research in the United States Cecilia Maldonado and Sterling Saddler
1.5.1
History of Vocational Education
Vocational education in the United States is complex having been impacted by philosophical, educational, political, economic, and societal factors since its inception. Vocational education is defined as, “a large and diverse educational enterprise, spanning both secondary and postsecondary education. …[it] encompasses a tremendous number of programs designed to prepare students for employment and for living” (SCOTT / SARKEES-WIRCENSKI 1996, 2).
It has a very rich history. According to Gordon (2003), vocational education developed as we know it today in the early part of the twentieth century. However, “causal factors of the vocational movement in education occurred during the nineteenth century, and the historical roots can be traced to ancient times, with significant European connections” (2003, 1). Undoubtedly, the most important period in the development of vocational education in the United States occurred between 1900 and 1917 (LAZERSON / GRUBB 1974; GORDON 2003).
The Manual Education Movement The evolution of vocational education came about as a result of the manual education movement in the late 1800s (LAZERSON / GRUBB 1974; GORDON 2003). Although John D. Runkel, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Calvin M. Woodward, professor of mathematics and applied mechanics at Washington University in St. Louis are credited for “popularizing manual education in the United States” (LAZERSON / GRUBB 1974, 4); the Hampton Institute in Virginia, which opened in 1868 to educate African Americans, was the first manual labor school established. Its opening marked the beginning of the manual labor school movement in America (GORDON 2003). The school’s philosophy was “…that there was dignity in all forms of work and that human beings, re-
57
gardless of race, could only truly appreciate that which they had earned. Therefore, students were expected to work for the school to earn their tuition” (GORDON 2003, 10). It was during this period that the purposes and goals of schools and education were debated and it was thought that incorporating manual training in schools would produce a truly democratic system with greater appeal to students (LAZERSON / GRUBB 1974). It had a “multiplicity of themes – industrial ↑ efficiency, the preparation of skilled workers, pedagogical reform – it was tied together by several common assumptions about social change” (LAZERSON / GRUBB 1974, 7). The greatest contribution of the manual education movement perhaps, was “its effect on the perception of what could or should be taught in public school. …more than anything, it changed the conception of what might be legitimately taught in the schools; once this was accomplished, the shift to vocational purposes seemed a logical development” (GORDON 2003, 12).
Influences of Industrialization The influences of industrialization changed what proponents believed about manual education, its ability to influence social change and bring about economic relevance. “The economy did not need individuals who understood the traditional crafts and the principles of production, but men to run the industrial machine, supervise the assembly line, and organize the corporation” (LAZERSON / GRUBB 1974, 15–16).
Industrialization replaced man with machine and at the same time, all of the social ills associated with urbanization began to erode society. “While Americans looked kindly upon the economic returns of technological growth and industrial ↑ efficiency, the social consequences were severe: urban chaos, the withering of traditional institutions, the loss of once revered values, conflict between the generations and among social classes. Indeed, the central issue of American reform in the mid and late nineteenth century lay precisely in the problem of promoting industrial growth while limiting its deleterious social effects. The school was seen as a major agent in this process. Knowledge was power, a national resource in the search for prosperity” (LAZERSON / GRUBB 1974, 8).
Because corporations had gained so much of the power during this period, assumptions that edu-
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Handbook of TVET Research
cation should be closely tied to business and economic needs were strengthened. The integration of education and economic need became the impetus for schools to turn toward vocational training (LAZERSON / GRUBB 1974). Vocational education had attracted the attention and support of almost every group interested in education, including those with political power, in the country. One result was the formation in 1906 of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (NSPIE). This organisation coordinated support for industrial education among various interested groups. NSPIE’s efforts ultimately “gained its greatest triumph – passage of the ↑ Smith-Hughes Act granting federal funds for vocational education” (LAZERSON / GRUBB 1974, 18). 1.5.2
Impact of Legislation on Vocational Education and Vocational Education Research
Economic, social, philosophical, political and educational problems facing society are often resolved through the legislative process. As the ↑ United States changed from a predominantly agrarian society to a highly industrialized, technological society impacted by social, political, religious and cultural changes; the establishment of vocational education has helped manage some of these changes and legislation has played a key role in its development. Although the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 had the greatest impact on the system of vocational education as we know it today, other legislative acts set the stage for what was to come. A few are worth mentioning because of their impact on vocational education. The Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 (U.S. LEGISLATION 1862; U.S. LEGISLATION 1890), also known as the Land-Grant Acts, provided land for establishing universities, called “colleges of agriculture”, “colleges of mechanic arts”, or “colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts”. Their purpose was to “promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in pursuits and ↑ professions of living” (GORDON 2003, 41). According to Gordon (2003), the demands for trained workers in agriculture, the principal resource in America, grew between 1820 and 1860 when it was realized that already established elite universities promoted the
education of professionals in only four areas: law, medicine, teaching, and the ministry. Congress’ response to the lack of opportunity for the masses to be trained to solve “practical” problems was the Morrill Act of 1862 and was the first legislation passed to support vocational education. The Morrill Act of 1890 provided educational opportunities for African American students (GORDON 2003). It mandated that southern states open their land-grant institutions to both White and Black students or establish “separate but equal” facilities for Blacks (cited in GORDON 2003). The Smith-Lever Agricultural Extension Act of 1914 (PL 95) provided funding for the establishment of cooperative extension work in agriculture and ↑ home economics. It also completed the landgrant “triumvirate – teaching, research, and extension” (GORDON 2003, 49). It was the first act that established the 50–50 matching by states to federal funding and “provided farmers and homemakers needed training in demonstrations and project work at the farm and in the home as vocational education of less than college work” (SCOTT / SARKEESWIRCENSKI 1996, 121). The ↑ Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 (PL 64-347) is often associated by stakeholders as the beginning of federal support for vocational education through the provisions in federal funding. The federal government since then has had an active interest in expanding vocational education. This act had many provisions that helped shape vocational education. The most important ones included the creation of a Federal Board for Vocational Education; establishment of federal-state-local agency ↑ partnership for the purpose of establishing and operating programs in public institutions through the creation of state boards; provisions for funding for studies, investigations, and reports for States to aid them in the establishment of ↑ vocational schools and classes; appropriations for salaries of teachers, supervisors, and directors of vocational education areas (States were to pay half); and, teacher preparation in the areas of agriculture, home economics, and trade and industrial subjects (Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 Pub. L. No. 64-347 § 114, 39 Stat. 929). The ↑ Vocational Education Act of 1963 (PL 88210) was also an important piece of legislation that “marked a new era for vocational education....[and
Genesis of TVET Research
was] an essential program for the common welfare and national defense of the country” SCOTT / SARKEES-WIRCENSKI 1996, 128). Its major goals were to “…maintain, extend, and improve existing programs of vocational education, to develop new programs of vocational education, and to provide part-time employment for youths who needed the earnings to continue their vocational training on a full-time basis, so that persons of all ages in all communities of the State – those in ↑ high school, those who have completed or discontinued their formal education and are preparing to enter the labor market, those who have already entered the labor market but need to upgrade their skills or learn new ones, and those with special educational handicaps – will have ready access to vocational training or retraining which is of high quality, which is realistic in the light of actual or anticipated opportunities for gainful employment, and which is suited to their needs, interests, and ability to benefit from such training” (VOCATIONAL EDUCATION ACT OF 1963 Pub. L. No. 88-210 § 1 77 Stat. 403).
This act was also instrumental in broadening the definition of vocational education as well as expanding the delivery systems of vocational education used today. The Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act 1984 (PL 98-524) “amended the Vocational Education Act of 1963 and replaced the amendments of 1968 and 1976” (GORDON 2003, 86). The emphasis for funding changed from expansion of programs to improvement and at-risk populations. There were two major goals for this act, one economic and one social. The first was to improve the skills of the labour force and prepare adults for job opportunities (economic); and the latter, to provide equal opportunities for adults in vocational education (social) (GORDON 2003). This act was amended by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act of 1990 (PL 101-392) and replaced by the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998 (PL 105332), which included provisions for research. Gordon (2003) states, “A national assessment of vocational education activities was authorized to provide for an independent assessment and evaluation of programs funded with Perkins dollars. The law authorized the U.S. Secretary of Education to conduct activities in the areas of national research and demonstrations, as well as development, capacity building, and technical assistance” (GORDON 2003, 101).
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Although somewhat dated, a compilation of federal legislation for vocational education published in 1966 states that legislative acts since the manpower development in 1961 lists provisions which became a common feature of federal laws subsequent to this act. Of the fourteen points that were listed, the following were related to the relevance of evaluation and research in the field. (1) Provisions for research, ↑ experimentation, and ↑ pilot projects were permitted, encouraged, and often required. (2) Evaluation and detailed reporting were mandated (SWANSON 1966, 103). Professionals in the field hope for continued support from the federal government for ↑ career and technical education and the research endeavours associated with it. 1.5.3
History of Vocational Education Research
History of Educational Research The formal study of education began at the turn of the century with establishment of university schools and departments of education. There was a desire to create a “science of education” (LAGEMANN 1997, 5). Education was looked upon as the vehicle for solving “social problems related to rapid demographic and economic change” (LAGEMANN 1997, 6). Foundations such as the Rockefeller’s General Education Board (GEB) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) were established to “foster more nationally standardized systems of education” (cited in LAGEMANN 1997, 6) and were the first to sponsor what was then termed major investigations (research) in schools in various cities across the country (LAGEMANN 1997). A study conducted by Paul Hanus, professor of the history and art of teaching at Harvard and George D. Strayor, professor of educational administration at Teachers College produced results that helped increase the course offerings in education of the twelve leading universities from 132 in 1900 to 1,636 by 1930 (cited in LAGEMANN 1997, 6). It was also one of the first to use statistical methods to present “facts” rather than “opinion” (LAGEMANN 1997). ↑ Statistical analysis was adopted in
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↑ educational research when Edward L. Thorndike published his textbook in 1904; it was adopted in educational research courses across the country (cited in LAGEMANN 1997). During the next few years, “special methods were invented to allow researchers to study different aspects of education…some of the methods involved laboratory experiments; others involved questionnaires. All of which provided data that, after being subjected to quantitative analysis, contributed to the rapidly developing ↑ knowledge base in education” (LAGEMANN 1997, 7). Educational research became an identifiable field of study in 1917 with its inclusion as a distinct category in the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature. About the same time the research community in education emerged (LAGEMANN 1997). In general, the national ↑ commitment to research in education began a half century before a commitment to research in vocational education (CVERD 1976).
Research in Vocational Education Most of the historical and research related information presented in this section was detailed in a 1976 report by The Committee on Vocational Education Research and Development (CVERD). It was the outcome of an assessment conducted by this committee, formed in 1974 by the Office of Education to perform two tasks: (1) To review and assess the research and development activities sponsored by the Office of Education under the authority of the ↑ Vocational Education Act of 1963 as amended in 1968 and; (2) To recommend changes in research and ↑ development policies and programs for the coming decade (CVERD 1976, v–vi). The report directed by this committee “composed of professionals from diverse parts of the vocational education community – universities, R& D institutions, national organisations, and state and local education agencies – as well as behavioral and social scientists and a labour union official” with the hope of improving vocational education services to individuals and society (CVERD 1976, vii).
Handbook of TVET Research
Historical Background Although the ↑ Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 (PL 64347) and the George Barden Act of 1946 (PL 79586), had designated funding for supporting “studies and reports designed to improve the administration and management of vocational education programs” (CVERD 1976, 17) neither act provided funding specifically for research and development in vocational education. Such funding occurred after the Vocational Education Act of 1963 (PL 88210) was passed. This Act had “explicitly provided substantial funding” (CVERD 1976, 17) for vocational education research from 1965 through 1969 as specified in Section 4(c). The ↑ Vocational Education Act of 1963 also provided funding for the creation of the ad hoc Advisory Council on Vocational Education (the Essex Council) which was tasked with reviewing all vocational programs between 1963 and 1967 (CVERD 1976). It presented recommendations in December, 1967. In general, the council was dissatisfied with the nature of research and the administration of the research program (CVERD 1976) and the recommendations it presented were eventually incorporated in the 1968 Amendments of the Vocational Education Act (PL 90-576). “The Essex Council recommended reducing administrative complexities, providing specific training for the handicapped, authorizing work-study programs and residential vocational schools, and increasing the emphasis given to post-secondary and adult programs. The Council recommended changes in federal-state relationships in order to give greater latitude to the states in both program planning and management. It was recommended that ten per cent of the funds appropriated for vocational education continue to be available for research-related activities, including the support of state research coordinating units and state research programs. The Council also recommended that funds be allocated directly by the Commissioner of Education to support research on critical problems of national scope. The Council wanted the administration, supervision, and coordination of the research funds to remain in the vocational education division of the U.S. Office of Education in order that such research might bear directly upon the needs of vocational education” (CVERD 1976, 18–19).
Funds appropriated by the 1968 Amendments Parts C, D, and I supported vocational education research beginning in 1970. Part C supported research, demonstration, and ↑ curriculum develop-
Genesis of TVET Research
ment and superceded Section 4(c) of the 1963 Act; funds from Part D were used to demonstrate innovative vocational education or ↑ career education programs in school settings; and, funds from Part I were used to support curriculum development and dissemination (Amendments to the Vocational Education Act of 1963 (U.S. LEGISLATION 1968). According to CVERD (1976), the U.S. Office of Education spent close to $250 million dollars to support almost 5,000 vocational education research and development projects from 1965 to 1974. However, during that same period, at total of $284.4 million dollars was appropriated; this represented less than 28 per cent of the amount authorized.
National Organisations and Their Impact on Research The National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (NSPIE), was formed in 1906 by businessmen interested in promoting industrial education. Their membership consisted of educators, manufacturers, mechanics, businessmen, and representatives of other occupations (GORDON 2003). Their objectives included: (1) Bringing to the public’s attention the importance of industrial education as a factor in the industrial development of America and to provide opportunities for the study and discussion of the various phases of the problem. (2) Making available the results of experiments in the field of industrial education. (3) Promoting the establishment of institutions of industrial training (GORDON 2003, 63). As a result of their ↑ commitment to the study of industrial education and their strong leadership, this organisation (which subsequently became the National Society for Vocational Education) was instrumental in advocating for the appointment of the National Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education in 1914. Five other panels were formed between 1914 and 1968 for the purpose of studying vocational education intensively to promote growth in the movement in vocational education. Five of the six panels were appointed by the president of the ↑ United States. The six panels were:
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– Commission on National Aid for Vocational Education, 1914 – Committee on Vocational Education, 1928– 1929 – National Advisory Committee on Education, 1929–1931 – Advisory Committee on Education, 1936–1938 – Panel of Consultants on Vocational Education, 1961–1962 – National Advisory Council on Education, 1967 (GORDON 2003, 63). Although each panel accomplished much, it is most important to note that the work done by most of these panels resulted in federal legislation or amendments to legislation which supported vocational education by increasing funding at the national level. In 1926, the American Vocational Association (AVA) was established after a joint meeting with the National Society for Vocational Education (formerly the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education [NSPIE]) and the Vocational Association of the Middle West. In 1998,its name was changed to the Association of Career and Technical Education (ACTE) and represents some 40,000 members consisting of vocational education teachers, supervisors, teacher educators, counselors, administrators, special support personnel, and graduate students (GORDON 2003). The national organisation has several purposes which include encouraging professional development for its members; fostering excellence in programs; advocating for national policy that will benefit vocational education; and, marketing of vocational education. The American Vocational Education Research Association (↑ AVERA), established in 1966, consists of members who specifically are interested in conducting research related to vocational education. AVERA members are also members of the American Educational Research Association (↑ AERA), who also form the Special Interest Group (SIG) on Career and Technical Education within AERA. During AERA, this SIG conducts sessions on research related to vocational education. The Journal of Vocational Education Research, a top tiered journal in the field, is the publication that AVERA sponsors (MCCRACKEN / PAUGH / SHANK 1994).
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Handbook of TVET Research
The ↑ National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE) was established by the Office of Vocational and Adult Education in the U. S. Department of Education in 1988. Its mission was to “rethink what vocational education should be and how it can best be delivered. It was to contribute to the renewal of vocational education so it can give citizens, of all ages the skills they need for successful, long term employment” (NCRVE 1988, 24). The Center ceased operations on December 31, 1999.
The National Research and Dissemination Centers for Career and Technical Education are primary sources of research-based information (which educate about, through and for careers). It is a consortium committed to providing innovative approaches to improving the practice of career and technical education at local, state, and national levels. The consortium partners include: The University of Minnesota; The Ohio State University; The University of Illinois; Oregon State University; and the Pennsylvania State University. Together they are committed to: (1) Use practitioner-driven approaches in the planning, development, conduct, and evaluation of all research, dissemination, and professional development activities. (2) Develop a program that is national in scope, reflecting the strengths and needs of diverse national, state, and local practitioners across a range of geographic, socioeconomic, and cultural settings. (3) Present a balanced research, dissemination, and professional development program for secondary and postsecondary practitioners and institutions (NCCTE 2006). 1.5.4
Summary
The story of vocational education research in the ↑ United States cannot be told without some understanding of the history of vocational education and the legislation that supported its growth throughout the years. Since the 1960s, or rather since the passage of the ↑ Vocational Education Act of 1963, there has been strong support for research and dissemination for vocational education in the United States. Research has played a vital role in legitimizing vocational education. Without it, justification of its existence would be difficult.
While the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 provided the major impetus for the creation of the nation’s land-grant colleges and universities, other legislation was not only influential, but necessary for the development of vocational education programs in the U.S. Such national legislation provided much needed funding for research leading to the development of vocational education programs for preparing professionals and developing and improving curriculum. The development of organisations and groups, whose objectives included promoting vocational education, research, and assistance to the professional development of vocational education professionals, strengthened the field and helped to make it respected among other educators, business, industry and the general public.
1.6
Overview of Research Concerning Vocational Education and Vocational Training in Modern Japan Susumu Sasaki
1.6.1
Introduction
The subjects of this article are the technical school before World War II, from the Meiji period onward in particular, and the ↑ high school technical course in the postwar period, as well as public vocational training and in-company vocational training. The article surveys studies in ↑ educational research concerning topics such as the details and history of the ideology and systems that brought about the aforementioned education and training programmes, as well as their curricula and methods of teaching. Education and training in ↑ Japan have developed within narrow departmental boundaries. The governmental authorities have been ridiculed as being confined within barriers that are less permeable than national boundaries. These limitations also affect research. More specifically, vocational education and training is often neglected in educational research without explicit justification. This is due to the fact that researchers tend to limit the meaning of “education” to those
Genesis of TVET Research
events falling under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education without being aware of it. To be sure, there are exceptions. The study by Hosoya (1944), the first research undertaken in this field in Japan, not only considered vocational education in schools, but also included general vocational training in its perspective. The Japanese Industrial Education Society, which was established in 1960 following a proposal by Hosoya and others, directed the attention of researchers to vocational education in schools as well as vocational training outside schools. In addition, Hosoya (1978), which expanded Hosoya (1944), continues to be the most comprehensive source of research concerning technical education even today. This article, in line with the development of experience in school vocational education, as well as in-company and public vocational training in the period around World War II, will take a general view of the corresponding research on vocational education and training. Therefore, no special efforts have been made to include the comparative research on vocational education and training which were very popular particularly from the 1970s to the 1990s. Instead, Terada (2003) can be referred to. 1.6.2
Research on Vocational Education
Research on Vocational Education in Schools before World War II (1) Start of the modern ↑ school system – The “Education Code”, the first comprehensive law concerning the school system, was enacted in 1872, and the modern school education system was established. The elementary general education systems were unified into one elementary school system. There is a theory that the concept of the “Education Code” originated in the Netherlands, ↑ France, or the ↑ United States of America etc. However, the commonly accepted theory today is that the concept was a result of blending the systems from several countries, making it uniquely Japanese. (2) Formulation of the “vocational education” concept – In the Meiji period, the “practical business” concept formulated as an extension of the “practical
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studies” concept meant the business of production and distribution in the real world. Yukichi Fukuzawa, a well-known Enlightenment thinker, attached great importance to the “practical business” concept from an early stage. In the midst of such an ideological trend, a propensity to learn from Western technology and ideology was established. Yukichi Fukuzawa called the education which included the education of commerce and economics, “vocational education”, and contributed greatly to its development. (3) Research concerning the system and teaching in ↑ vocational schools – In prewar ↑ Japan, the phrase “vocational education” was not commonly used, and the phrase“practical business education” was used instead. In accordance with the Vocational School Order of 1899, all schools that offered vocational education such as the technical school, apprentice school, commerce school, agricultural school, fisheries school, and mercantile marine school were appointed as vocational schools. The government was keen to establish technical schools to adopt the modern technology which did not exist prior to the modern era. The Law for Subsidizing Vocational Education Expenses from the National Treasury was enacted in 1894 under the initiative of Kowashi Inoue, the Education Minister. This law played a major role in the expansion of vocational education which is significantly more expensive than general education (K AIGO 1968). – It is a well-known fact that, in the Meiji period, the so-called industrial illuminators contributed to the development of vocational training (MIYOSHI 1995). In particular, studying the advancement of Western technology was hugely popular. In the early days of the technical schools, there were many subjects from the traditional industries such as dyeing and textiles; however, subjects that teach modern industrial technologies such as machinery and electricity also quickly came into being (MIYOSHI 1989b). According to the statistical data from the Ministry of Education, throughout almost the whole period of the vocational schools’ existence, 70 % or more of their graduates obtained employment in the area of expertise they had gained in the schools. These graduates were making a great contribution to the development of modern industry.
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– The curriculum of a vocational school consisted of so-called general education subjects such as Japanese language, history, mathematics, and physics, and the subjects and ↑ practical training concerning the ↑ vocation which the school taught. The standard curriculum set by the Ministry of Education did not exist for the vocational schools, neither did the system of government authorisation of textbooks; therefore, the curricula were extremely diverse, each technical school having a unique curriculum (ABE 1936). – Toward the end of World War II, the fact that standard textbooks began to be published for the vocational schools’ major subjects contributed greatly to the improvement and unification of standards in industrial education (HARA 1968).
Research on Vocational Education after World War II (1) Research on the ↑ school system reform and vocational education in the postwar period – The education reform after World War II changed the school system to the 6-3-3-4 system, and extended the duration of ↑ compulsory education to age 15. The decision was made to provide all areas of vocational education and training to those 15 or over. The schools for the junior ↑ high school graduates were unified into one high school system only, and the vocational course, one of the courses in high school, came to take over the role formerly played by the prewar ↑ vocational schools. – Although the percentage of students who went on to high school was between 50 % and 60 % in the 1950s, this percentage rapidly increased thereafter, exceeding 90 % in 1973. The dropout rate was under 20 %. The majority of students made it to graduation. This is probably a phenomenon not seen in Western countries. – Although the percentage of the number of students in a high school vocational course was approximately 40 % around 1960, the decline of the vocational course in subsequent years led to a decrease to below 25 % in the 1990s (SASAKI 2000). In recent years, among the number of students in the vocational course, the technical course has most students. – Additional information concerning high school vocational education courses and employment in
Handbook of TVET Research
the postwar period can be gained from referring to Terada (2003; 2004). (2) Research on the details of vocational education in high school – Unlike the prewar period, the high school official curriculum guidelines, which all regular curricula were based on, were also applied in full measure to vocational education such as industrial education, and the screening system was also fully applied to the textbooks concerned. The curriculum for the high school vocational course allocated just above half of the class hours to general education such as Japanese language, social studies, mathematics, and science, thereby ensuring common ground with the high school. In the vocational course, the number of hours allocated for professional education concerning the chosen field of ↑ vocation belonged to the optional subject hours within the framework of the high school curriculum system (SASAKI 1989), and took up just below 50 % of the overall class hours even including the ↑ practical training hours. – The education provided by the technical course has traditionally put an emphasis on technical drawing and practical training. For example, the official curriculum guidelines for the technical course revised in 1951 stipulated that the curriculum was to be structured around practical training, and all subjects concerning the chosen field were to be treated as subjects related to the practical training. Jun Hasegawa (1949) had considerable influence in drawing up these official curriculum guidelines. He published “Shokugyo Bunseki”, the work he translated from “Trade and Job Analysis” 2edn. 1947 by Verne C. Fryklund. This work introduced new and unfamiliar educational methods in ↑ Japan, summarised as occupation and operation analysis for vocational education. – The federal subsidy set up in accordance with the Industrial Education Promotion Law enacted in 1951 played a major role in the expansion of facilities and equipment of the high school vocational course (SATO 1996). According to Masayasu Hasegawa et al (1976), the standard of subsidy in accordance with the Industrial Education Promotion Law greatly affected the way experiments and practical training were conducted in schools.
Genesis of TVET Research
– Information on the absurdities of the current high school vocational education such as the low level of the students’ academic ability and the practical actions needed to overcome such problems can be gained by referring to: Saito et al. (ed.) (2005). (3) Research concerning the coordination between the part-time/correspondence course high schools and technical education – In 1961, the so-called coordination system was established in which learning achievements at specific accredited vocational training institutions were credited as part-time or correspondence course high school units. This system that linked school education and vocational training has attracted the attention of many researchers (MIYACHI 1978). ↑ In-company training institutions of large enterprises have particularly benefited from utilising this coordination system. (4) Research concerning ↑ miscellaneous schools and ↑ professional-training schools – Reflecting the tendency in ↑ Japan to put a high value on “academic qualifications” where graduating from what are referred to as “regular schools” carries great significance, there was a strong tendency for education researchers to overlook schools in the “miscellaneous” category which cannot grant an accredited “academic qualification”. However, in 1976, separately from the system for miscellaneous schools, the system for specialised-training schools which carry out vocational education in a more systematic and organised manner than the miscellaneous schools was revived (KURAUCHI / K AMIYAMA / SEKIGUCHI 1977; HAN 1996). Among specialised-training schools, schools that take in ↑ high school graduates are called professionaltraining schools. The professional-training schools have seen remarkable development, to the extent that approximately a third of the high school graduates have been advancing to professional-training schools since 1990 onwards. However, almost all specialised-training schools are private schools. It is a typical example, which suggests that the government is blatantly enforcing the policy of reducing the public investment for vocational education, thereby forcing vocational education to be carried out at private expense.
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1.6.3
Research on Vocational Training
Research on Vocational Training before World War II (1) Terms related to vocational training Although various words such as “technician training”, “apprentice system”, “master mechanic training”, “apprentice training”, and “indenture” were being used before World War II, the word “vocational training” was never used prior to the enactment of the ↑ Vocational Training Law in 1958. In that context, the Vocational Training Law had a significant impact on the academic world. The Vocational Training Law was changed to the “Human Resources Development Promotion Law” in 1985; however, in the academic world, the status of the word “vocational training” has changed very little. (2) Research concerning the history of vocational training before World War II – As a result of the Meiji Restoration, the freedom to choose one’s occupation was established. The apprentice-hiring restriction seen in some fields of occupation until the last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, and the guilds that restricted the business of those who were not members, completely collapsed. The governmental factories and mines in the early Meiji period, which took the lead in bringing in modern technology through foreign technical experts, had a significant influence on the private sector. A lot of the vocational training conducted there was literally “learning” by watching someone perform an example and imitating it (SUMIYA 1970). – Unlike school education, vocational training has never been a reason for the government to adopt any special measures until the 1930s, and basically it was left up to the private sector. – Governmental factories such as the governmental ironworks and the arsenals, which were the factories under direct military and naval control, often disregarded profitability, and brought in the latest technology. As a result, military arsenals had a tremendous influence on the vocational training world. For example, some workers who had gained experience and skill founded modern factories after retirement. On the other hand, the theory that the craftsmen who emerged from the indigenous
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industries supported the provincial machine industries in the Meiji period is also drawing attention (SUZUKI 1996). – From 1920 onward, labour turnover decreased and the permanent employment system began to take root in large companies. Some large companies started conducting in-company vocational training. It was also a move toward holding reserves of skilled workers, who tended to be scattered around, within the company (SUMIYA 1971). In addition, one of the points which made prewar Japan considerably different from the Western countries was its small ratio of organised labour to total labour force. The practices such as trade unions’ regulation of demarcation or regulation of the wage rate according to the degree of proficiency (equivalent to vocational qualifications in the West) were not born. (3) Research on vocational training from the viewpoint of labour policy – In the latter half of the 1920s, the nation became aware of the fact that agricultural communities no longer had the reserve capacity to absorb the unemployed. In turn, measures undertaken to counter unemployment were being initiated for the first time in modern history. As part of this undertaking, public vocational training institutions began to be established in the name of “↑ vocational guidance”, although these institutions were extremely few in number (SASAKI 1987). – In the 1930s, shortage of master mechanics began to be felt mainly in military industries, and training courses began to be established within the public vocational training institutions (TANAKA 1986). There arose what is referred to as the “master mechanic dispute” over how master mechanics should be trained. The dispute was as to which type of master mechanics were more in demand: single-skilled mechanics or multiskilled mechanics (K IUCHI 1936). It attracted public attention that the master mechanic issue was being argued among a diverse range of people for the first time in the history of capitalism in ↑ Japan. – Under the National Mobilization Law of 1938 which was a delegated legislation under full powers, the government enacted the “Skilled Technicians Training Order for Factory Establishments”, and made it compulsory for factories and mines
Handbook of TVET Research
etc. in the private sector to train a specific number of skilled technicians. This was the start of the standard vocational training of 3 years for a wide range of fields. The first work written by Hosoya introduced at the beginning of this article observed this trend. However, this system collapsed toward the end of World War II.
Research on Vocational Training after World War II (1) Reorganisation of vocational training after defeat in the war – After defeat in the war, labour relations were democratised at the command of the occupation forces, and many trade unions came into being in a short period of time (OOKOUCHI 1955). Postwar Japan’s trade unions were organised on a company to company basis, and they have shown very little interest in education and training of the workers up to this day. – The occupation forces virtually prohibited ministries and agencies other than the Ministry of Education to have a training institution. Consequently, the training institutions such as those under the former Ministry of Communications and Ministry of Railways plunged into a devastating state (YAMAMOTO 2002). – Japan had not had the tradition of supervisor training; therefore, TWI (Training Within Industry), an internationally leading standard supervisor training system introduced through the occupation forces, rapidly spread among a wide range of industrial fields with the support from the Ministry of Labor (publication of the magazine “TWI Kenkyu”). TWI training deserves attention for introducing to management the concept of a foreman (the front-line supervisor) which did not exist in Japan up to that time, and for creating the trend to value the establishment of the foreman system in the company (KOGA 1978). (2) Formulation of a framework for the ↑ Vocational Training Law and its research – The Vocational Training Law enacted in 1958 in the context of the postwar revival of nationalism and the progression of technological innovation was the first independent law concerning vocational training in Japan. The enactment of this law not
Genesis of TVET Research
only marked an epoch in vocational training in Japan, but also brought about far-reaching influence on research. The important characteristics of the Vocational Training Law include the following: (1) It took the initiative in placing vocational training courses into the public vocational training scheme which was previously centred around countering unemployment; (2) It actively promoted ↑ in-company training without keeping it as a mere regulation to protect apprenticeship; (3) It established the system for the government to test technical skills (KOGA /K IRINOKI / SUMIYA / YOSHINAGA 1978). – There are two types of public vocational training institutions: the institutions which have traditionally been set up by local governments, and the institutions which are funded by unemployment insurance (renamed “employment insurance” at a later stage). The former had traditionally put an emphasis on training for ↑ career change; however, after the enactment of the ↑ Vocational Training Law, both types of institutions expanded the training courses targeting new graduates. The training standards for the training courses in public vocational training are set by the Ministry of Labour. Compared to the technical ↑ high school curriculum, there are only a few general education subjects, and the emphasis is predominantly placed on ↑ practical training. However, only a few critical analyses of the curriculum are known (TANAKA 1986). – The system of national testing of technical skills established in accordance with the Vocational Training Law has no Western equivalents. The applicable types of occupations only include industry-related occupations, and distribution-related occupations are not included. Unlike official certification, passing or not passing a technical skill test does not directly lead to business or employment restriction. The test results are not reflected in the wage rate, since both the companies and unions are opposed to linking the test with the wage rate. (3) Formulation of a framework for the Human Resources Development Promotion Law and research into its time period – The Vocational Training Law adopted ↑ lifelong learning as its slogan in 1985 and was completely reorganised into the Human Resources Develop-
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ment Promotion Law. As a result of this change, the public vocational training institution was renamed the ↑ human resources development institution. According to Kazutoshi Tanaka, the transitions of the courses offered in public vocational training in the 1970s and 2000s show that the training for new graduates has been reduced, and the training for career change more than doubled, and the training for those currently employed rapidly grew to 6 times as much as before (TANAKA / OOKI 2005). (4) Research on in-company vocational training – The Vocational Training Law categorised all types of vocational training other than public vocational training as in-company vocational training. The in-company vocational training covers a broad range of areas, it has become extremely active particularly since the high economic growth period (KURAUCHI / MIYAJI / NAKAMURA 1963; 1965). According to a large-scale fact-finding survey conducted at the beginning of 1970, all steel manufacturers had an in-company vocational training system without exception. However, while on-thejob training is assigned to all workers, the training which takes more than a year including off-thejob training is mostly assigned only to those in key positions and those with maintenance responsibilities (JAPAN FEDERATION OF STEEL WORKERS’ UNIONS 1973). Most of the ↑ in-company training is organised according to each company’s unique objective. For example, the training is integrated as part of labour management (MICHIMATA 1978). There are no known comprehensive, at least governmental, ↑ statistics of in-company vocational training, partly due to the lack of any applicable official regulations. Research concerning in-company vocational training is considerably behind other research even today.
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1.7
Handbook of TVET Research
UNESCO’s Research on TVET and Skills Development Keith Holmes and Rupert Maclean
1.7.1
Introduction
This chapter provides an overview of the engagement of the ↑ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and four UNESCO Institutes and Centres in research on TVET and skills development. We begin with the work of UNESCO as a whole and then review the research of those UNESCO Institutes and Centres most active in this field. Current trends, including research ↑ partnerships and networks, and some emerging challenges for national and international research are then considered. UNESCO was founded in 1945 with the aim of building a harmonious and prosperous world community in the aftermath of World War II. As an ↑ intergovernmental organisation, UNESCO comprises 191 Member States and 6 Associate Members. The preamble to UNESCO’s constitution famously states, “That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed” (UNESCO 1945, preamble). The constitution defines ↑ UNESCO’s main purpose as, “To contribute to peace and security in the world by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science, culture and communication in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations” (UNESCO 1945, Article 1).
Education was always a major priority for UNESCO and this took on special meaning with the ↑ United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in Paris in 1948. Article 26 states, “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit” (UNITED NATIONS 1948, Article 1).
In 1962 UNESCO’s General Conference adopted a Recommendation Concerning Technical and Vo-
cational Education. This normative instrument was revised in 1974 and further revised and updated in 2001 taking account of two UNESCO conferences on TVET (held in Berlin in 1987 and Seoul in 1999) and the Convention on Technical and Vocational Education (1989). The Revised Recommendation (2001) uses ‘technical and vocational education’ as a comprehensive term, “referring to those aspects of the ↑ educational process involving, in addition to general education, the study of technologies and ↑ related sciences, and the acquisition of practical skills, attitudes, understanding and knowledge relating to occupations in various sectors of economic and social life” (UNESCO 2005a, 7). To fulfil its mandate to create the conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, UNESCO works as “a laboratory of ideas and a standard-setter to forge universal agreements on emerging ethical issues. The Organisation also serves as a clearinghouse – that disseminates and shares information and knowledge – while helping Member States to build their human and institutional capacities in diverse fields. In short, UNESCO promotes international co-operation […] in the fields of education, science, culture and communication” (UNESCO 2003b, 2). Each of UNESCO’s functions involves research: (1) Prospective studies: what forms of education, science, culture and communication for tomorrow’s world? (2) The advancement, transfer and sharing of knowledge: relying primarily on research, training and teaching activities. (3) Standard-setting action: the preparation and adoption of international instruments and statutory recommendations. (4) Expertise: provided to Member States for their ↑ development policies and projects in the form of “technical cooperation”. (5) Exchange of specialized information. (UNESCO 2000a, 24) In the 1980s, UNESCO conducted, and disseminated, several influential studies on TVET including The Transition from Technical and ↑ Vocational Schools to Work: Problems, Current Efforts and Innovative Approaches and Measures for Improving the Transition (UNESCO 1983) and Pol-
Genesis of TVET Research
icy, Planning and Management in Technical and Vocational Education: A ↑ Comparative Study (UNESCO 1984). An extensive collection of research, policy and technical documents on TVET and skills development is available online (http:// unesdoc.unesco.org) and on the CD-ROM Education, Work and the Future (UNESCO 2003a). UNESCO Member States have defined TVET as a priority programme area. Even when, due to international attention to basic education in the 1990s, TVET had less donor support, UNESCO maintained the view that TVET can play an essential role in promoting socio-economic development, with benefits for individuals, their families, local communities and society in general. In fact the World Conference on ‘↑ Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs’ at Jomtien in 1990 included in the definition of ‘basic education’ the content “required by human beings to be able to survive, to develop their full capacities, to live and work in dignity, to participate fully in development, to improve the quality of their lives, to make informed decisions, and to continue learning” (UNESCO 1990a, 3).
The fifth target dimension proposed to countries was the “expansion of provisions of basic education and training in other essential skills required by youth and adults, with programme ↑ effectiveness assessed in terms of behavioural changes and impacts on health, employment and productivity” (UNESCO 1990b, 3). The two major ↑ UNESCO conferences on TVET each involved extensive preparatory meetings and research. The ‘First International Congress on the Development and Improvement of Technical and Vocational Education’ was held in Berlin in 1987. This congress was instrumental in the launch, in 1992, of UNESCO’s International Project on Technical and Vocational Education, named ‘UNEVOC’. The ‘Second International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education’ was held in Seoul, Republic of Korea, in 1999. Then at the World Education Forum, in Dakar in 2000, skills development was included as one of the six ↑ Education for All (EFA) goals: “ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life skills programmes” (UNESCO 2000b, 8). In 2004 an International Experts’ Meeting ‘Learning for Work, Citizenship and ↑ Sustainability’
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took place in Bonn. In each conference, UNESCO concerns such as capacity building, gender equity, ↑ disadvantaged groups, non-formal education and international understanding featured prominently. These conferences have together significantly influenced research and policy agendas in TVET and skills development worldwide (→ 1.8; → 2.7).
1.7.2
The Contribution of UNESCO Institutes and Centres
↑ UNESCO has created specialized Institutes and Centres to augment its research and expertise in education and other fields. These ‘Category I’ Institutes and Centres are established as an integral part of UNESCO, upon recommendation of the Executive Board, on the basis of a formal decision of the General Conference. They operate at arms’ length from the UNESCO Secretariat (although they report to the Director-General) and they have a specific mandate for research and capacity development. They also have an integral role in UNESCO’s work as lead international agency for ↑ Education for All and for the ↑ UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Their activities include, “producing and disseminating information; research and analysis; tracking trends, monitoring progress and assessing needs; policy dialogue and development; capacity-building and reform; and technical assistance and training” (UNESCO 2004b, 3). UNESCO
Category I Institutes and Centres working in education are presented in Table 1. Most of UNESCO’s research on TVET and skills development has been conducted by four of these Category I Institutes and Centres. These are: the ↑ UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL); the ↑ International Institute for ↑ Educational Planning (IIEP); the ↑ UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training and the ↑ UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). Selected research activities on TVET and skills development are presented here to illustrate the modalities, potential and challenges facing such work.
UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning was, from 1951 to 2006, the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE). It “supports the development of adult
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Tab. 1: UNESCO Category I Institutes and Centres working in education (UNESCO 2004b) and lifelong learning, literacy and non-formal education in all regions of the world, with special emphasis on those people who are disadvantaged or living marginal lives” (UNESCO 2004b, 8).
The Institute carries out its work through research and technical assistance as well as through seminars for decision makers and training workshops for practitioners (ibid.). UIL conducts research on the recognition, validation and accreditation of ↑ informal learning and has recently contributed to a publication in the UNEVOC book series on Meeting Basic Learning Needs in the Informal Sector: Integrating Education and Training for Decent Work, Empowerment and Citizenship (SINGH 2005). This volume contains the findings of studies commissioned by UNESCO and ↑ ILO on educa-
tion, training and skills formation for decent work in the informal sector. The Institute has also contributed several chapters to the UNEVOC International Handbook of TVET (CHINIEN / MACLEAN / WILSON forthcoming).
International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) The International Institute for Educational Planning has built a strong reputation for research on education and development since its formation in 1963. True to its mandate, IIEP’s TVET research has focussed on planning, finance and governance issues (→ 3.3). IIEP studies aim to support civil servants working in education and training by pro-
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ducing new knowledge to guide planning and policy-making. Publications include The Planning of Technical and Vocational Education and Training, (K ING 1985); Planning Human Resources: Methods, Experiences and Practices (BERTRAND 1992); Financing Vocational Education: Concepts, Examples and Tendencies (ATCHOARENA 1996); Technical Education: A Dead End or Adapting to Change? (ATCHOARENA / CAILLODS 1999); Revisiting Technical and Vocational Education in SubSaharan Africa: An Update on Trends, Innovations and Challenges (ATCHOARENA / DELLUC 2002) and The Role of Agricultural Colleges and Universities in Rural Development and Lifelong Learning in Asia (ATCHOARENA / HOLMES 2005). In 2003 IIEP launched a programme of research on the reform and governance of public TVET (see HOLMES 2003). As part of this programme a country study has been conducted on The Governance of ↑ Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges in South Africa (MCGRATH / ADAMS / HANNAH ET AL . forthcoming). IIEP has also contributed chapters to the UNEVOC International Handbook of TVET (CHINIEN / MACLEAN / WILSON forthcoming). As well as conventional publications, research findings are disseminated through ↑ IIEP’s website (http:// www.unesco.org/iiep), conferences, workshops, journals, newsletters and training courses. IIEP’s Buenos Aires office was established in 1997 to strengthen the training of ministry officials in Latin America in fields related to ↑ educational planning and management. Research on TVET and skills development, with particular attention to social justice, is one of its areas of expertise. As well as conducting studies on education, work and social insertion for ↑ disadvantaged youth, IIEP Buenos Aires has developed RedEtis (http://www.reditis.org.ar), a regional network for research and the diffusion of knowledge between researchers, civil servants, heads of education and training institutions, non-governmental organisations and others.
UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training The ↑ UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre in Bonn was inaugurated in 2002. UNESCO-UN-
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EVOC aims to assist Member States achieve high quality, relevant, lifelong and cost-effective technical and vocational education and training for all. The Centre works for (and with) policy-makers, education managers, teachers and learners. Like the other Category I Institutes and Centres its activities span multiple modalities, such as networking, knowledge-sharing, publications, interagency collaboration and ↑ partnerships, advisory services and training. The most prominent of its networks is the UNEVOC Network of more than 220 specialised TVET institutions in more than 150 countries (UNESCO-UNEVOC 2003, 27). The UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre aims to promote best practices and innovations in TVET and education for the world of work, with special reference to meeting the needs of ↑ developing countries, countries in transition and countries in a post-conflict situation. UNESCO-UNEVOC has developed an extensive publications programme, with the international publisher Springer (Dordrecht, the Netherlands). The UNEVOC International Library of Technical and Vocational Education and Training is a series of publications that provides comprehensive information about many “cutting-edge” aspects of TVET. The International Library consists of a Book Series, Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects; National Profiles of TVET Systems; UNEVOC Annotated Bibliographies of TVET; the International Journal of TVET Research and UNEVOC Discussion Papers. This current handbook on TVET research is part of the International Library as is the six-volume International Handbook of Education for the Changing World of Work (MACLEAN / WILSON / CHINIEN 2008) The Book Series is intended to meet the needs of those interested in an in-depth analysis of current developments. It presents best and innovative practices and explores controversial topics, often using case studies. There are currently five volumes, with more in the pipeline: Vol. 1: Vocationalisation of Secondary Education Revisited (L AUGLO / MACLEAN 2005) is a cuttingedge contribution to the debate which has occurred for some time on the pros and cons of secondary education becoming more closely and explicitly related to preparing young people for the world
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of work. The book provides concrete examples of the vocationalization of secondary education, with particular reference to sub-Saharan Africa. Vol. 2: Meeting Basic Learning Needs in the Informal Sector: Integrating Education and Training for Decent Work, Empowerment and Citizenship (SINGH 2005) is an anthology which brings together features and facts about basic learning needs and the skills of people working and living in the informal economy. It presents case studies from different countries which examine education and training strategies for meeting these learning needs. Vol. 3: Training for Work in the Informal MicroEnterprise Sector: Fresh Evidence from Sub-Sahara Africa (HAAN 2006) portrays the grave problems facing education and training systems vis-àvis informal sector workers, even as policy-makers look at holistic solutions that take into account principles of ↑ lifelong learning and innovations in informal, non-formal and formal ↑ adult learning. This book reports a growing awareness that education is a human right of fundamental significance to promoting decent work and humane living conditions. Vol. 4: The Transformation of Vocational Education and Training (VET) in the Baltic States: A Survey of Reforms and Developments (BÜNNING 2006). The newest member states of the European Union – among them the Baltic states – are now involved in the ↑ Copenhagen process and are a source of enormous human potential that can greatly enrich Europe. The reforms in VET and its structures are the subject of critical debate in this book. ↑ UNESCO Vol. 5: Identities at Work (BROWN / KIRPAL / R AUNER 2007) brings together international theory and empirical research that deals with continuity and change of identity formation processes at work, under conditions of modern working processes and ↑ labour market flexibility. Vol. 6: Work, Subjectivity and Learning (BILLETT / FENWICK / SOMERVILLE 2006) provides international perspectives on the role of individuals’ subjectivity in securing effective work practices and learning for work and throughout working life. It emphasizes the need to go beyond considerations of institutional arrangements in vocational education to
Handbook of TVET Research
consider how individuals construe, construct and engage with learning through these arrangements. Books currently in preparation, with contracts signed with Springer, are: – Pavlova (2007): Empowering Individuals for the Future: Technology Education and TVET for Sustainable Development – Johnson/ Maclean/ Sadlak/ Hollander (forthcoming): Vocational Content in Mass Higher Education? Comparative and International Perspectives in response to the Challenges of the ↑ Labour Market and the Workplace – Fien/ Maclean/ Park (in press): Technical and Vocational Education and Training for Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges Future topics to be covered include; education of adolescents and youth for academic and vocational work; financing education for work; women and girls in TVET; harnessing ↑ ICT’s in support of TVET; planning education systems to promote education for the world of work; recognition, evaluation and assessment; education and training of demobilized soldiers in post-conflict situations; and ↑ school-to-work transition. A comprehensive series of 130 National Profiles of TVET systems in selected countries have been prepared, to be published as National Profiles of Vocational and Technical Education and Training in Selected Countries (GROLLMANN / L AUTERBACH / MACLEAN forthcoming). UNEVOC’s Annotated Bibliographies are a series of reviews of literature in TVET published between 1998 and 2003. They are intended to serve as a representative sample of the type of research taking place in the field of TVET, to aid others in their research, and to inform policy-makers and practitioners. The following Annotated Bibliographies are available in print and digital format: (1) Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) for Sustainable Development (2) Women and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) (3) Youth Unemployment – Meeting the Needs of Youth (4) Exploitative Work – Child Labour (5) Occupational Health and Safety The International Handbook for the Changing World of Work (MACLEAN / WILSON / CHINIEN 2008)
Genesis of TVET Research
is a major project intended to provide ready and widely available access to sources of information about many aspects of TVET. The handbook is intended to reflect best and innovative practice in TVET, using case studies as examples, and aims at promoting an improved dialogue between researchers, policy-makers and practitioners. UNESCO-UNEVOC also has an active programme of regional and international meetings on research related topics. The proceedings are often published as reports, for example, The Bologna Declaration and Emerging Models of TVET Teacher Training in Germany (BÜNNING / SHILELA 2006). In July 2006 a meeting of TVET partner agencies was held in Vietnam on the contribution of TVET to the ↑ UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Another UNEVOC meeting, in collaboration with ↑ NCVER (National Centre for Vocational Education Research, ↑ Australia), KRIVET (the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training) and CPSC (Colombo Plan Staff College for Technician Education, the Philippines), took place in Adelaide in October 2006 on ‘TVET is an ageing society’ (K ARMEL / MACLEAN 2007).
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) The ↑ UNESCO Institute for Statistics is a crucial link in an international network of experts and institutions dealing with ↑ statistics in UNESCO’s fields of competence. The Institute’s four main action areas are: (1) the collection, production, analysis and timely dissemination of policy-relevant statistics, indicators and related documentation at the national, regional and global levels; (2) the development of statistical methodology for the collection of data which are reliable, cross-nationally comparable, robust and feasible to collect; (3) assistance to Member States to help them improve their statistical and analytical capacities; (4) the provision of analytic and data support services (UIS/UNESCO 2002, 8). UIS is increasingly involved in cross-national research on TVET and skills development as the need to monitor progress increases. There are two
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major issues here: first, the lack of availability of national data, and second, difficulties in the comparability of data collected (see ELLIS 2005). The techniques of data collection and analysis used to monitor general education cannot be simply transferred to TVET, with its greater complexity and its multiple types and levels of provision (→ 5.4.1). The UIS and the ↑ UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre have jointly undertaken, with inputs from the University of London Institute of Education, a mapping of TVET statistics on a worldwide basis and will shortly publish ↑ Participation in Formal TVET Programmes Worldwide: An Initial Statistical Study (UNESCO-UNEVOC/UIS 2006). 1.7.3
Research through Partnerships and Networks
UNESCO’s research on TVET and skills development is often conducted in modalities that differ from those of academic research institutions. It often involves collaborations between colleagues within UNESCO and with external research partners such as other international organisations, government ministries and universities. In 2008, UNEVOC is organising a meeting on multiple literacies and TVET in partnership with the University of Oxford. UNESCO’s research is characterised by the Organizations’ values and policy orientation and it is often informed by policy dialogue, workshops and regional and international meetings (→ 2.1).
Internal Partnerships A successful internal partnership project that combined technical assistance with research was ‘Assisting the Design and Implementation of EFA Skills Development Plans: Skills Development to Meet the Learning Needs of the Excluded’. This involved collaboration between the UNESCO’s Division of Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education and ↑ IIEP. The technical assistance aspect involved reinforcing institutional capacities to support policy formulation in Lao PDR, Mali, Nepal and Senegal and the research aspect involved country-based teams conducting studies of current programmes and activities targeting skills develop-
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ment for excluded and marginalised groups. This phase of the project, which was funded by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, culminated in an inter-regional seminar and a publication Promoting Skills Development (UNESCO/ IIEP 2004). Other examples of partnerships within UNESCO include the contribution made by the UNESCOUNEVOC International Centre to a major article, Vocational Education: The Come-Back? in ‘Education Today’, the newsletter of UNESCO’s Education Sector (UNESCO 2005b, 4–7). Collaboration also takes place between UNESCO Institutes and Centres, such as the guest editing by UNESCOUNEVOC of a Special Issue of the International Bureau of Education journal, ‘Prospects’ on Orientating TVET for Sustainable Development (MACLEAN 2005).
External Partnerships Growing recognition of the value of inter-sectorality in TVET is generating new partnerships between organisations at national and international levels. For example, the Education for Rural People (ERP) flagship ↑ partnership was jointly launched by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and ↑ UNESCO at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 (see www.fao.org/sd/erp). This initiative builds awareness of the importance of education for rural people as a crucial step in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. UNESCO-↑ IIEP and FAO have produced a joint series of publications, including Education for Rural Development: towards new policy responses (ATCHOARENA / GASPERINI 2003) and organised several regional meetings. Collaboration between UNESCO and the ↑ International Labour Organisation (ILO) is well established in TVET with, for example, a joint UNESCO-ILO working group. It has also been agreed to conduct a series of learning and skills policy reviews and this is reflected in both agencies’ work plans and budgets (RIORDAN / MACLEAN 2003). There is also some cooperation between UNESCO and the ↑ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), for exam-
ple in connection with the International Standard ↑ Classification of Education (ISCED).
Research Networks The University Twinning and Networking (UNITWIN)/ UNESCO Chairs programme has, since its launch in 1992, fostered relations between UNESCO and the academic community worldwide. The main participants are universities and research institutions, in partnership with NGOs, foundations, and public and private sector organisations. The UNITWIN programme involves training, research and the exchange of academics and it offers an ↑ interdisciplinary platform for knowledge sharing in all areas of UNESCO’s work, including TVET research (HADDAD 2005, 5). 1.7.4
Conclusions
In recent years most of UNESCO’s research on TVET and skills development has been conducted by UNESCO Category I Institutes and Centres. This amounts to a considerable body of interesting work, much of which is on topics of crucial importance, consistent with UNESCO’s mandate for intellectual cooperation, its core values and ↑ UN priorities such as the Millennium Development Goals, ↑ Education for All and Education for Sustainable Development. Whilst recognising the importance of TVET’s economic roles, UNESCO’s TVET research is characterised by a broad vision of TVET and skills in relation to the holistic development of individuals, communities, societies and the relations between them. As this chapter has shown, UNESCO’s TVET research has a wide geographical coverage, from global to local, in all continents of the world, particularly, but not exclusively, in ‘developing’ regions. This area of research has much potential for the future and UNESCO has proven to be an effective bridge between research, policy, planing and practice (→ 2). There are, however, many challenges in this complex and rapidly evolving field. ↑ Research capacity in TVET in ↑ developing countries is often weak and countries remain overly dependent on external expertise. At regional and international levels the task of developing appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods to monitor progress
Genesis of TVET Research
in TVET has only just begun. In the context of trends towards decentralisation, it is important that central decision makers understand stakeholders’ perspectives at the local level (→ 5.3.4; → 5.3.5). Unfortunately, the resources available for research and capacity building in TVET and skills development do not correspond to the high expectations on TVET to deliver multiple strategic development outcomes. However, UNESCO is not acting alone. Its modalities of research, often through partnerships and networks, are cost-effective and help to stimulate policy debates that deserve to be taken up by the research community at large.
1.8
Research on TVET and Skills Development by Selected Intergovernmental Organisations and Bilateral Agencies Keith Holmes and Rupert Maclean
1.8.1
Introduction
In the post-World War II period many newly independent states believed that the development of technical and vocational skills could help reduce economic dependence. As in other domains of ↑ development policy, support to TVET has varied in response to wider policy trends both within and beyond the sub-sector. These trends in themselves reflect knowledge and beliefs about the types of interventions most likely to deliver social and economic development. Debates have raged in academic and development assistance communities about the relative priority that should be given to general education and TVET, and about the relationship between the two. Although the level of international interest in TVET slumped in the 1990s, due to doubts about the returns on investment in TVET and a preoccupation with basic education, most ↑ intergovernmental organisations and donor agencies now believe that TVET and skills development have an essential role to play. This renewed interest is due to a convergence of several factors includ-
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ing: the contribution of skills development to social cohesion and poverty alleviation; shifting global patterns of blue-collar employment; the need for bridges between education and work; and the growing expectations of primary school leavers (BAH DIALLO 2005, 1). In low-income countries the emphasis of TVET is often on ↑ basic skills, literacy and skills for livelihoods in the informal economy and in agriculture. However, in the context of global social and economic restructuring and discourses about “↑ lifelong learning” and “↑ knowledge societies”, there is an increasingly vigorous debate about the reform and governance of TVET and its contributions to development. Both “developed” and “developing” countries stand to gain from international cooperation. Development agencies are now committing significant financial resources to TVET and yet there are questions about how such funds should be used. Several intergovernmental organisations and many bilateral donor agencies are thus directly engaged in conducting research on TVET and/ or commissioning TVET research. Conceptually, administratively and politically, TVET is more complex than general education. TVET systems and institutions are often expected to pursue competing educational purposes and to serve competing interests. As well as training for work, they are also expected to equip learners with basic literacy and numeracy skills, support personal and social development and offer routes into higher education. In many countries TVET overlaps rather awkwardly with the ↑ school systems and higher education systems. Articulation with other parts of the education system and the ↑ labour market is often hampered by the fact that Ministries of Education generally share responsibility for ↑ TVET policy with Ministries of Labour and/or Employment. This chapter reviews the evolution of research on TVET and skills development in four intergovernmental organisations, the ↑ World Bank, the ↑ International Labour Organisation (ILO), the ↑ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union. ↑ UNESCO’s work is reported upon in chapter 1.7 of this Handbook (→ 1.7), so will not be repeated here, however some of the analysis present-
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ed in this chapter also applies to UNESCO’s research. We then consider the contribution made by some bilateral donors prominent in TVET: ↑ Australia; Denmark; ↑ France; Germany; ↑ Japan; Norway; Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Finally, we conclude with the case for strengthening TVET ↑ research capacity at all levels. It is beyond the scope and length constraints of this chapter to provide details of TVET research with regard to all intergovernmental organisations and ↑ bilateral agencies, the purpose being instead to convey the essential flavour of the type of research being undertaken and promoted. The selection of agencies is not representative; it is to some extent influenced by our professional networks and sources of information such as Maintz (2004). 1.8.2
The Evolution of Research on TVET and Skills Development by Selected Intergovernmental Organisations
Historically, the extent of engagement by ↑ intergovernmental organisations in TVET research corresponds closely to the level of international support for TVET itself (→ 2.7; → 3.3.4.5; → 3.3.4.6).
World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org) The ↑ World Bank has exerted a huge influence over social and economic policies in ↑ developing countries since its inception in 1944. The World Bank is strongly associated with the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and in advocating increased private involvement in public services. The World Bank, often acting in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, has been a major lender to education projects and programmes since the 1960s. In the 1980s and early 1990s the World Bank conducted several widely known and influential studies. The findings of these studies have informed the Bank’s financing decisions and had a significant impact upon international and national education and ↑ training policies. Such decisions are intended to achieve maximum returns, supposedly for both donors and recipients; although in practice many ‘developing’ countries spend much of their income servicing debts. In the 1960s and 1970s the World Bank’s ↑ TVET policy was heavily influenced by proponents of
manpower forecasting who stressed the need to increase the economic relevance of education. The Bank advocated the diversification and vocationalization of the curriculum to include technical and work-related content. By the mid-1980s, about US $600 million of multilateral funds per annum were going to TVET, 45 per cent of which was provided by the World Bank (WATSON 1993, 72). In the 1980s ↑ human capital theory became increasingly influential and World Bank researchers applied ↑ cost-benefit analysis techniques to try to calculate the economic rates of return on various investment options (e. g. PSACHAROPOULOS / TAN / JIMENEZ 1986). Research in Colombia and Tanzania found that, despite developing superior ↑ cognitive skills, graduates of diversified schools had no greater success in finding jobs, and earned no more than those from general secondary schools (PSACHAROPOULOS 1985). Fully aware of Foster’s (1965) critique of ↑ vocational schools, Psacharopoulos (1986) argued that, despite the World Bank’s earlier support for diversified schools, they were not worth the extra finance involved and that diversified curricula should be abandoned (JONES 1992, 255). The World Bank has played a major role in coordinating and synthesizing the work and experience of other agencies, producing a Policy Study on Vocational and Technical Education (MIDDLETON / SCHWARTZ 1986), and Vocational Education and Training: A Review of World Bank Investment (MIDDLETON / DEMSKY 1988) which helped to inform the World Bank policy paper Vocational and Technical Education and Training (WORLD BANK 1991). This policy paper signalled a dramatic shift away from support to prevocational courses and secondary vocational education and towards general education. This reflected what it called “an emerging international consensus about the high costs of vocationalization and the relative failure of schoolbased vocational programs to achieve their intended goals” (ibid. 1991, 78–79). The policy paper argued that a skill base in general education is a prerequisite for skills for work. It called for a closer relationship between training and productivity and advocated new roles for governments in providing professional services to training rather than providing training itself.
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“The key elements of this approach are strengthening primary and secondary education, encouraging private sector training, improving ↑ effectiveness and ↑ efficiency in public training, and using training as a complement to equity strategies” (ibid. 1991, 2).
Two steps were envisaged, firstly addressing nonTVET problems, such as improving access to general, especially basic, education and secondly, the reform of TVET, including evaluating the supply of TVET in relation to changing ↑ labour market demands (GILL / FLUITMAN / DAR 2000, 2). In ↑ effectiveness of Lending for Vocational Education and Training: Lessons from World Bank Experience, Canagarajah/ Dar/ Nording/ Raju (2002) attempt to evaluate how the World Bank performed in its lending to TVET in the 1990s. The report primarily focuses on project implementation against World Bank objectives. The authors found a lack of evaluative evidence on the ↑ effectiveness of different training interventions and they highlighted the need for future research into innovative and “good practice” approaches (ibid. 2002, 32). In 2004, the ↑ World Bank released Skills Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (JOHANSON / ADAMS 2004). This major study explores issues and developments in Africa since the 1991 Policy Paper. It is based upon 14 thematic studies that include 20 country reviews and 70 case studies, conducted in collaboration with other international organisations, including the ↑ UNESCO ↑ International Institute for ↑ Educational Planning (IIEP) and ↑ ILO, national research centres and academics. The report stresses the importance of ↑ TVET policy frameworks and of defining the role of government in an appropriate way for the provision and financing of skills development. It found that, “The single largest gap to be filled is that of market information for monitoring and evaluation and policy development… Regular indicators of relevance, cost, ↑ efficiency and social equity were not available” (ibid. 2004, 186).
Furthermore, it states that, “Building this capacity in relevant institutions and the culture of learning is an important role for government in SubSaharan Africa” (ibid. 2004, 186). Despite recognizing its importance, the World Bank is currently conducting relatively little research specifically on TVET and skills development. Nevertheless,
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the Bank continues to advocate TVET reform as a means of improving economic opportunities and reducing poverty.
International Labour Organisation (ILO) (http://www.ilo.org) “The primary goal of the ILO today is to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity” (SOMAVIA 1999, 3).
Vocational training has always been important to the ILO, yet, until the late 1980s, research on TVET had a low priority within ILO headquarters in Geneva (K ING 1991, 69). More research, however, had taken place in the regions, particularly through the work of the Inter-American Research and Documentation Centre on Vocational Training (CINTERFOR). Created in 1963, CINTERFOR coordinates technical cooperation among its member institutions. Among other things it supports the development of TVET institutions, by means of the exchange of experiences between them, based on research studies, information and documentation, as well as the transfer of methodologies and vocational training technologies. Since the 1980s, ILO has taken a more analytical approach, with publications on Rural and Urban Training in Africa (ILO 1988b) and Training for Work in the Informal Sector (FLUITMAN 1989). These stress the need for a reorientation of training from preparation for wage employment towards skills development for self-employment. The ILO and World Bank jointly produced Vocational Education and Training Reform (GILL / FLUITMAN / DAR 2000). Indicative ILO publications include Training for Self-Employment through Vocational Training Institutions (GRIERSON / MCKENZIE 1996), Training for Economic Empowerment (ILO 2005a), Vocational Training and Skills Development in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: A Preliminary Review (ILO 2005d) and Learning and Decent Work for All (MAYOUX 2005). ILO’s programme on ‘Skills, Knowledge and ↑ Employability’ seeks “to promote greater investment in skills and training so that men and women have enhanced and equal access to productive and decent work” (RIORDAN / ROSAS 2003, 23). It aims to support the improvement of ↑ training policies
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and programmes, with special emphasis on strategies that support the integration of ↑ disadvantaged groups. Since the early 1990s ILO has promoted and pilot-tested the introduction of core work skills. These include learning a new job, teamwork, problem-solving and decision-making, and skills for increased competitiveness, such as quality awareness and customer satisfaction. Core skills introduced by this programme emphasized the empowerment of both the individual in society, ‘citizenship skills’, and the world of work, ‘employability skills’ (ibid. 2003, 23). The ‘Skills, Knowledge and Employability’ programme also conducts research on apprenticeships, training strategies for marginalized groups (e. g. BENNELL 1999), and the training implications of technological changes in the workplace (e. g. ASHTON / SUNG 2002). ILO sees National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs) as one of the main ways to address the challenges of skills recognition. National Qualifications Frameworks: Their Feasibility for Effective Implementation in ↑ Developing Countries (YOUNG 2005) outlines the critical issues involved in implementing an NQF. ILO has also developed an infobase (http://www.logos-net.net/ilo/ nqf) containing comparative experiences of NQFs (→ 3.4.1).
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (http://www.oecd.org) Membership of the ↑ OECD is restricted to rich countries and its activities relate directly to these countries’ priorities. In education this means ‘↑ lifelong learning for all’, and developing high skills and qualifications relevant to the ↑ labour market. This emphasis has led, for example, to large scale studies of achievement in general education, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (↑ PISA) and studies of adults’ knowledge, abilities and skills. Although OECD’s work focuses on rich member states, some analysis of TVET in non-OECD countries takes place within OECD’s ↑ research programmes. The OECD has, for example, conducted some research on workplace training (→ 3.5.1), with Inservice Training: Five Asian Experiences (SALOMÉ / CHARMES 1988). OECD has also analysed inservice training in Burundi, Cameroon, Côte D’Ivoire and Zimbabwe.
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The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (http://www.oecd.org/dac) is a useful source of comparative research data (→ 3.3.1). The OECD’s research attracts worldwide attention and thus influences TVET research conducted by other agencies. One example is the recent OECD programme, ‘The Definition and Selection of Competences’ (DeSeCo), which addressed the ↑ research question: ‘What competencies do we need for a successful life and a well-functioning society?’ The purpose of DeSeCo was to provide a theoretical and conceptual basis for defining and selecting ↑ key competencies and a foundation for the continued development of statistical indicators of individually-based competencies. It also aimed to establish a reference point for interpreting empirical results in relation to the outcomes of learning and teaching (OECD 2005a, 4). The final report of the programme provides an input to debates about which formal and informal competences should be given priority when education curricula and training programmes are being reformed or reorganised (RYCHEN / SALGANIK 2003).
European Union (http://www.europa.eu) Since the creation of the European Economic Community in 1957, the integration of economic and labour policies across Europe has been a strategic objective. The Copenhagen Declaration on enhanced European cooperation in vocational education and training was adopted in 2002, within the vision of the 2000 Lisbon Strategy. As part of the ↑ Copenhagen process the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (↑ ECVET) aims to make achieved learning outcomes more readily recognised across Europe. The ECVET intends to make TVET qualifications easier to read and compare, thereby increasing the attractiveness of TVET and facilitating ↑ mobility (EC 2005d, 4). European ↑ cooperation in TVET is also promoted through the ↑ Leonardo da Vinci programme, which supports projects to improve the quality of training systems and practices across Europe. There is also a European agency, ↑ CEDEFOP (Centre Européen pour le Développement de la Formation Professionnelle) which conducts research specifically on TVET and lifelong learning in Europe. The coordination and integration of na-
Genesis of TVET Research
tional research efforts and capabilities in TVET is encouraged through the European Research Area (EC 2002b, 9). The ↑ European Training Foundation (ETF), a specialist agency of the European Commission, operational since 1994, is orientated towards the development of the education and training systems of EU partner countries including transition and ↑ developing countries. ETF (http://www.etf.europa. eu) aims to “help these countries to develop peoples’ skills and knowledge to promote better living conditions, active citizenship and democratic societies that respect human rights and cultural diversity” (ETF 2006, 1). Although primarily working in pre-accession countries and countries in the European Neighbourhood (→ 2.6) its research programme on TVET and skills development is of wider interest. ETF’s 2007 work programme involves “a move from technical development activities towards new, more comprehensive processes aimed at policy development in the human resources sector as a whole” (ETF 2007, 5). Major research projects include cross-country ↑ labour market studies; skills development for poverty reduction; skills development for the knowledge economy; university-enterprise relations; qualifications frameworks; assessment studies; ↑ key competences for ↑ lifelong learning; implications of migration and transition from education to work. In addition to thematic studies, ↑ ETF has conducted many detailed country reviews of TVET and labour market reforms. Indicative recent publications include A Review of International and National Developments in the Use of Qualifications Frameworks (COLES 2006) Financing Vocational Education and Training in the EU New Member States and Candidate Countries (MASSON 2006) and Reforming TVET in the Middle East and North Africa: Experiences and Challenges (HAKIM / CARRERO PEREZ 2006). Until recently European Union support to TVET in developing countries was generally for the construction and improvement of training centres. Now, in common with most other regional and international organisations, European Union ↑ development cooperation now aims to help improve the quality of training in partner countries and to en-
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sure greater responsiveness towards labour market needs. 1.8.3
The Evolution of Research on TVET and Skills Development by Selected Bilateral Agencies
Australia, AusAID (http://www.ausaid.gov.au) In the education sector AusAID gives particular focus to basic and technical and vocational education and training. AusAID supports demand driven approaches and activities to improve the access of vulnerable groups to TVET. AusAID prioritises development interventions in its neighbouring regions of the Pacific and South East Asia.
Denmark, DANIDA (http://www.um.dk) Since 1994 Danish support to TVET has been characterized by a change of geographical focus towards Africa and away from Asia. In 2001 Danida drafted a new policy on ‘skills development’, which is itself a broader concept than ‘TVET’. The policy paper recognizes the contribution of skills development to poverty reduction and cross-cutting policy concerns (e. g. environment, gender, human rights, good governance, democratisation/ ↑ participation) and is linked closely to the Danish development strategy. It has resulted in a shift away from providing support to specific technical training areas towards advice on organisational and management issues. An Evaluation Report: Danish Assistance to Vocational Education and Training (DANIDA 2002) recommended that decisions on Danish assistance should “be based on in-depth country-specific analysis of needs and opportunities, including gender-sensitive analysis of the demand for skilled labour” (ibid., 70) and this has been agreed to (JENSEN 2002, 5).
French, DGCID (http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr) The Direction Générale de la Coopération Internationale et du Développement (DGCID) concentrates on poverty reduction and basic human needs, economic and social development and the promotion of democracy. Priorities of French ↑ cooperation concerning TVET are: support to devel-
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op education policies that are sensitive to sectoral requirements and economically sustainable; and building ↑ partnerships with civil society (employer and employee associations), favouring the creation of ↑ continuing education funds (DGCID website).
development of human resources for industry and skills development for individual livelihoods and micro-enterprises (JICA 2006, 1–2). In addition, Japan supports TVET when promoting basic education so that skills can be developed in relation to local demand.
Germany, BMZ (http://www.bmz.de)
Norway, NORAD (http://www.norad.no)
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is responsible for Germany’s development cooperation. BMZ commissions ↑ GTZ (German Agency for Technical Cooperation, http://www.gtz.de) and other bodies, including InWEnt (an organisation for ↑ human resource development, advanced training and dialogue, http://www.inwent.org) and SEQUA (Foundation for Economic Development and Vocational Training, http://www.sequa.org.np), to implement Germany’s support to partner countries. Germany prioritises training for trainers, ↑ in-company training and gender equity. ↑ GTZ provides services ranging from targeting specific components of the TVET system to holistic strategies to support: employment-oriented qualification systems; centres for advanced technology training and services; qualifications of TVET management and teaching staff; the development of curricula and poverty reduction and reconstruction. InWEnt provides assistance in the development of effective vocational training systems and seeks to improve existing curricula in cooperating countries. SEQUA supports projects of Western European enterprises which contain components of vocational training, for example, the establishment of training centres, the provision of training equipment, the development of curricula and the training of trainers (MAINTZ 2004, 27).
The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) is a directorate under the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Norway’s support to TVET projects includes youth enterprise centres, pre-vocational training, teacher training, traditional vocational skills training and skills development courses connected to adult literacy efforts. Norway also promotes skills training combined with non-formal education to keep children off the streets and to confront the issue of child labour and skills training for marginalized groups.
Japan, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) (http://www.jica.go.jp) JICA is an executing agency for international cooperation working under the direction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of ↑ Japan. Other ministries are also involved in development assistance. JICA understands the concept of “skills” in a holistic way, comprising technical, social, spiritual and intellectual components. It supports both the
Switzerland, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) (http://www.sdc.admin.ch) The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is, with other federal agencies, responsible for the coordination of development activities, cooperation with Eastern Europe, and humanitarian aid. TVET is one of SDC’s thematic priorities. Vocational education and training and skills development and the promotion of micro-enterprises are considered the key instruments. Further details about the reorientation of SDC support to TVET are available in Skills Development in Swiss Development Cooperation: Insight and Outlook (SDC/KODIS 2001).
United Kingdom, Department for International Development (DFID) (http://www.dfid.gov.uk) As well as country programmes in the education sector, DFID supports education research and its communication to policy makers and practitioners. A series of DFID Educational Papers is available from http://www.id21.org/ed.html. Research on skills development includes: Learning to Compete: Education, Training and Enterprise in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, (AFENYADU / KING /
Genesis of TVET Research
MCGRATH ET AL . 1999); The Impact of Training on Women’s Micro-Enterprise Development (LEACH / ABDULLA / APPLETON ET AL . 2000); and ↑ Globalisation and Skills for Development in Rwanda and Tanzania (TIKLY / LOWE / CROSSLEY ET AL . 2003). DFID has recently produced a briefing paper on The Importance of Secondary, Vocational and Higher Education to Development (DFID 2006) and a practice paper on Technical and Vocational Skills Development (DFID 2007) 1.8.4
Analysis and Conclusions
Given the general lack of TVET research conducted within university research centres, intergovernmental organisations and some ↑ bilateral agencies make an important contribution to the literature. From the above survey it is evident that much of this research is not straight academic research. As for ↑ UNESCO (→ 1.7), the modalities adopted by these bodies often include commissioned studies, papers prepared for experts’ meetings or workshops, consultations and evaluations that inform policy development. Much of this work is not independent but functional in nature and, understandably, reflects the ideologies, interests, and methodologies, of the funding agencies. As King (1991, 77) observed, ↑ intergovernmental organisations often promote research into issues or questions in the hope of finding generalisable principles to guide funding decisions across a wide range of countries. Bilateral agencies tend to prioritise research into countries with which they have had a long-term relationship. This review has stressed the influence of the ↑ World Bank on international trends in education and training. It has also shown that intergovernmental organisations and bilateral agencies have different specialized areas of interest and expertise. These organisations are not primarily research institutions and there is a two-way interaction between research and policy formulation. Current international research on TVET and skills development takes place in the context of ↑ United Nations priorities including the Millennium Development Goals, ↑ Education for All, Literacy, HIV/AIDS, and Sustainable Development. There is also growing interest in the role of TVET in fragile states and crisis situations of emergency and reconstruc-
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tion. The research conducted by these organisations does not claim “neutrality” or independence from macro-policy objectives or political influences. Indeed, it is characterised by a strong policyorientation and rapid dissemination to international and national decision-makers. Whilst some international trends, such sector wide approaches and the shift in terminology from ‘TVET’ to ‘skills development’ have swept through many bilateral agencies, there are notable differences in their thinking and practice. These have their roots in different philosophies of education and the role of the state. ↑ France, for example, stresses the social functions of vocational education (→ 1.3) and prioritises state-to-state support to formal TVET, whereas Switzerland, on the other hand, prefers to support non-formal TVET, generally preferring to work through civil society organisations (ATCHOARENA / DELLUC 2002, 86–87). This review demonstrates a growing interest in the potential of research on TVET and skills development by both intergovernmental organisations and ↑ bilateral agencies. They are increasingly keen to learn from comparative experiences and to avoid repeating past failures. There are multiple pressing issues facing TVET policy-makers and researchers, such as the transition from school to work; reforming the institutional framework to finance and govern TVET (including trends towards decentralisation); and promoting competency-based training and learner pathways between general and vocational qualifications (ATCHOARENA 2001, 2–3). Each of these areas requires high level technical expertise supported by valid research findings. Yet, despite the scale of the challenges and a high level of demand from agencies and national governments, technical expertise is lacking and international and comparative research on TVET and skills development is under-resourced. The changing roles of agencies and the state, from simply “providing training” to the complexity of “creating a supportive environment”, also necessitates strengthening ↑ research capacity at all levels. Policy research benefits from direct country experiences which ensure that it is ‘in-tune’ with realities on the ground. Yet, given the political and economic interests underlying agency research, and the inter-sectoral nature of TVET challeng-
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es, more independent, critical and inter-disciplinary research is required (→ 5.3.5). International research on TVET and skills development could be more open to multiple perspectives and research paradigms and more sensitive to contextual and cultural differences (CROSSLEY/ WATSON 2003, 142). Perhaps due to the relative strength of intergovernmental organisations and bilateral agencies in this arena their studies do not benefit as much as they should from academic peer review. This is problematic when such important studies are conducted in relative isolation from theoretical, methodological and philosophical debates with deep policy implications.
1.9
Steps towards International Comparative Research in TVET Uwe Lauterbach
1.9.1
Definition and Scope
This aspect is of particular importance in the German-speaking countries owing to the traditional distinction between general and technical/vocational education and training. In most countries, there is no need to consider research in TVET as an academic discipline with the focus on initial TVET in the upper secondary level of the ↑ school system simply because, although secondary education differentiates between general education and education in TVET, the higher education sector and the highly diverse ↑ continuing education sector are also involved in providing technical and vocational qualifications. In many countries, such as the ↑ USA and the United Kingdom, these sectors play a dominant role. The increasingly high skills demanded in many occupations have also led to an “upgrading” in the status of TVET, inducing post-secondary TVET institutions and the higher education sector to offer a more attractive range of courses and also enhancing the status of continuing education overall. As a consequence, the general restriction of the TVET system, which is concentrated in the secondary education sector, can no longer be upheld
as the primary focus of comparative research in TVET on an international scale. In justification of that position, it is sufficient simply to consider the ↑ US American and Canadian ↑ community colleges, the Australian ↑ TAFE colleges, the colleges of ↑ further education in the UK or the many similar newly created college types in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe and in the developing and newly industrialised countries, or even the fact that those attending such institutions are referred to as “students”, although in the German frame of reference these colleges would be regarded as “full-time ↑ vocational schools” and the persons attending courses there would consequently be referred to as “pupils”, although in an international comparison they belong to the category of “students”. In some countries, such as the USA, these sectors actually play a dominant role in initial and continuing TVET. One of the elementary tasks of international comparative research is therefore to document and accept the different cultural ↑ contextualisation of such terms and definitions. In order to obtain clarity as to what constitutes “Research in TVET” as a research subject, the different systemic national definitions, scopes and references first have to be disclosed and problematised. 1.9.2
Definition
The difficulties that occur in the definition of TVET as an internationally accepted ↑ research field when distinguishing it from the higher education system and adult education are further aggravated by the fact that different cultures set different limits on the definition of what constitutes TVET. This is evident from the English term “vocational education”. That term is used to refer to vocational education in the industrial/technical sector with the focus on in-school education. Vocational education is distinct from “vocational training”, which refers to on-the-job training at a company, and which connotes manual and “simple” vocational activities. In some countries, this also applies to “vocational education”. Although the two terms are sometimes used synonymously, they frequently have the above negative connotations. In addition to “vocational education”, the term “technical education” is also used. It refers to activities
Genesis of TVET Research
which traditionally place a stronger emphasis on “theory”, and covers ↑ vocations such as laboratory technicians and other technical specialists, accountants and business management specialists. Neither the Anglo-American nor the Romance language areas have one catch-all term which covers the entire concept of education in TVET, not to mention the Asian language areas, where the whole concept of TVET first has to be defined. As English is the dominant language in the international scientific community, we shall restrict this comparative analysis to the English and American contexts for pragmatic reasons, although it is important to remember that there is an inherent risk in communication in this lingua franca that the subtle differentiation that results from the different ↑ cultural contexts is lost. When referring to the sector which is defined by the term ‘berufliche Bildung’ in the Germanspeaking countries, we shall therefore use the English term “Technical and Vocational Education and Training” (TVET). This is also the definition adopted by the ↑ UNESCO. The EU, on the other hand, refers only to “vocational education and training” (VET). Moreover, the definition of the terms used in English as the lingua franca have led to different uses in the course of the supranational dialogue at EU level and the national references. The German expression of “berufliche Bildung”, for instance, is not translated as TVET but as “professional education”, while a TVET institution is referred to as a “professional college”. The English term “↑ profession” also covers a wider scope and encompasses all the ↑ vocations for which training and education are available in a formal TVET system, i.e. it also covers “simple” manual occupations such as that of roofer, butcher etc. The issue is even more confused when one considers the synonymous terms in use for an American “professional school”, which provides medical training for future doctors, and a Danish “professional school”, which provides technical training and is actually more like a ↑ community college. However, although these examples could be continued indefinitely, they also show that the terms in the lingua franca English have been adapted to suit the different cultural groups. Moreover, the “technical” English, which is currently evolving as a commu-
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nication basis in the EU appears to be a “foreign language” even to a native speaker of English. 1.9.3
Contextualisation and Cultural References
The cultural context is also decisive for the question of whether “technical education” is also regarded as VET. To obtain clarity in that respect, we have to refer to the individual national education systems (in most European countries, the higher secondary level distinguishes between “general”, “technical” and “vocational” education sectors, although this ultimately depends on the national background. This contextualisation with the different national cultural, social, political, historical and economic framework conditions as well as the social values which are significant for TVET cannot be disregarded in any international or intercultural studies Teichler 1995). It is obvious that such misunderstandings can occur during international comparisons if the national TVET systems are not regarded as a cultural projection (GEORG 1997b, 157 f.): almost every international ↑ OECD study on the education systems contains the remark that some countries, such as Germany, have too few students compared with most other countries. This statement on the cultural ↑ contextualisation of national education phenomena also applies to the concept of ↑ v ocation. If the definition of “research in TVET” referred to this, and if we were to examine how highly different cultures distinguish between the occupation for which the person has been trained and the employment that he actually performs, the definition of the ↑ research field would be even more blurred. Compared with the general German term “Beruf”, for example, English differentiates between “occupation”, “vocation” and “profession”. However, the consequence of this dilemma cannot be to plead that research in TVET should therefore be conducted only on a national scale, with the argument that that is the only way to succeed in defining the decisive parameter of culture, as referring to a specifically defined political-geographical territory. International comparisons would be possible but pointless, as the individual cultural context provides the frame of reference for the examined phenomena. There are arguments against
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these static paradigms of cultural relativism (EP1988, 7 ff.) such as social and technical changes which have evolved during the course of historic processes as a result of confrontation with unfamiliar and alien concepts (ROBINSOHN 1970) or the need for comparative research as the result of international pressure to modernise the different national TVET systems. STEIN
1.9.4
Justification for International Research in TVET
That is the interpretation that has to be given to attempts to provide national, supranational and international foundations for research in TVET. In Germany, this process is already well advanced, as is evident in the approximate definition prepared by the Senate Commission for TVET Research at Colleges of Higher Education in the Federal Republic of Germany of the German Research Foundation (DFG). “Research in TVET examines the conditions, processes and consequences of the acquisition of specialist qualifications, personal and social attitudes and orientations which appear significant for the execution of vocationally organised work processes” (DFG 1990, 1).
This definition encompasses initial and continuing TVET in all fields of learning, in some cases also in the university sector. It also embodies the attempt to give equal ranking to general and TVET education (BECK 1995, 457 ff.). If the discourse with respect to qualification and skills or work and occupation does not provide a basis for the definition of “research in TVET”, which also specifies the boundaries with other disciplines, this pragmatic definition is suitable for defining the boundaries of the ↑ research field of national and international comparative research in TVET. However, if it now appears that the major obstacles have been overcome, that is overly optimistic with regards to the question of those disciplines which are active in this research field. There are no grounds which would justify an exclusive right on the part of Berufs- and Wirtschaftspädagogik (BWP) [education in TVET, ↑ educational research in TVET] to conduct this research. Representatives from various specialist disciplines all conduct research within the sector of TVET, within ↑ work processes and the ↑ labour market. Those countries which
do not prescribe a university degree for teachers in the TVET sector consequently have no frame of reference for BWP, which in the German-speaking area integrates this field of research. This also explains why there is as yet no related international journal which serves as a platform for scientific discourse. The findings of (comparative) research in TVET are simply included in those journals which publish the current status of international research in Comparative Education (CE), such as “Comparative Education”, “Comparative Education Review” or “Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft” [International Journal of Education]. Does this mean that international comparative research in TVET is superfluous? The need mentioned above, which results from the central function of organised work for human existence alone, as well as the interest in research which does not stop at national borders, and the relatively discouraging alternative of leaving this field solely to politicians, are justification enough for international comparative research in TVET. These reasons, which derive from an interest in obtaining internationally relevant findings, are distinct from those which emphasise the aspect of “comparison” as the constituent feature of comparative research in TVET but fail to take into account that the comparative method is standard in many scientific disciplines (LAUTERBACH 2003b, 269 ff.). 1.9.5
Historic Discourse and BWP as Reference Discipline?
In view of the virtually endless variety of research disciplines in the field of vocational education, the question arises as to whether BWP can be regarded as the basic discipline of comparative research in TVET. This follows the arguments propounded by Lipsmeier et al., which claim that Comparative BWP has its own separate root, distinct from the internationally dominant CE, and refers to the complexity of the research subject matter “Economy and Technology” (LIPSMEIER 1969, 146). These efforts to establish this as a separate discipline, embedded in BWP, still continue. This endeavour to achieve separation can be explained by the need to create a clear-cut profile for the relatively new discipline of BWP, one which distinguish-
Genesis of TVET Research
es it from the dominant sector of general education, but which can simultaneously also be attributed to the fact that there was no demand for international ↑ comparative studies or other national experience simply because the experts were (or are still) convinced that the “↑ dual system” was the best TVET system worldwide (GONON 1998, 93 f.) so that there were simply no adequate “counterparts” (GEORG 1995, 67) available for scientific discourse. The position of Abel (1962), who repeatedly stressed the link between comparative BWP as the core of comparative research in TVET and CE appeared to be an exception that was, however, non-representative. A brief look at the research activities of outstanding proponents of BWP, on the other hand, reveals that the international discourse with representatives of CE were not extraordinary but were in fact always the norm. The experts regarded themselves as members of this scientific community. In the late 19th century, when planning the ↑ further education system in Munich, Kerschensteiner accordingly – following the logic of the ↑ melioristic function of comparison (LAUTERBACH 2003b, 110 ff.) – conducted studies in the neighbouring countries to obtain ideas for coping with the task in hand. He was in long-term contact with the Center of International Comparative Education at the International Institute of Teachers College at Columbia University in New York, with colleagues who included Dewey, Kandel and Monroe. Kerschensteiner was not an unknown quantity in the international education scene, as is clear from the many lectures he gave in the ↑ USA and in England, where he was quoted by Sadler, the Nestor of CE (LAUTERBACH 2003b, 220 ff.). One of the principal driving forces behind the international discourse conducted by the educationalists was the concept of “new education”. Following the decline of CE caused by the National Socialists, post-war Germany again opted for the holistic tradition of CE with enthusiastic support from the American military government. The idea of establishing a separate field of comparative research in TVET was not on the agenda. On the contrary, the findings of comparative research were used on the whole to support reforms and to re-establish entire educational systems. The TVET sector was dominated by comparative stud-
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ies with an idiographic and melioristic focus, the findings of which referred not only to the German situation, but, like the Ware expertise, could also supply ideas for reforming vocational education in the USA. Alongside this research, which focuses on the educational theories of comparison, international comparative research in the sector of education in TVET and with a sociological, economic and psychological background, without reference to any specific comparative research discipline in TVET, (LAUTERBACH 2003b, 279 ff.) has also been carried out. Abel, too, was against the concept of separate comparative BWP, although he conducted many international comparative studies. The motivation given for that research was ↑ vocational education theory and the equal importance of general and vocational education, which derived from that theory. His comparative research was a combination of both internal and external studies, in that, for instance, he linked research into the development of occupations which focused on the situation in Germany with the theory of international developments in the formalisation of informal education within the scope of the evolution of vocational activities into clearly circumscribed ↑ vocations, occupations and ↑ professions (ABEL 1962). After Abel, the international dimension of BWP was increasingly relegated to marginal status in Germany. As explained above, this could be attributed primarily to the conviction that there was no need to consider Germany’s unique “↑ dual system” in comparison with other countries. Typical phenomena of that period were the system comparisons with the creation of models, the methods of which were usually not elaborated to any great extent and the results of which “coincidentally” provided arguments in favour of the German TVET system. 1.9.6
Internationalisation and Comparative Research in TVET
It was not until the 1990s that international comparative research in TVET was again regarded as being of central importance. The impetus comes predominantly from supranational (European Union) and international contexts.
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The determinant factor for the promotion of education in TVET and research in TVET on the European level is the central importance of qualified education for the development of social and economic resources as well as ↑ mobility within the European employment system. Mobility has been a prevalent research topic since the foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) and has been the focus of repeated studies. Since the establishment of the “↑ Leonardo da Vinci” programme (1994), it has been a central research topic. Mobility has many different facets and also serves as the key topic for all manner of activities by the European Commission. The continuing development of the European Commission’s plans for the ↑ European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and the European Credit ↑ Transfer System in Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) also generates the need for new research. In addition to ↑ Leonardo da Vinci (and the subsequent programmes) the EU framework ↑ research programme is also available for more in-depth and more elaborate research. The vocational education agencies of the EU (↑ CEDEFOP, ↑ ETF) will also provide impetus for research within the scope of the activities of the European Commission, together with overviews of the state of the art of (comparative) research in TVET in Europe (TESSARING 1998b; DESCY/ TESSARING 2001). Apart from these programmes, the national governments are investing in this international dimension, which is also within the framework of international ↑ cooperation in vocational education and training with developing and newly industrialised countries. International organisations such as the ↑ OECD, ↑ UNESCO, the ↑ World Bank and the ↑ ILO are also involved. One topic that is becoming increasingly important in terms of the importance of the quality of individual skills for the economic ↑ efficiency of national economies is the ↑ efficiency of the national TVET and ↑ continuing education systems. One of the central tasks of research in TVET is to provide cogent research concepts for large-scale assessment studies in international research bodies. In view of the complexity of the subject matter, ↑ interdisciplinary cooperation is advisable.
1.9.7
Leading Discipline and Interest in Findings
These framework conditions give reason to believe that we are about to reach a ‘golden’ age of international comparative research in TVET. However, much still has to be done before that can be the case. One crucial item involves the debate to establish the leading discipline. Does sociological CE with an empirical focus, or a multidisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary ↑ research approach, hold more promise for the future? The pamphlet DFG Denkschrift Berufsbildungsforschung [Research in TVET] substantiates the value of interdisciplinary studies (DFG 1990, 22 ff., 92 ff.). The argument refers to comparative research in education and is dominant in the United Kingdom and the ↑ USA. “This extended dimension also links the educational scientific approach with questions which derive from sociology, economics, political science and psychology (in particular cross-cultural psychology). Other orientations lead to cultural science and law” (MITTER 1996, 501).
By analogy with the conception of comparative research in education, comparative research in TVET also conducts interdisciplinary and ↑ comparative studies on the international development of vocational education at different levels – such as the system, the problem and the function level. The topics concentrate on vocational education in the context of social development, in particular the economy and ↑ labour market as well as other framework conditions, but also examine the individual, as in the case of teaching/learning research and large scale assessment. As regards the question of what distinguishes this from CE, the answer is not to be found in the paradigms, theories and methods of comparison, but in the interest in the research findings, which focus on the field of vocational education on the basis of TVET theories and specialist topics, such as comparative research into the equal status of general and vocational education. The complexity of this research area is undisputed, as underlined by the matrix put forward by Tessaring (1998a, 9 ff.) with respect to the key issues of research in TVET in the EU. This is further intensified if it is extended to include also informal and non-formal education in TVET.
Genesis of TVET Research
In the course of project execution, it therefore makes sense to seek the discourse with other disciplines from the social science and ↑ humanities sectors, beginning with BWP as the basic discipline. The consequences of these findings for international/intercultural comparative research in TVET are “connected” structures which support that process, i.e. the close interlinking of BWP and comparative BWP and the interdisciplinary research in the sector of education in TVET within the framework of (comparative) research in TVET. Moreover, a combination of internal and external focus, in other words, linking the focus of research on the scientists’ “own” national system with that of international comparative research always has to be of relevance. Kerschensteiner and Abel also advocated that position, and thus correspond to the type of research scientist meant by Holmes (1974) et al. when describing the fundamental principles of research practice and the usefulness of comparative research for educational practice. In contrast to these research scientists who proceed from the basis of their own national situation, there are other research scientists who opt for an international focus, and who “look in” from the outside: their studies, such as large-scale assessment (comparison of educational ↑ performance by IEA and ↑ OECD), trend analysis or the formation of theories such as the world ↑ system theory, all affect the national debates on general and vocational education to a greater or lesser extent. The ↑ interdisciplinary link with reality is an essential criterion for the scope of the research in educational practice, education management and education policies (ACHTENHAGEN 1999, 100). Comparative international research projects already exhibit interdisciplinary cooperation. That is not only the result of the complexity of education in TVET as a research topic, but reflects those disciplines which conduct research into education in TVET within the different countries and which form international networks. These research findings are transferable because, here again, the internal study remains linked with the external approach with respect to specific problem constellations. This constitutes the long overdue replacement of models that are created on the basis of artefacts in the comparison of TVET systems (LAUTERBACH 2003b, 257).
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These changes force the “true comparative research scientists”, who have, to date, claimed a monopoly on international comparative research on the basis of their sound empirical approach, into the defensive (LAUTERBACH / SELLIN /CEDEFOP/ DIPF 2001, 349 ff.; Lauterbach 2003b, 283). International comparison in the field of research in TVET represents a theoretical concept that is now in common use for the examination of ‘internal’ national problem areas. This means it is now more aligned to the international standard in ↑ educational research, where the ↑ research field is no longer the exclusive prerogative of any one discipline. 1.9.8
International Communication Platforms
It is vital that this process is backed by ↑ communication platforms that enable documentation of the research findings and also promote discourse between the research scientists and educational practice. As explained above, comparative research in TVET is an integrated discipline in which some scientists deal only sporadically with the research field, while others are concerned with it as a permanent research topic. The situation is similar for the relevant university institutes and independent research institutes in the public and non-profit sector, as well as commercial advisory bodies. The relationship to the basic discipline and its scientific societies is particularly problematic. In the field of psychology alone, there are a number of scientific societies that conduct comparative research, which also focuses on vocational education. This principle also applies to the field of sociology, certainly at the national level and even more so as regards the various international societies. The above list could be continued indefinitely for other disciplines such as economics. For those reasons alone, the scientific community cannot be restricted to the EU as the political and geographical unit. The national scientific societies are integrated into the overall worldwide system, with the focus on Europe, North America and Asia/↑ Australia. In view of the complexity of the research structures of research in TVET as outlined above, in terms of pragmatic considerations, concentrating the inter-
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disciplinary discourse in (comparative) research in TVET in Europe appears advisable. Moreover, discussion and debate between the professional societies of the different disciplines should be sought and worldwide dialogue cultivated. To ensure sustainable results, it would also be important to include North America, ↑ Japan, Korea, ↑ China and Australia, South America and Southern Africa over the long term. Apart from the EU, other important bodies for the development of (comparative) research in TVET are other international organisations such as the Council of Europe, the ↑ International Labour Organisation (ILO) as well as subordinate organisations and departments of the United Nations Organization (UNO), in particular ↑ UNESCO and its centres for technical and vocational education and training UNEVOC, the Human Development Research Department of the ↑ World Bank and the ↑ OECD. International scientific societies and supranational organisations could be used to promote European comparative research in TVET from the following two aspects: – On the one hand, the ‘comparative’ researchers in TVET could actively participate in scientific societies (e. g. CESE, World Council/WCCES, IEA, ATEE), in particular at scientific conventions; – On the other hand, the findings of comparative research which relate directly to education in TVET could be published through an international network with an internet platform. A suitable instrument for this purpose would be the VETNET, which is operated by the European Education Research Association (EERA), which was founded in 1994. The aim of the EERA is to promote ↑ educational research in Europe by forming networks. There are specialist networks for the individual ↑ subject areas, such as Vocational Education and Training (VETNET). Research findings are presented at the biennial European Conference on Educational Research (ECER). In the past, these presentations have not adequately reflected the state of the art of the key thematic subjects, owing to the highly diverse ↑ participation by the national capacities. Moreover, in view of the regional composition of VETNET inside Europe, it can reasonably be assumed that the organisation
has, as yet, failed to attract participants from the Southern European countries to the necessary extent. Despite these current deficits, however, the EERA is a suitable platform for European (comparative) research in TVET. Also worth mentioning are the laudable attempts made by ↑ CEDEFOP to promote (comparative) research in TVET. There are a number of platforms and forums that document research findings. It is, however, noticeable that as yet no systematic attempts have been made to seek links to non-EU research bodies or to cultivate connections with international and national scientific societies that conduct studies in the field of TVET. The function of a European clearing house for the findings of (comparative) research in TVET, along the same lines as ERIC in the ↑ USA or the literature database FIS Bildung in Germany, would be useful for the promotion of comparative research in TVET. Supplementary ↑ quality assurance to back the research findings could easily be achieved by staging special thematic conferences. Another central concern of comparative research in TVET, the reference to educational practice, would also be satisfied by the social-↑ partnership conception of ↑ CEDEFOP. Before these projections can be implemented at the European level, this has to be preceded by national efforts. At this point, reference is made to the work of “Arbeitsgemeinschaft Berufsbildungsforschungsnetz (AG BFN)” [Working Group on Research Networks in TVET] in Germany. This ↑ interdisciplinary cooperation has successfully generated elemental theories and methodologies in the field of comparative research in TVET. The participating research scientists would then no longer have to refute the allegation of accidental eclecticism of their theories and methodologies.
Abbreviations ATEE BWP
Association for Teacher Education in Europe Berufs- and Wirtschaftspädagogik [education in TVET, educational research in TVET] CE Comparative Education CEDEFOP Centre européen pour le développement de la formation professionnelle, [European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training] CESE Comparative Education Societies in Europe DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [German Research Foundation] ECER European Conference on Educational Research
Genesis of TVET Research
EERA ETF ERIC
European Educational Research Association
↑ European Training Foundation
Educational Resources Information Centre Institute of Education Science of the U.S. Department of Education EU European Union IEA International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement ILO International Labour Organisation OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development TAFE Training and Further Education (College) TVET Technical and Vocational Education and Training UNEVOC UNESCO International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training CRE Comparative Research in Education VET Vocational Education and Training WCCES
World Council of Comparative Education Societies
Further information on the (scientific) societies and institutes mentioned above is available in Lauterbach 2003b and on the internet.
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Section 2.0: VET Research in Relation to VET Policy, Planning and Practice Anneke Westerhuis
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
2.0
Introduction: VET Research in Relation to VET Policy, Planning and Practice Anneke Westerhuis
2.0.1
Introduction
One can hardly think of a wider subject than the relationship between ↑ VET research and policymaking and the ↑ innovation of VET practice. It deals with the contributions researchers have to policymaking and the innovation of education. Are they the ‘special forces’ policy makers and practice want to rely on to improve decision making and obtain better outcomes? Is it the researchers’ role to answer policy inspired questions as a stepping stone to ‘informed’ policymaking in VET? And is it the role of the ↑ European research community to contribute to the European integration policy agenda? Why should it not operate at the level of individual learners or at the level of the individual communities? And are researchers still working on national research priorities or are research subjects becoming subjected to European, or even worldwide trends? This section covers some of the aspects of this wide field, but understandably not all. The aspects covered are: (1) innovation of VET; redefinition of the links between policy and research agendas (2) the impact of research findings on ↑ VET policy making and VET practice (3) changing roles of researchers, practitioners and policymakers in research projects (4) the impact of the EU on the ↑ body of knowledge and the organisation of VET research (5) VET as a ↑ research field; involving several subject disciplines as a prerequisite 2.0.2
Innovation of VET; Redefinition of the Links between Policy and Research Agendas
For a long time strong links between both agendas were taken for granted, in particular for the innovation of education. In the period directly after the Second World War, for instance, research was seen
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as an important ally of policy makers for the innovation of education: “the application of knowledge by political means – and not responsiveness of government to private wants – becomes a test of good government. In this respect, the problem of modernization becomes a constant struggle over two conflicting principles of rule, namely, the public interest as seen by the public and the public interest as seen by the scientific elite” (APTER 1967, 433).
Links were organised in a communication chain in which national policy stakeholders, the education research community and schools were linked in a strict order. In this order the outline of reform was given by national policy stakeholders. Financed from government budgets, innovation concepts were subsequently worked out into operational models for innovating educational practice by researchers, with some assistance from people involved in the practice. The role of the teachers in the schools was subsequently to try out and to validate these operational models. This innovation chain was fostered by a knowledge chain consisting of successive Research, Development and Diffusion. In this traditional RDD-model knowledge production and knowledge diffusion were linear processed. The first link of the chain consisted of the research done at universities and research institutes. The research results came to the third link of the chain, the schools, via an education support structure, being the intermediary link in the chain, responsible for the translation and concretization of concepts. An apt metaphor is the ‘perforated onion’, where knowledge from the core trickles through the skins until the outer skin is reached. In many countries this double chain is no longer in place. The erosion started in the 1980s. All over Europe tension grew between the public expectations of ↑ VET systems and the actual ↑ performance of these systems, while the belief that national governments are able to bridge this gap was strongly reduced. Governing education from a national level was no longer seen as an effective strategy (K ARSTEN 2006). After a period of large scale mergers, the much larger schools were given more autonomy. Schools are now expected to take the initiative for reform, to take a pro-active role and to develop a schoolbased policy in the innovation of education. For this reason, a substantial part of the government’s
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budget for innovation has been transferred to the schools in what is called an ‘innovation box’ (BRUIJN / WESTERHUIS 2004). In Germany the most important reason for breaking up the chain was a decreasing lack of consensus between the stakeholders in VET: “In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the policy sector placed its faith in an innovation strategy which treated pilot schemes as “trial runs”. These were used for the prototype testing of planned system reforms. (…) Partly due to the bottom-up strategy linked with the tripartite organisation and federal structure of the German vocational education and training system, research is [nowadays, AW] expected to produce deliberately divergent concepts” (→ 2.4).
Controversies led to depoliticising the subjects of ↑ VET research, but also to a less effective research agenda as political actors no longer resorted to ↑ pilot studies for substantive modernisation of the system and its institutions, despite the mounting problems at system level. The result is a scattered landscape with stakeholders pursuing their own priorities. Agenda setting on the ↑ innovation of VET is multidimensional now: “The Federal and Länder governments subsidise their own pilot studies in accordance with their priorities; occasionally there is coordination between these two levels. The social partners pursue their reform ideas with appropriate innovation projects – usually separately, sometimes jointly” (→ 2.4).
In a broader perspective however, the most important force challenging the traditional chain are a widening field of organisations commissioning ↑ educational research and a growing number of research institutes, or better, institutes that offer research services. There is no longer a chain, but a loose and volatile network, that can be defined in terms of supply and demand. There is an open market for VET research: “Much educational research – some of it highly significant for policy – is now conducted outside of the universities and of government. Not only do consultants in the private sector play an enhanced role, but also think tanks, political parties, trade unions and voluntary organisations appear to have grown influence” (LAWN / R EES 2007, 53).
This striking quotation identifies in fact four dynamic forces:
Handbook of TVET Research
– the growing number of organisations regarding themselves as stakeholders in education, e. g. in VET – the growing number of organisations and bodies commissioning research – the growing number of agencies offering consultancy and research services to the private and public organisations in this ‘↑ knowledge society’ – changes in the understanding of knowledge as a multidimensional concept which can have different shapes and different functions. See for instance the introduction of the concept of ‘Mode 2’ knowledge (GIBBONS / LIMOGES / NOWOTNY ET AL. 1994). Obviously, there is no longer a shared and cohesive innovation policy agenda as a focal point. The EU (Lisbon) agenda, with its partial focus on ↑ participation and the position of social partners, cannot be regarded as a replacement for such an innovation agenda. Different reactions to this development can be traced across Europe. One is that VET research should take the lead. For Laur-Ernst and Hanf the role of ↑ research in VET innovation includes identification, specification and operationalising innovation needs as well as generating and collaboratively shaping innovations, their testing and evaluation. VET research can act as an ‘anticipatory initiator’; VET research has an indispensable contribution to make to reforms and the shaping of the future. VET research will even be increasingly involved in generating and supporting innovations on all levels. The necessary conditions, boosting innovation competence, the creation of structures conducive to innovation, the establishment of a positive atmosphere for innovation in all institutions of vocational education, suggest, however, that there is not one future for VET; there are many futures. When the technocratic concept of implementing products developed in pilots into the variety of practices is replaced by the concept of learning organisations and an emphasis on open planning, developing ownership and the importance of process participation, in fact skipping the pilot phase, agenda setting is in essence multidimensional. Under these conditions, agenda setting by VET research implies that VET research has to organise its supporters (clients) themselves, or to respond to the demands of
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
schools, implying that agenda setting has become the right of any individual VET school. Another suggestion is to negotiate a policy agenda, shared by some, if not all stakeholders in VET. See for instance de Vijlder’s suggestion to produce a national VET innovation agenda as a shared responsibility of national and local policy makers (VIJLDER 2005). Another strategy is that governments will take the responsibility for capacity building to provide “high quality research-based evidence and advice to Ministers and officials to inform policy development”. In terms of setting the research agenda the differences between the two strategies is that the first one is an inclusive one, including as many stakeholders as possible in the process of agenda setting for ↑ VET research, while the latter is an exclusive approach in limiting the influence on the agenda setting to government. Obviously the risk of the inclusive strategy is that its outcome is either a compromise or a middle-of-the-road agenda, while an exclusive agenda can be driven by immediate, if not opportunistic, policy priorities only. 2.0.3
The Impact of Research Findings on VET Policy Making and VET Practice
Paradoxically, the relationship between ↑ educational research, policy making and practice is a point of major and public concern. Compared to other ↑ fields of research, like medicine, there is little impact of research findings on practice and policy making. In 2003 the ↑ OECD concludes: “…educational R&D was seen as fragmented, politicised, irrelevant, and too distant from practice. (…) Furthermore, the research was sometimes perceived as provincial and too little based on international experience (…) Such a critique is still strong today (…). This is not to say that educational researchers have not produced new insights, but they have, in general, been less successful in synthesising this knowledge for application and action by practitioners and policy-makers” (OECD 2003a, 10).
The OECD is not alone in its critique. The alleged gap between education research and education practice has a long history. Why do ↑ policy and practice profit so little from research? Critique is often based on a low opinion of educational research and its lack of quality. For Kaestle, educa-
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tional research has an ‘awful reputation’ (KAESTLE 1993); Levin and O’Donnell refer to ‘credibility gaps’ (LEVIN / O’DONNELL 1999); and Lagemann regards educational research as an ‘elusive science’ (LAGEMANN 2000). The American National Research Council seems more neutral in pointing to a ‘sharp divide between education research and the practice of education in schools’ (SHAVELSON / COCKING / DONOVAN / PELLEGRINO 2002). Based on an extensive literature review, Broekkamp and Hout-Wolters summarise the critique in four ‘core problems’: – Results of educational research are ‘soft’, as they are not based on hard and unambiguous evidence – Educational research results lack relevance for educational practice as the results are context specific in most cases – People in educational practice (teachers) are not convinced by the outcomes of education research and don’t see the relevance of its outcomes for their daily work – People from educational practice (teachers) hardly ever use research findings because they lack the necessary competences (BROEKKAMP / HOUTWOLTERS 2006). In analysing these core problems, Broekkamp and Van Hout-Wolters don’t differentiate between traditional research concepts and applied or market driven research. Nevertheless, the difference between academic and instrumental or applied research is relevant in this context. Few academic researchers, if any, will be accused of being ‘policy entrepreneurs’ (MINTROM 2000); only as researchers working in commission. The use of this label ‘policy entrepreneurs’ for these researchers signifies not a gap between research and practice but a tight, even too tight, relationship! Is there still a problem now that educational research has become popularised and is a service offered by many organisations? Is it not true that policy makers now have a wide choice of agencies they can hire to do research? Research is an object of market influences; in terms of supply and demand, ↑ evaluation research is much in demand (LAWN / REES 2007). Problems related to traditional research concepts and problems related to applied research are quite different and should be treated as such instead of being piled on one heap. Problems related to tradi-
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tional research concepts are for instance methodological problems in terms of the number of variables to be taken into account, lacking resources of information for fundamental research, little interest in the development and application of innovative methodologies, the practical irrelevance of ↑ research questions and the fact that the research community is not accessible for outsiders. Researchers in applied research face the fact that ↑ educational research is a proliferating field with a wide range of methodologies, research agencies, and financial resources and is ruled by market forces. This proliferation causes its own problems, not to be confused up with the problematic side of traditional research: fragmentation, little interest in reviews and meta-research, no machinery for the assessment of the quality of ↑ research methodologies. This issue of the impact of research findings on policymaking and practice is also raised by the authors in this section, although not as a fundamental or as an unsolvable problem. Most of the articles are written under the assumption that educational research in general, and ↑ VET research in particular, can bring policy making and education practice a step forward. Take for instance Winterton’s article ‘VET research and ↑ social dialogue’. Winterton gives us an insight into the subtle process of linking policy and research agendas. With financial support from the European Commission, the EU social partners in 1993 commissioned a group of experts to study ways in which social dialogue could serve as a forum for exchange of information and experience in relation to continuing vocational training (CVT). The experts were impressed by the importance attached to CVT by the social partners, but could not identify social dialogue in all of the cases ‘making it difficult to identify the distinct value added’. Nevertheless the debate on the findings concluded a number of contributions that social dialogue had made to improving CVT, among them the achievement of greater coherence between economic ↑ efficiency in training and equity for individuals. According to Winterton, the research marked the beginning of the progress in European Social Dialogue on Education and Training. The research had helped to get the social dialogue on the ↑ VET
Handbook of TVET Research
policy agenda as well as engaging social partners in defining the (EU) research agenda. ↑ CEDEFOP for instance began from then on to develop a closer relationship with the social partners and established a specific programme to support social dialogue over VET. In their article ‘Research and VET Policy Reform in Transition Countries’, Grootings and Nielsen analyse the impact of the transition of a socio-economic system on the position of VET research. An abrupt change in the socio-economic dynamics faces VET research with the necessity of defining new research areas and new institutional settings. From the new perspective, existing research topics have become obsolete and irrelevant, almost by definition: “There is very little modern and relevant VET research in ETF partner countries. There seems to be almost a sociological law behind this situation, at least in post-socialist countries” (→ 2.6).
Grootings and Nielsen’s article gives a lively insight into the consequences of such a change for VET research. The article analyses what is necessary to bridge this gap and to have a research community in place responsive to an education policy in line with the new ‘socio-economic reality’. The gap between VET research, policy making and practice in Transition Countries is definitely of another nature compared to the gap defined by the ↑ OECD. For Grootings and Nielsen it is not a rhetorical question why a proper VET research should be the basis for VET reform policy formulation and implementation important for transition countries. To have this type of research in place a lot has to be done. For instance: – the development of a new signal system between ↑ labour market needs and the supply of VET through social ↑ partnership – the introduction of a wider concept of VET research relating curricular issues to labour markets and work organisation issues and including the quality of learning processes, integration of theoretical and practical learning, learner needs and new learning theories, instead of an exclusive focus on internal VET issues, such as curricula, textbooks, teaching materials and in-service teacher training – the development of new institutional settings to overcome the well defined demarcations between
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
the internal VET focussing on ‘technical matters’, academic pedagogical research and policy oriented research organised in institutes that had previously been linked to the Party. Rebuilding is now donor-led. However, the lack of resources characteristic for countries in transition is not only financial. There is also a lack of conceptual resources for the rebuilding of the vocational education and training system, creating a ‘huge need for a local theoretical understanding of VET reform policy formulation and implementation in the transition countries’. For them this understanding, and therefore research, is conditional for a successful VET reform policy. Reform policy can only be a success if there is cooperation between ↑ VET research, ↑ VET policy and VET practice. A lack of professional research and development capacity is an impediment to establishing a sound basis in order to enable countries to develop their own reform policies. In fact they plead for establishing a strong chain including policy stakeholders, the education research community and education practice, such as is now under strong pressure in many Western-European countries: “there is a necessity for creating local, critical researchbased guidance on a number of dimensions in transition countries: on the input side to VET reform to ensure fit into context, embeddedness and ownership, in relation to processes to enable a better dialogue with universities on issues such as new developments in learning theories, and on the output side to continuously assess the results and wider implications of donor interventions (…) by way of stimulating the setting up of independent accompanying research bodies enabling the countries to assess early on whether and to which extent reform elements are functioning in the national context” (→ 2.6).
Köhne and Stockmann’s ‘↑ Development Aid and VET Research’ in this section acknowledges the differences between theory building, fundamental research and applied research but they do not consider them separated by a watershed. Their article pleads for closer cooperation; for the benefit of practice. Analysing VET cooperation between industrialised countries and the ↑ developing countries, they point to the fact that this cooperation has a history of being shaped by applied research in ex post evaluations of measures implemented and by studies commissioned by national or international organisations. Consequently, research find-
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ings were published in internal reports and studies, rather than ‘scientific publications’. Köhne and Stockmann’s point is that only the contributions of theoretical research and debate can bring the outcomes (and therefore the impact) of applied research to a higher level, for instance by using techniques common in academic research, like comparative research, however, in another definition. “The topic of “TVET research” in the strict sense is the study of “the conditions, processes and consequences of the acquisition of professional qualifications as well as personal and social attitudes and orientations that appear to be relevant for the performance of occupationbased ↑ work processes”. Instead of this definition of TVET research, which is focusing on the epistemic interest, a definition formulated for TVET cooperation emphasises the benefit for the practice of vocational education: “TVET research has to clarify the foundations of vocational education, to establish its contents and objectives and to prepare its adaptation to technological, economic and social developments” (→ 2.7).
For Köhne and Stockmann a partial focus on applied and commissioned research has many disadvantages. Above all longitudinal analyses and long-term scientific monitoring of TVET programmes, based on overarching systems of generally accepted indicators and a single methodological framework, will be impossible. Indeed disadvantages arise from the fact that ↑ educational research is now an industry with a great number of competitors. For them, the gap between research and practice will be solved only if TVET research and funding institutions agree to a closer cooperation. This will be to their mutual benefit, as this cooperation “could not only contribute to analysing central development issues and using the results for the conception of policy papers and the realisation of programmes, but also leads to the consequence that vocational education and training is again assigned greater importance in ↑ development aid’ (→ 2.7).
Should somebody be responsible for the organisation of the research market? Is it enough that research is a commodity or should mechanisms for mediating and improving the relationship between education research, ↑ policy and practice be in place? In particular the ↑ OECD has given much attention to this subject over the past two decades. One of the important reasons was that govern-
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ments expressed the need to gear their reforms to the developing information age and to aims of developing a learning society and/or learning economy. Governments are not only the clients of researchers; they see themselves also as responsible agents for improving ↑ research capacity, in particular in terms of academic and university based research and its links to practice. For instance, when a conference of ministers of education concludes that the potential of education research is underdeveloped in particular in respect of – levels of investment and capacity in ↑ educational research and development – links of research to practice through processes of ↑ diagnosis, comparison and analysis – innovations to create better links between research, ↑ policy and practice it is academic research they have in mind. This becomes explicit when the perception is added that much educational research is inward-looking within academic fields or that research projects often lack the multi-disciplinary dimensions that are developing in some other fields of social research (OECD 1995). Although new and promising initiatives are taken to improve links between research and practice in particular (see for instance LAWN / REES 2007, LENEY forthcoming), academic research is only a segment of the research activities nowadays. So, these initiatives will not solve the problem raised by Köhne and Stockmann. They acknowledge the fact that research is no longer exclusively programmed by universities and other academic research bodies. Therefore, it is not enough to improve links between academic research and practice in a one way system with academic researchers at the sending end and people from practice at the receiving end of the communication line. Their point is that there are now many funding institutions commissioning research, also counting universities amongst their clients; a closer cooperation between these institutions should be organised to enable longitudinal analyses and long-term scientific monitoring of VET programmes. As much as interventions are needed on the ‘supply side’, they are also needed on the ‘demand side’. Of course, this is not easy and is a much neglected subject. One could even claim that governments have cre-
Handbook of TVET Research
ated this supply side problem themselves by shifting the dynamics of education development resulting in a wider range of stakeholders, scattering the demand for research services to a wider set of organisations, VET schools included. Researchers themselves are in a position to raise the ↑ effectiveness and ↑ sustainability of VET, according to Laur-Ernst and Hanf. Their article in this section ‘vocational education as an ↑ innovation process’ opens with the intriguing statement: “the ↑ effectiveness and sustainability of initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training are closely interrelated with the capacity for learning and innovation in institutions which carry out vocational education research”. However, in order to learn, perspectives have to be shared. People from different disciplines and with different responsibilities should communicate. There is much to be gained from a closer cooperation between academic research, applied research, practice and policy making. Is it possible to organise this cooperation at a system level? One way of doing this is to make it somebody’s problem. For the ↑ OECD, governments are the first to be addressed to introduce, for instance, a coherent – national – approach to ↑ brokering. The choice for brokering is significant as it implies that researchers and research institutes and the clients and commissioners cannot be forced to cooperate within a national institutionalised framework; such a framework can never be effective in times of an ongoing proliferation of research institutes and research clients. Brokering between research, policy and practice can take several forms, varying from series of seminars to systematic reviews or the establishment of research centres with a specific task of communicating research findings to policy and practice (LENEY forthcoming). Governments might take the initiative in financing or even organising mediating or brokerage processes via networks, ↑ partnerships or websites. Leney distinguishes two types of research dissemination: – Mechanisms, intended to bring together, summarise or simplify the outputs of research to make it more readily understandable and accessible to policy makers and practitioners. This is called transferability.
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
– Establishing networks, websites, and partnerships for sharing among stakeholders the knowledge developed through research. For Leney, this is dissemination in the strict sense (LENEY forthcoming). The difference between those two types is that in the first type an – independent – agency is responsible for the translation of research findings into information that is understandable for ↑ policy and practice. In the second type the translation is not an act in itself, but will be the result of bringing people together for dialogue and personal contacts, making research easier for politicians and practitioners to access and understand. Differences in languages and frames of references are still major impediments to raising the impact of research. Taking this one step further would be to include policy makers or people from practice in the research process. In particular people from educational practice might benefit from this direct involvement. However, it is only realistic to acknowledge that policy makers, practitioners and researchers will have different priorities. It is not only that they might have different expectations of the functions of brokerage; their perspectives on matters at hand might also be different. Brokerage is never about the transfer of information only. Therefore, “the notion of a seamless web integrating research, policy and practice may be questionable”. Whitty is even more sceptical when stating that the relationship between education researchers and government policy makers is even inherently ‘one of conflict or at least a site of mutual misunderstanding and even suspicion’ (WHITTY 2006, 160). 2.0.4
Changing Roles of Researchers, Practitioners and Policymakers in Research Projects
The voice of practice is hardly ever heard in education research. Laur-Ernst and Hanf for instance express in this section full confidence in the future of VET research, as it will “increasingly be involved in generating and supporting innovations on all levels, in view of the growing pace of change, interdependency and internationalisation of the economy, the labour market and education. It has an
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indispensable contribution to make to reforms and the shaping of the future” (→ 2.4).
Their confidence is not unconditional, however. Their addition to this conclusion is significant, implying that continual improvement of the tools of innovation – in a theoretical and a methodological sense – is crucial. In particular the improvement of tools for ↑ innovative action in social contexts and boosting innovation competence are much needed. Although the 2003 ↑ OECD-report ‘New Challenges for ↑ Educational Research’ might reflect accurately the mainstream of educational research in terms of methodologies, there are promising examples of research projects in which educational practice in particular gains from educational theory and research through the introduction of methodologies that allow practitioners to participate in research. Round tables held at the annual European Conference on Educational Research in 2004 and 2005, organised by VETNET (Network on vocational education and ↑ training research) for instance, presented interesting examples from the field of ↑ VET research (BRUIJN / WESTERHUIS 2004; DEITMER /K ÄMÄRÄINEN / WESTERHUIS 2005). Both round tables acknowledged a shift to action research. It was concluded that action-oriented ↑ research methodology has significant potential in linking research and innovation in VET in a more active way. By contrast to research conducted in surveys and experiments, dividing the people involved into clients, respondents and researchers, the application of action research methodologies enhances direct and interactive cooperation between researchers and practitioners in particular. The key assumption of action research is that ‘knowledge’ is a multidimensional concept; knowledge can have different shapes and different functions. Conversely, acceptance of a knowledge concept in which various knowledge sources stand next to the academic one implies that knowledge developed in and by educational practice is recognized as a legitimate knowledge source. The multidimensionality of knowledge and of the process of ↑ knowledge creation presupposes an ‘actor’ approach in which for example the work of Gustavson (2001) on action research is relevant. In exploring the impact of research on innovation in prac-
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tice, the position and function of the various actors involved in the process of knowledge creation is crucial (MANSKE / MOON / RUTH / DEITMER 2002). The critique against academic standards of knowledge is not new, see for instance the rhetorical question of Lyotard (1984, 9): “Who decides what knowledge is?”. In “The new production of knowledge” Gibbons et al. (1994) refer to this ‘situated’ knowledge as Mode 2 knowledge. Their analysis of knowledge production and the distinction between Mode 1 (academic) knowledge and this Mode 2 knowledge offers a clear perspective on the changing knowledge concept. Knowledge is not only produced in academic settings, but also in other knowledge-demanding contexts. The distinction between the two modes is more practical than in principle: “The only question may be whether they are sufficiently different to require a new label or whether they can be regarded simply as developments that can be accommodated within existing practices”. (GIBBONS / LIMOGES / NOWOTNY ET AL. 1994, 3).
The value of knowledge is not defined at the basis of requirements for codification but by the practical value, and is therefore context and use dependent. The different perspectives of involved parties are not only concretized in the knowledge concept (i.e. practical theory), but are made the driving force for the process itself. The key element of the adjusted methodology is an organised community of knowledge in which the different roles are taken up by the participants in direct interaction. This explicit actor approach is another key element of action research, when the researcher acts as a consultant, helping the stakeholders by ‘looking and formulating’, ‘exploring and analysing’ and ‘reflecting and explicating’ (STRINGER 1999). In terms of roles an actor approach towards developing practical theory for the purpose of innovation will ask for a more elaborate set of roles compared to the three roles of client, respondent and researcher. For instance: – roles in the creation of situated (local) knowledge related to the educational practice – roles in the translation of developed situated knowledge in terms of a conceptual framework
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– roles in the execution of accompanying research of the ↑ innovation process, in particular in the identification of results and effects An important question for action research is the balance between the process and its outcomes. Although this section does not focus on the role of practitioners in research projects, it is one of the major concerns of action research how its outcomes can be accumulated in a system of knowledge. How can action research contribute to theory building? For De Bruijn and Westerhuis this is still the responsibility of the researcher as he or she should take care of: – the confrontation of the various experiences and knowledge sources – the creation of conceptual knowledge by confronting and integrating (translated) situational knowledge with formal knowledge representing the state of the art’ – diffusion and transfer of (components) of new practical theories to an ‘outside world’ However, is it enough to make individual researchers responsible for the transfer of situated knowledge into theory building? From a system point of view, in an interactive process with its focus on dynamics and interaction, the value given to continuity in terms of the accumulation of knowledge in theories is less imminent. Leney’s concept of ↑ brokering, in fact an ↑ open method of coordination, will not do for theory building. This is a conclusion leaving several questions open, not yet fully addressed, in particular with regard to the organisation of knowledge accumulation between ↑ communities of practice and the research community. Is there any evidence of the benefit that practitioners gain from their active involvement in research? One might consider that involvement in a research program leaves it to the practitioner to transfer his research experiences into practice. The presentation of Deitmer, based on experiences in the programme coordination unit of the German VET-related innovation programme “Neue Lernkonzepte in der dualen Berufsausbildung” (1997–2003), in the VETNET 2005 Round Table at the European Conference on ↑ Educational Research, concluded that there is a systematic difficulty of ‘translating’ evaluation results and outcomes into the everyday organization routines and that the effects are
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not so far reaching as one may assume (DEITMER / K ÄMÄRÄINEN / WESTERHUIS 2005). Maybe in contrast to professionals in the medical field, teachers don’t operate in one-to-one situations. Research findings have to be implemented in a much more complicated set of routines and shared by a wide group of people. Therefore, it is not enough to teach trainee teachers how to use research outcomes as an individual, or to include this ability in the list of occupational competences, nor to bring trainee teachers into contact with research during their training. The Dutch National Education Council (ONDERWIJSRAAD 2006) pointed out that there should be some support structure and a system put in place to translate knowledge into practice: – One or more teachers – not just the school leaders or an isolated expert – should be trained – and appreciated – as internal knowledge creators – Schools, becoming more responsible for their own quality and reforms, should invest in ↑ knowledge management and a systematic approach towards ↑ knowledge creation. Another form of relating research to practice is to raise teachers’ and managements’ ability to evaluate their daily practice from a wider perspective; to learn to assess daily routines from a new perspective. In its most simple form this might include to use a research instrument (for instance a theory driven questionnaire or observation form) to assess a situation collectively. The outcomes provide a common ground for discussion both on the similarities and differences in assessing a situation and the steps to be taken to improve this situation, in terms of growing coherence in the way the groups observe the situation and in terms of deciding on the actions needed for improvement. From this it is only a short step to the concept of the ‘Critical Friend’. Swaffield defines the critical friend as someone who not only sees the school from a different perspective from those within the school, but also assists them to bring the familiar into a new focus. The ideas about a critical friend being someone who helps others see more clearly and become aware of what is there but hidden, resonate with other theories and models (SWAFFIELD 2002). In Costa and Kallick’s (1993) description, a ‘critical friend’ is:
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“... a trusted person who asks provocative questions, provides data to be examined through another lens, and offers critiques of a person’s work as a friend. A critical friend takes the time to fully understand the context of the work presented and the outcomes that the person or group is working toward. The friend is an advocate for the success of that work” (COSTA / K ALLICK 1993, 50).
It is not surprising that Swaffield sees an analogy with the work of a consultant in Freudian terms. The critical friend in a role of ‘raising consciousness’, helps the patient (school) to become conscious of repressed (different or hidden perspectives) emotions and drives (data). Indeed, also in terms of ↑ research methodologies, the borders between ↑ educational research and other forms of school support become very thin indeed. 2.0.5
The Impact of the EU on the Body of Knowledge and the Organisation of VET Research
In the Lisbon agenda the European Union has a high profile and ambitious agenda for VET. It was argued that this agenda is partial in prioritising two issues only: (i) raising the ↑ participation of VET and (ii) greater involvement of social partners in VET. What is the effect of policies at European level on the organisation of ↑ VET research? Kämäräinen and Fischer’s contribution to this section, called ‘Research on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the context of European cooperation’ deals with the relation between funding policies and the research agenda at EU level. The article analyses the evolution of research in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in European cooperation programmes funded by the European Union between programme generations in terms of successive themes and the shift in emphasis. The article concludes that cooperation grows and identifies several effects of greater cooperation between VET researchers as a result of these programmes: – Overcoming conceptual barriers and promoting European knowledge enrichment – Development of a ↑ European research community devoted to TVET research – Contributing to European policy processes as a challenge for TVET research. For Kämäräinen and Fischer the European cooperation programmes are breeding grounds for the
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development of an EU ↑ VET research community, ready to deal with complex EU ↑ research questions. The history of the EU programmes prepared the ground for this position. From their analysis it can be concluded that not only did the community develop in a social dimension, but it was also successful in accumulating research findings into a ↑ body of knowledge. After an initial period when the ↑ idiographic function of research was dominant, providing descriptions of ↑ VET system in their respective national and culturally specific contexts, the ↑ nomothetic function of research helped to find general rules within VET, resulting in the identification of the ↑ performance of VET systems on different topics (functions). The shift to the analyses of the functions of VET was an answer to methodological problems faced when looking for empirical evidence for competitive advantages of particular TVET systems; the question ‘What is the best system becomes: What system best performs a certain function?’ Finally, the more recent evolutionistic function of research helps to recognise contextual or universal trends. ↑ Research approaches with an evolutionistic function draw attention to the relations between context-specific and ‘universal’ preconditions for developing TVET in Europe. Such approaches take into account cultural diversity and a diffuse pressure towards homogeneity among national TVET systems through the process of European integration. From this perspective culturally specific development processes could be related to each other as parallel “system environments”. Thus, national TVET systems (or country-specific development of qualifications) can be linked to more comprehensive interpretative frameworks. The evolution of European VET research networks is another outcome of this European level of agenda setting. Although they address the issue only superficially, Kämäräinen and Fischer identify a shift in this community from acting solely as a support structure for EU policy-making to allowing for a more independent role as well, for instance in giving rise to independent studies and commentaries. It will be interesting to follow the development of the ↑ European research community. The European Commission is almost a monopolist in combining a ↑ VET policy agenda with a research agen-
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da; a position comparable to the position national governments had until about the 1990s in a great many European countries, described in the first paragraph of this article. Are they going to share this position with new European stakeholders? Is the self organisation of VET researchers still a feasible strategy in a Union with a great number of member states? Will the EU VET research community ever exceed the status of a virtual community, whether or not dominated by researchers from a limited number of countries? 2.0.6
VET as a Research Field; Involving Several Subject Disciplines as a Prerequisite
Karsten identifies two types of knowledge: knowledge that stimulates the process of accountability in education and knowledge that stimulates the improvement and innovation of education (K ARSTEN 2006). The second type of knowledge is a much broader scope. The first type tells us about the state of the art in education, while the second type tells us what works in education. This knowledge gives insight into the nature of policy problems, how to intervene, etc. Both types of knowledge share a functional view of the contribution that research could make to ↑ policy and practice. So far, this view is also at the basis of the subjects dealt with in this chapter: (i) the ↑ innovation of VET; (ii) the impact of research findings; (iii) the changing roles of researchers, practitioners and policymakers and (iv) the impact of the EU on the ↑ body of knowledge and the organisation of VET research. However, VET research is more than an instrument for policy makers and practitioners. Researchers are not only the facilitators of an innovation agenda set by policymakers. There is also a need for research that dedicates itself to less obvious topics and less visible aspects of VET, challenging policymakers and practitioners to broaden their interpretation of reality. VET research includes detached and interpretative work as well. One major characteristic of VET is its ‘belongingness’ to different worlds; the world of education, the world of the ↑ labour market and the world of occupational development. Being part of many worlds, a great many aspects of VET can only be
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researched properly from a multidisciplinary angle. From an academic point of view, VET is a research subject in various academic disciplines. In broadening our understanding of the dynamics and the range of influences on VET, ↑ multidisciplinary research will also offer new points of reference to act on and to optimize the ↑ ↑ effectiveness of VET. Two interesting examples are included in this section; Willy Petersen’s ‘Occupations and ↑ Occupational areas’ and Manfred Eckert’s ‘Work – Education – Training: An ↑ Interdisciplinary ↑ Research Approach’. For both authors it is evident that researchers themselves have a responsibility in the organisation of multidisciplinary research. The ‘Occupations and Occupational Areas’, points to the differences between the structures of occupations and their classification into ↑ occupational groups on the one hand and the ↑ classification of vocational education and training into groups on the other. More coordination between ↑ occupational research and vocational education research in terms of aims and methods, as well as integrated research approaches is needed. Not for the sake of research itself, Petersen sees a need to introduce comprehensive and matched classifications because “the occupation and the education and training system as interdependent systems are important bases to design and develop both occupations and vocational education and training” (→ 2.3).
For Petersen the development of the ↑ EQF qualification framework proves his point, describing and defining qualification levels first and the qualification areas or domains relatively independently from the occupation system only afterwards. Manfred Eckert’s ‘Work – Education – Training: An Interdisciplinary Research Approach’ obviously also pleads for multidisciplinary research. The article explores two answers to the question ‘how the qualification in and for work takes place’; the education based approach presupposes that competences are promoted in ↑ systematic learning processes and through the acquisition of knowledge (education), while the work based approach presupposes that competences emerge from experience, informal and ↑ experimental learning (training). Both approaches have a long philosophical and historical tradition, indicating different ap-
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proaches to VET. However, in both traditions VET is subjected to qualification, occupation and ↑ labour market developments, and therefore an object for qualification, occupation and labour market research. For Eckert a multitude of ↑ research questions can only be answered by interdisciplinary approaches; almost all aspects of VET deserve a multidisciplinary approach. For instance the question how VET should prepare for future developments: “despite the prognostic deficits in occupation and qualification research the future-compliance of vocational qualification and the development of the demand for qualifications are fundamental questions for ↑ TVET planning. With regard to TVET practice this open reference to the future is multidimensional. On the one hand the issue is about qualifications that meet the current needs, on the other hand vocational qualification has to be organised in such a way as to ensure transferability with regard to new demands” (→ 2.2).
In this respect a major question is, what actually can be regarded as fundamental for different occupations? Is this a question of various elementary practical activities and skills, or an issue of fundamental professional knowledge that facilitates transitions? Starting from a multidimensional concept of competences (Competences also include ↑ domain-specific knowledge that aims, following the traditional concept of education, at integrating the ability to shape the environment and the ability to self-realisation), Eckert concludes that competences can be acquired close to ↑ work processes or through systematic instruction or teaching: ‘In the area of learning-supportive work organisation, theoretical reflection and teaching oriented towards professional practice lies the point of intersection where the work-, education- and training-related approaches of TVET research find their synthesis (→ 2.2). 2.0.7
Perspectives
The title of this chapter implies that ↑ VET research finds its ‘raison d’être’ in its relevance for ↑ policy and practice. The chapter explored this relevance from different angles. It can be concluded that the relations between VET research, policy and practice are objects of change; this includes both the relations between policy and research and
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between practice and research. From this analysis it can be concluded that, in the eyes of policy and practice, researchers are no longer members of a ‘high priesthood’ (MCNIFF 2002) who know all and know best. Surprisingly, this new position is not caused by a low opinion of the relevance of research. A growing army of researchers are hired to produce functional knowledge for policy processes and the innovation of practice. More to the point, the ↑ professional identity of researchers is weakening. This loss of status of researchers is one of the consequences of the knowledge economy. It is no paradox that a loss of status of people working in traditional intellectual ↑ professions, like researchers, coincides with the rise of the knowledge economy. This is no coincidence as the knowledge economy assesses knowledge almost exclusively in terms of value for production. Knowledge no longer has a status of its own, but is valued for its capacity to improve; the production of knowledge is under an industrial regime in its subservience to improvement and ↑ efficiency (WILDE 2001; DRUCKER 1969). Knowledge production is not a ritual produced by high priests, but a service performed by knowledge workers. Another consequence of the growing pressure to produce directly applicable knowledge, is the widening of the research territory; nowadays the territory of ↑ VET research is almost impossible to demarcate. Demarcation problems arise in terms of the scope of ↑ research questions as well as in terms of methodologies and references made to vested ↑ bodies of knowledge. Indeed, what counts as ↑ educational research? This analysis leaves the interesting question whether or not it will be possible to find new ways to organise VET research as a ↑ body of knowledge answering to high ↑ quality standards in terms of ↑ research methodologies as well as in terms of research findings. Is it realistic to leave it to a researcher to act as a central agent in knowledge accumulation and ↑ knowledge management? Will it do to build (EU) networks to foster ongoing dialogue between researchers themselves and to build supportive communities of researchers; to organise collaborative learning? What is the role of the state being a client, a stakeholder in raising the quality of (academic) VET research and in max-
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imising the transferability of research findings at the same time? Or should we acknowledge as a fact that VET research is turning into a (European) service industry that has to come to terms with the rules and regulations common in an open market economy?
2.1
VET Research and Social Dialogue Jonathan Winterton
↑ Social dialogue, one of the pillars of the European social model, has contributed to the development of vocational education and training (VET) policy since the founding of the EEC, with the social partners making proposals and agreeing action through joint opinions as well as contributing to the development of legally-binding measures (TRAVITIAN 1992). At the EU level, social dialogue arrangements are defined in Article 118b of the European Union Treaty: ‘The Commission shall endeavour to develop the dialogue between management and labour at European level, which could, if the two sides consider it desirable, lead to relations based on agreement.’ Three social partner representative organisations are involved: ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation), UNICE/ UEAPME (Union des Industries de la Communauté Européenne/Union Européen des Artisans et Petits et Moyens Entreprises) and CEEP (Confédération Européenne des Entreprises Publiques). The Economic and Social Committee, created as a forum for social dialogue, drafted the Social Charter in 1989 for adoption at the Maastricht summit and the agreement reached by the social partners on 31. October 1991 formed the basis of the Social Protocol that was eventually adopted at the Maastricht summit following the opposition of the UK Government to the proposed Social Chapter. The October 1991 agreement is generally seen as the departure point, since when social dialogue has been a central theme of the social dimension of European integration (DØLVIK 1999; EC 2002a; GOLD 1993; HALL, M. 1994). Most of the major social welfare and ↑ labour market reforms have
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been achieved through social dialogue (LOURDELLE 2002; SARFATI 2003). For several decades the social partner institutions have been in broad consensus over the promotion of employment and training initiatives by the European Commission (EC) although there has not been such agreement over legislation and interventionist social policies (TEAGUE 1989) (→ 1.8; → 2.5). UNICE and CEEP traditionally opposed ↑ labour market regulation (TEAGUE / GRAHL 1992) and successfully resisted EU-wide collective bargaining (STREECK / SCHMITTER 1992; DØLVIK 1999). The social partner working group on Education and Training made considerable progress, concluding four joint opinions within two years. The EC similarly emphasised VET as an area where social dialogue at the European level should play a major role, noting that consultation with and between the partners on access to skills was advocated in the 1997 Report on Access to Continuing Training (EC 1997c). In part this reflects the apparently consensual nature of training and development, where employers and unions share a common interest in seeing the workforce maintain and renew skills. Naturally inherent contradictions in workplace relations inevitably impose limits to reaching agreement over VET; and while all parties are superficially ‘in favour of’ training, their motives invariably differ and their interests are not entirely congruent. For employers, the major issue is having a workforce with the competence to perform in accordance with business objectives which must meet the increasingly competitive demands of the global marketplace. For employees, training represents a means of raising and accrediting skills and competences, which should provide a route to higher earnings, improved job satisfaction and job security, as well as increased labour market ↑ mobility. The representative bodies – employers’ associations and trade unions – while supporting these objectives of their members, also have wider agendas. Employers’ associations frequently view training as a strategic mechanism to support job restructuring via multi-skilling and functional flexibility, while the trade unions typically see training as a route to increasing employee autonomy, improving pay rates and maintaining membership. It is these differences, rather than
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the common ground, that demands social dialogue over VET as a means of identifying issues for collaboration and resolving conflicts of interest. A tripartite approach, bringing the social partners together with state agencies to determine ↑ VET policy, can also help ease tensions between the shortterm needs of businesses to support immediate activities, the medium-term needs of individuals for ↑ employability and the longer-term skill formation strategy of the state. The necessity for such dialogue to take place also at enterprise and establishment level is evident given the scale and pace of changes in technology and ↑ work processes. Despite the near universal consensus that ↑ social dialogue has an important role to play in the development and management of ↑ VET systems, this is an area that has not been researched in a comprehensive, systematic and regular fashion. Most national VET systems, in Europe at least, have traditionally included tripartite bodies, usually at sector level, that determine standards for training; they often also establish arrangements for funding and on occasions actually organise and administer training institutions. The consultation and negotiation that takes place in these systems has attracted little attention from training specialists, who are more interested in the substantive training issues than the procedural routes by which decisions are made, while industrial relations specialists, for whom the procedural matters are centre stage, have for the most part regarded training as somewhat peripheral to mainstream concerns with wage determination. Exceptionally, there were isolated studies of social dialogue over VET in individual countries, such as that of Rainbird (1990) in the UK during the period after the Conservative Government had dismantled much of the tripartite system. Paradoxically, interest increased in social dialogue over VET in the UK from this time and the TUC introduced new initiatives to promote bargaining over training in the workplace (DUNDON / EVA 1998; HEYES / STUART 1998; TUC 1994; 1995). Similarly, research undertaken for the FORCE Programme included country studies of contractual policies concerning continuing vocational training (CVT), which demonstrated a significant role for consultation and collective bargaining in this area in the UK despite the general contraction of
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bargaining coverage and trade union membership (WINTERTON / WINTERTON 1994a; 1994b). There is a substantial and long-established comparative literature on social dialogue arrangements (CROUCH 1993; STREECK 1992; TRAXLER / BLASCHKE /K ITTEL 2001) and a parallel literature comparing different ↑ VET systems (ASHTON / SUNG / TURBIN 2000; CALLOIDS 1994; CAMPINOSDUBERNET/ GRANDO 1988), but ↑ comparative studies of social dialogue over VET have been rather rare. The aforementioned FORCE studies included a certain amount of comparative analysis but for the most part the emphasis was on individual country studies (BLANPAIN / ENGELS / PELLEGRINI 1994). This was also the case with independent academic studies, comparative analyses typically either only addressing a few countries (MÉHAUT 1992; WINTERTON 1998; 2000) or having a wider focus on education and work (BERNIER /JOBERT / RAINBIRD / SAGLIO 2002; JOBERT / MARRY/ TANGUY/ RAINBIRD 1997; MEGHNAGI 1997) or forms of capitalist regulation (HALL / SOSKICE 2001; LANE 1989) and only dealing incidentally with social dialogue over VET (→ 1.9). 2.1.1
Social Dialogue Support System on Continuing Vocational Training
A major turning point in increased interest in social dialogue over VET came with the Council recommendation of 30 June 1993 to establish a Social Dialogue Support System on Continuing Vocational Training, organised by the Task Force Human Resources, Education Training and Youth. With financial support from the European Commission, the social partners commissioned a group of experts to study ways in which social dialogue could serve as a forum for exchange of information and experience in relation to continuing vocational training (CVT). The experts produced a Compendium of 30 case studies representing perceived good practice in CVT largely based on documentation available at the European level from work under the action programmes, notably the FORCE programme (UNICE/CEEP/ETUC 1994). The case studies were presented around 10 themes that were proposed by the experts and agreed with the social partners. While the declared objective was to assemble ‘a common platform of information’,
these were essentially advocacy cases, chosen because they represented good practice and innovation or had some other ‘exemplary value’. The authors were impressed by the importance attached to VET, especially CVT ‘at least in general terms’ by all governments and social partners, commenting on the number of joint opinions that had resulted from (European-level) dialogue in this area. The enormous variation between countries in the extent of formal mechanisms of social dialogue and the variety in the roles played by the social partners at national, regional, sector and firm levels, was also noted, along with the ‘growing concern and growing activity’ in this area. ↑ Social dialogue was not explicit in all of the cases making it difficult to identify the distinct value added, but in summarising the debates at the close of the seminar at which the Compendium was presented Vincent Merle (CEREQ) identified a number of specific contributions that social dialogue had made to improving CVT, among them the achievement of greater coherence between economic ↑ efficiency in training and equity for individuals. After consultation between the Social Dialogue working group and the experts, the social partners agreed to continue this work when the Task Force was succeeded by the Directorate General Education, Training and Youth and to produce a second Compendium, which was compiled in 1996 with 30 new case-studies around the same ten themes (UNICE/CEEP/ETUC 1996). In this second Compendium the cases were contextualised within the industrial relations and vocational training systems, which were described for all of the then 15 Member States with the aid of specialists nominated for each country. Whilst recognising the limitations of a collection of sixty case studies, the two compendia nevertheless demonstrated a decade ago both the importance and diversity of social dialogue over VET. The value of the Social Dialogue Support System on Continuing Vocational Training is evident from the progress made at that time in European Social Dialogue on Education and Training where the social partners identified four priorities for their future work: ↑ lifelong learning; guidance; qualifications; and resources. This work stimulated initiatives by the European Commission agencies involved in developing VET,
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
↑ CEDEFOP (Centre Européen de Développement de Formation Professionnelle) in Thessaloniki and the ETF (↑ European Training Foundation) in Torino, both of which have social partner representation on their respective management boards. CEDEFOP began to develop a closer relationship with the social partners (THEUNISSEN 1996) and established its programme Agenda 2000 to support social dialogue over VET (AGA 1998). The ETF supported research in this area, commissioning Gierorgica and Luttringer (1997) to analyse the role of the social partners in training at enterprise level. Helge Halvorsen, on secondment to ↑ CEDEFOP from the Norwegian employers’ association NHO, was the first to attempt a systematic comparative analysis of social partner involvement in the development of training and presented his interim findings at an ↑ ETF seminar (HALVORSEN 1998). Halvorsen’s exploratory work formed the basis for a subsequent survey administered by his replacement at CEDEFOP, discussed below. 2.1.2
The Lisbon Summit and the Framework of Actions
The next major turning point was the Lisbon European Council in March 2000, which marked the origins of a new European policy framework for VET and ↑ lifelong learning, linking these to the European Employment Strategy and establishing the objective for the next decade of making Europe ‘the most competitive and knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable growth and better jobs and greater social cohesion’. The Stockholm summit (March 2001) called for a detailed work programme, establishing targets and ↑ benchmarks against which progress was to be assessed. The Barcelona summit (March 2002) set the further objective of making European education and training systems a world quality reference by 2010 (EC 2002a). In line with these objectives, the Directors-General for VET in their autumn 2001 Bruges meeting agreed on further efforts to enhance European-wide cooperation and in the Copenhagen Declaration (30 November 2002) announced a strategy to support the development of qualifications and competences at European level. In the midst of these developments, in the run-up to the Laeken summit (December 2001), the social
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partners issued a joint statement calling for a new independent approach based on voluntary agreements and a joint work programme, to which the Commission responded with a communication recommending such an autonomous bipartite approach (EC 2002a). Since the Laeken Declaration EU level social dialogue has been increasingly bipartite and independent from the Commission, dealing with areas defined in the agreed work programme and frameworks of actions followed up with reporting and monitoring mechanisms analogous to the ↑ Open Method of Coordination used with member states and the European Employment Strategy. A Framework of Actions for the Lifelong Development of Competencies and Qualifications was agreed by the social partners on 28 February 2002 and presented to the European Council in March 2002 (ETUC/UNICE/UEAPME/ CEEP 2002). The Framework of Actions, which increased the role of the social partners in training initiatives and established mechanisms for annual monitoring and evaluation across the EU, was explicitly viewed by CEDEFOP as a step towards more autonomous ↑ social dialogue in this area (CEDEFOP 2004b). The CEDEFOP survey, the most comprehensive comparative research to date into social dialogue over VET, was undertaken in response to these renewed efforts by the social partners at European level to engage in autonomous actions to promote learning and development in line with wider EU objectives. The survey set out to explore the nature and extent of social dialogue over VET across Europe, to identify and disseminate good practice. The main research instrument was a questionnaire designed by staff on secondment to CEDEFOP and administered as a mail survey (followed by telephone and email) of all EU Member States (at that time numbering fifteen) and two EFTA countries between January 2002 and February 2003. The survey was comprehensive in scope, dealing with the legal framework and formal representation structures concerned with establishing ↑ VET policy and social partner ↑ participation in VET activities, from ↑ vocational schools to training systems and on-the-job training, both initial and continuing. The survey was distributed to the CEDEFOP Refernet national consortium leader in each coun-
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try, typically in the national agency responsible for VET or in the Ministry of Education. By February 2003, when the analysis began, returns had been received from 14 countries, including two EFTA countries and 12 of the then EU15. The survey was analysed by the present author on behalf of CEDEFOP and supplemented by a review of relevant literature and discussions with representatives of social partner organisations at European level and in some member states (WINTERTON 2003). A typology of ↑ VET systems used in earlier work was adopted to explore the extent to which social dialogue over VET was influenced by two dimensions: the focus of skill formation (workplace or school) and the regulation of the VET system (state or market). The nature and extent of social dialogue was analysed in relation to ↑ VET policy making, ↑ VET implementation and initiatives to promote ↑ lifelong learning: the results are reported below under these headings. 2.1.3
Social Partner Involvement in VET Policy Making
In reviewing policies on lifelong learning in Europe, Heidemann (2002) noted that while governments generally define the framework, they invariably ‘expect the social partners to be involved in fleshing out the framework provided’. The ↑ CEDEFOP survey confirmed this view, demonstrating that the social partners have a formal role in ↑ VET policy making in all the European countries covered by the survey. In all cases this role includes representation at national level; in the majority of cases also at sectoral level; and in many cases also at regional and local (enterprise or establishment) level. In those countries with a tradition of state regulation, social partner representation is determined by legislation, as is the case in 9 of the countries involved in the survey. In Germany, social partner involvement is legally defined in The Vocational Training Promotion Law (Berufsbildungsförderungsgesetz) 1981, which regulates the responsibilities of the bodies involved in determining VET policy at the national level. The ↑ Vocational Training Law (Berufsbildungsgesetz) 1969 defines the responsibilities of the 16 regional state committees for VET (Ländersausschüsse
für Berufsbildung) and the Chambers (Berufsbildungsausschüsse der zuständigen Stellen). The Social Law III (Sozialgesetzbuch) III 1997 defines shared responsibility for employment and ↑ labour market programmes, including training, continuing training and re-training. The main board of the national level Federal Institute for Vocational Training (Budesinstituts für Berufsbildung, BIBB), its Standing Committee (Ständiger Ausschuss) and the Joint Committee of the Federal States (Ländersausschüsse) comprise representatives of central government, employers and trade unions, plus representatives of the Federal States (Länder). In ↑ France, the involvement of the social partners in VET policy making is defined in various articles of the Labour Code, notably Book IX, Article 910-1. The social partners meet the authorities at national level to discuss VET issues in the National Council for Vocational Training, Social Advancement and Employment (Conseil national pour la formation professionnelle, le progrès social et l’emploi). Trade unions are not formally consulted before laws are drafted, but virtually all legislation pertaining to VET is approved in inter-occupational agreements prior to adoption. In Belgium the Law of 24 May 1921 gives employers and employees the opportunity to defend their occupational rights, including the right to VET, while the Law of 29 May 1952 created the National Labour Council (Conseil National du Travail – CNT), a joint body comprising an equal number of inter-occupational employee and employer association representatives. In Iceland, the new Upper Secondary School Act, No. 80/1996 sets out VET policy: Chapter IX of the Act elaborates the roles and responsibilities of both sides of industry through a central Cooperation Committee for ↑ Vocational Study and Occupational Councils (Starfsgreinaráð). In countries with a tradition of voluntarism, notably the UK and Ireland, the law has been much less prescriptive concerning social partner involvement in VET policy. Heidemann et al. (1994, 11) commented on the ‘almost total absence of ↑ social dialogue’ over VET in the UK, yet in both countries the social partners play a major role in VET policy. In Ireland the Labour Services Act 1987 defines social partner involvement in developing nation-
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al VET policy through two tripartite bodies: the Training and Employment Authority (FÁS) and the State ↑ Tourism Training Agency. In the UK, the focus was on Industry Training Boards, established as statutory tripartite sector bodies under the Industrial Training Act 1964, but these were replaced during the 1980s by a market-led system in which the employers played the dominant role (HYMAN 1992; RAINBIRD 1990; SENKER 1992). Despite these changes, there was extensive social partner involvement in training arrangements, although no longer on a statutory footing, even in sectors where union membership had virtually collapsed (WINTERTON / WINTERTON 1994a); and since the return of the Labour government in 1997, the unions have played a major role in VET. The Netherlands, with the socio-economic ‘poldermodel’, can be seen as a hybrid between the state regulated social dialogue ‘Rijnlands model’ and free market voluntarism, typified by the ‘Anglo-Saxon model’. The poldermodel involves intensive and elaborate negotiation between the government and the social partners, resulting in wage restraint and employment growth. In the 1980s, the social partners increased the level and scope of negotiations on ↑ employability and training and this resulted in the ‘Wassenaar treaty’ (Akkoord van Wassenaar) 1982 which is generally seen as a positive turning point in the development of the economy. The Vocational and Adult Education Act (Wet Educatie en Beroepsonderwijs) defines the various means of formal communication and involvement of the relevant actors; and the social partners are formally represented on the boards of national VET bodies. 2.1.4
Social Partner Involvement in VET Implementation
Citing research undertaken on behalf of the ETUC, Heidemann (2002) concluded that since the end of the 1980s, CVT in many member states and at the EU level ‘has increasingly become a central focus of social dialogue.’ Moreover, since 2000 ‘trade unions and workforce representatives are going beyond strategic discussions and becoming increasingly involved in the practical implementation of further training’. These trends are endorsed by the ↑ CEDEFOP survey, which shows that in addi-
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tion to their role in the formal structures of ↑ VET policy making, the social partners are involved in all countries in various activities concerned with the implementation of VET actions, particularly at sector and local levels. In particular, the social partners are involved in developing curricula and new qualifications as well as developing on-the-job training. While the structures of ↑ participation vary according to the degree of state regulation, social partner involvement in developing curricula and qualifications is extensive irrespective of the nature of the regulatory framework. In Germany, there are national ‘minimum’ curricula for VET, but companies are free to go beyond these and large companies frequently do so, creating additional qualifications to meet their own needs and supplementing national qualifications. In ↑ France, the social partners can propose new curricula and qualifications under the auspices of the joint advisory boards, the various higher education commissions and the sectoral Joint National Employment Boards (CPNEs, Commissions paritaire nationale de l’emploi). In Denmark, the Minister of Education determines the guidelines for each VET programme based on the recommendations of the social partners. The social partners exert a direct influence in laying down the curricular ‘framework’ for VET programmes via the Advisory Council on VET (Erhvervsuddannelsesrådet), the National Trade Committees (Faglige udvalg), the National Training Council (Uddannelsesrådet for arbejdsmarkedsuddannelserne) and the CVT Committees (Efteruddannelsesudvalg). Via Local Training Committees (Lokale uddannelsesudvalg), the social partners are able to ‘colour’ the local curriculum according to local ↑ labour market needs. Equally in Finland the social partners are consulted in the elaboration of the national core curricula and as members of the Training Committees they have a further opportunity to influence curriculum content. In Austria, the social partners have an extensive role in implementation of VET and are responsible for maintaining the adult education schools (Fachhochschulen) which are virtually the only providers of continuing vocational training. In each of these respects they are either consulted on, or responsible for, ↑ curriculum design and the
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development of new qualifications. In Denmark, local training committees, which include social partner representatives, act as advisory bodies to ↑ vocational schools on adapting curricula to the needs of local enterprises. In the UK, the unions have also been involved in developing new qualifications under the competence-based National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs in England and Wales, Scottish Vocational Qualifications, SVQs, in Scotland). Occupational standards for qualifications were developed through functional analysis organised by employer-led Industry Lead Bodies, a role subsequently taken over by the Standards Setting Bodies, and social partner involvement is essential in this. The social partners’ involvement in developing onthe-job training varies with the form of regulation. In the more regulated states, there is a legal right to be involved, whereas in countries with more voluntarist traditions, practice varies substantially between individual employers. In Germany, the social partners are typically involved at company level in selecting trainees and training content. Works Councils in companies with more than 5 employees can request that the employer undertakes a Training Needs Analysis. While the social partners in Belgium and ↑ France have a similar role in defining curricula, they are not involved in recruitment of trainees. In Finland, the social partners are involved in recruitment in sector VET institutions, but otherwise the national student selection system proposes students to the institutions, who have the final say on selection. In the UK, even under the Conservatives (1979–97) when the overall scope of collective bargaining contracted significantly, there was ↑ social dialogue over VET at both enterprise and workplace levels, although evidence suggests that the unions had only limited success in attempting to extend the bargaining agenda to VET issues (CLAYDON / GREEN 1992; TUC 1998) – although where they did, unions had a positive influence on training at workplace level (CLAYDON / GREEN 1992; GREEN / MACHIN / WILKINSON 1995; HEYES / STUART 1998; WINTERTON / WINTERTON 1994b). In several countries, VET arrangements have become more decentralised since the 1990s, making VET, and especially CVT, more responsive to the transformation of industry and involv-
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ing the social partners in practical implementation activities. In Sweden, the municipalities gained a large degree of freedom to organise IVT at the upper secondary level, via local vocational councils with employer and employee representatives. CVT in Norway is largely developed at company level with the involvement of the local social partners in determining training curricula and, in some cases co-financing of training. In France, the ↑ VET system has become progressively more decentralised through legal changes: Law 83-8 of 7 January 1983; Quinquennial Law No. 93-1313 of 20 December 1993; and the Labour Code, Article L. 9101. Under the regional vocational training development scheme, regional employment and vocational training coordination committees consult the regional social partners. 2.1.5
Social Partner Involvement in Initiatives to Promote Lifelong Learning
The social partners are widely involved in initiatives to promote ↑ lifelong learning and to encourage take-up of learning opportunities at work. For example, the Dutch Government and the social partners developed a national lifelong ↑ learning strategy, with the target for 2010 to increase the ↑ participation rate in vocational education of the population aged between 25 and 64 to the level of the two best performing Member States of the EU. Vocational education institutes are becoming knowledge centres for lifelong learning, for which the social partners have a joint responsibility. The tripartite Advisory Committee on Education and the ↑ Labour Market (ACOA) is one of the bodies involved in redesigning the Dutch qualification structure to facilitate lifelong learning. Since the 1980s the number of collective agreements on education and training has increased substantially and research by Labour Inspection (SZW 2001) showed that agreements on ↑ employability were included in 86 out of the 117 agreements reviewed. In many countries, the social partners are involved in establishing arrangements for the funding of VET and promoting access to learning. Levygrant arrangements are a common means of ↑ financing VET and the social partners are involved in so far as employers make contributions to funds
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
via the levy and claim grants in relation to training. In some countries, employers’ associations have a role in administering the system and on occasion the unions are also involved. In Germany, the social partners decide (through tripartite arrangements) on the funding of training schemes, including apprenticeships, run by the Employment Service at national, regional and local level. In France the social partners may be involved in administering apprenticeship tax (collection and allocation at the discretion of the enterprises) and establish collection agencies for the mandatory corporate financial contribution which finances training for young people benefiting from alternance work contracts. In Denmark, IVT is funded via the Employers’ Reimbursement Scheme (Arbejdsgivernes Elevrefusion – AER), while CVT is funded through the ↑ Labour Market Institution of Financing of Education and Training (Arbejdsmarkedsuddannelsernes finansieringfond). Heidemann (2002) commented that in recent years many countries introduced individual learning accounts (as in the UK and Sweden) or training vouchers (as in Austria and Germany) both to encourage up-take of learning opportunities and to share the costs of learning. In the UK, individual learning accounts (which were closed down in November 2001 following allegations of fraud) became a focus of ↑ social dialogue as employers made additional contributions (over and above the state finance) on the basis of individual or collective agreements. In Germany, there are collective agreements in many sectors concerning ↑ continuing VET funding and programmes and Works Councils often make proposals for paid leave (Bildungsurlaub) to undertake CVT. In some large companies, the social partners have negotiated agreements on learning time accounts (Lernzeitkonten). Under a new collective agreement for qualification (Tarifvertrag zur Qualifizierung) in the metal industry of BadenWürttemberg every employee was entitled to regular updating of skills based on individual ↑ personnel development discussions. In Belgium, the Collective work agreement of 25 April 2001 concluded by the CPNAE social partners for 2001– 2002, included a training section, valid until the end of 2003, under which employers were obliged to grant all employees at least four days of training
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during the CCT period, two days in 2002 and two in 2003. To achieve this objective, each enterprise could join the CCT by submitting a training plan to the relevant sectoral social fund. As well as the benefits of expanding or updating employee skills, subscribing to the agreement brought significant financial advantages: training subsidies of € 37.18 per day per employee for companies that train their workers (except for free CEFORA courses), onsite CEFORA courses and price reductions in more than 120 recognised training institutions. Under the Inter-occupational Agreement of 22 December 2000, the social partners asked the various sectors to launch at least one new collective work agreement or extend an existing one, calling on sectors to implement initiatives to determine the most productive synergies and to strive for the optimal definition of target groups, including older workers, non-Belgian ethnic groups and the disabled. The role of collective agreements in promoting VET at local level is emphasised in several countries. In Spain, the Third Tripartite Continuing Training Agreement, signed in December 2000, defined the conditions under which companies could obtain government support for implementing CVT in enterprises, one provision requiring that the training plan is approved by the legal representatives of the workers in the company. In Portugal, integrated training plans are developed from the training plans of individual companies, then presented to the public authorities for funding. Worker representatives may be involved in defining the training plan through a negotiated collective agreement. In Iceland, the social partners are involved in CVT at company level, where curricula and new qualifications are developed without necessarily adhering to national standards. In some sectors employers and employees subscribe to a fund for this purpose. In Austria enterprises are free to introduce training schemes without reference to national standards and company level training plans are sometimes a subject of collective agreements. In ↑ France local training schemes must adhere to national standards if national qualifications are involved, but companies organise additional CVT without qualifications and works councils are consulted on such training schemes. Industry level collective agreements in the Nether-
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lands have established ↑ training levies in some 60 sectors, designed to harmonise ↑ training costs and reduce poaching of skilled labour. Arguably the most important social partner led innovation focused on increasing the take-up of learning opportunities, has come out of the UK, where statutory support for ↑ social dialogue is absent. Recognising serious skills gaps and shortages in the economy, the Labour Government established the Union Learning Fund (ULF) in 1998, with the aim of using trade union influence to increase the take-up of learning at work, while boosting union capacity for delivering learning among trade unionists. Much ULF activity was centred on Union Learning Representatives – active union members, normally lay officials, who provide advice, guidance and support to colleagues in activities related to learning and may negotiate with employers or providers to increase access to learning opportunities. Early evidence suggested that Union Learning Representatives were having a positive impact on the creation and take-up of learning opportunities at work (COWEN / CLEMENTS / CUTTER 2000), particularly for low skilled workers and those at risk of redundancy (WINTERTON 2001). The statutory backing that was introduced by the Employment Act 2002 is of pivotal importance for improving trade union ↑ effectiveness in influencing VET and ↑ lifelong learning opportunities in the workplace (RODGERS / WALLIS / WINTERTON 2003). 2.1.6
Conclusions
The ↑ CEDEFOP survey showed social dialogue and other social partner involvement, such as in tripartite bodies, to be extensive and apparent at all levels in ↑ VET policy making in Europe: national, regional, sectoral and local (variously including enterprise, establishment and sub-regional geographical area). Significantly, the social partners are involved irrespective of whether the prevailing socio-economic model involves legal regulation (as in the majority of countries), voluntary arrangements (as in the UK) or a hybrid of these as in the formalised cooperation found in Finland and the Netherlands. In addition to their role in the formal structures of VET policy making, the social partners are involved in all countries in various activities concerned with the implementation of VET
actions, particularly at sector and local levels. For example, the social partners are involved in developing curricula and new qualifications, developing on-the-job training and in encouraging the take-up of learning opportunities. While the structures of ↑ participation vary according to the degree of state regulation, social partner involvement in developing curricula and qualifications is extensive irrespective of the nature of the regulatory framework. The social partners’ involvement in ↑ VET implementation at company level varies with the form of regulation and the focus of ↑ VET systems. In the more regulated states, there is a legal right to be involved, whereas in countries with more voluntarist traditions, practice varies substantially between individual employers. In several countries, VET arrangements have become more decentralised since the 1990s, making VET, and especially CVT, more responsive to the transformation of industry and involving the social partners in practical implementation activities. The role of collective agreements in promoting VET at local level is emphasised in several countries, especially those where the focus of VET is on the workplace. The differences between the countries appear to be less than might be anticipated from the different forms of VET regulation (market versus state) and stereotypical models of labour relations (Northern or Scandinavian model, Southern or Mediterranean model, Western or Anglophone model and the Central or German model); there are similarities that cross the labour relations typologies as well as differences within them, which may be the result of convergence occurring with transfer of good practice (or may equally reflect the limitations of the traditional typologies). The Framework of Actions also stimulated more trade union engagement in research on ↑ social dialogue over VET and lifelong learning, building on earlier work by research institutions close to the trade unions, such as Hans Böckler Stiftung, which had previously published analyses of social dialogue over VET and lifelong learning (HEIDEMANN 2002; HEIDEMANN /K RUSE / PAUL-KOHLHOFF / ZEUNER 1994). Kerckhofs and André (2003) from the ETUC investigated European social dialogue over lifelong learning, mapping in particular progress made in the sectoral dialogue bodies. European
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
social dialogue on VET and lifelong learning is especially important at sector level because of the similarity of skills needs in a given sector across member states, recently recognised in EC initiatives (EC, E. C. 2003b). Until 1998, European sector social dialogue took place in nine joint committees established by EC decisions, and in eleven informal working parties created by the social partners themselves (SÖRRIES 1999). The EC initiated a major institutional reform in 1998, replacing the existing institutions with sector dialogue committees (EC 1998b), while the ETUC began co-ordinating collective bargaining through the European Industry Federations (LEISINK 2002; K ELLER / SÖRRIES 1998). The distribution of dialogue across sectors is very uneven; different policy areas are covered and the outcomes vary (K ELLER 2005). The Commission now recognises over 30 sector dialogue committees on the basis of the extent of representation of the sector by the social partners involved and their willingness to discuss and agree joint opinions and binding framework agreements. Kerckhofs and André (2003) reported that between 1979 and 2002, these structures produced over 200 joint texts, 48 per cent of them including provisions relating to VET. While recognising that such a quantitative historical overview provides no indication of the impact of social partner joint opinions or agreements, recent reports in the field of VET from the sector committees indicate that the focus is now more on direct actions or frameworks for actions than joint opinions. While sector bargaining has sometimes led to inter-professional framework agreements (as with teleworking in 2002), Goetschy (2005, 418) notes that the reverse has also occurred with the Framework of Actions influencing several sectoral dialogue committees. The trend is towards the development of European sector social dialogue strategies on ↑ lifelong learning; most European social dialogue sector committees have discussed lifelong learning and many have developed concrete actions. Anders Vind from Landsorganisationen i Danmark coordinated a study of trade union ↑ policy and practice on lifelong learning, comparing Denmark, ↑ France, Germany and the UK (VIND / DELAMARE LE DEIST/ HEIDEMANN / WINTERTON
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2004). While the Framework of Actions offers a platform for promoting trade union influence in ↑ lifelong learning policies, there is a need for further elaboration of the strategy at European level and for more detailed monitoring and analysis of actions at national level. In Denmark, France, Germany and the UK, the unions are actively seeking new roles in promoting lifelong learning through collective agreements on practical issues such as time accounts, acting as ‘intermediaries’ at the interface of individuals and learning opportunities, participating in the ↑ quality assurance of VET and encouraging a learning culture at work. However, such initiatives at present are not strategically coordinated at EU level, something that is increasingly necessary with enlargement of the EU. The enlargement of the EU presents a new challenge to ↑ social dialogue over VET because some of the new and future member states have particular weaknesses in social dialogue structures and processes as well as in ↑ VET systems and workforce qualifications (→ 2.6). The weakness of social dialogue in some of the new and future member states (LADO / VAUGHAN-WHITEHEAD 2003; VAUGHAN-WHITEHEAD 2000), especially at sectoral level (GHELLAB / VAUGHAN-WHITEHEAD 2003) is well documented. There is often a combination of government reluctance to share power, employer resistance to engage in dialogue and trade union reticence to take on responsibility (DRAUS 2000; MAILAND / DUE 2004; SARFATI 2003; WINTERTON / STRANDBERG 2004), all of which must be addressed if social dialogue is to continue to play a central role in developing and implementing policies across the EU (EC 2004). Some countries have an urgent and dramatic need to raise workforce skills in line with the Lisbon objectives, and in cases like Turkey this is hampered by a VET system that is ill-adapted to ↑ labour market needs (WINTERTON 2006a). The reform of VET systems will present an enormous challenge to social dialogue in these countries. In view of these challenges and the need for the trade unions to develop new strategies to promote competence development at work, the SALTSA Programme of the Swedish Arbetslivsinstitutet recently commissioned a ↑ comparative study of eight countries, including three new member states and one candidate country, the results
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of which will be published in 2007 (MAGNUSSON / WINTERTON 2007).
2.2
Work – Education – Training: An Interdisciplinary Research Approach Manfred Eckert
they are generated by experience, by experience oriented and ↑ informal learning. The acquisition of systematic knowledge is a goal of the school, the building of ↑ experiential knowledge takes place as a process in the context of work. Training measures, on the other hand, aim at the direct applicability of learning and the things learned, and they can be organised as school-based courses or as learning near the workplace. 2.2.2
2.2.1
Preliminaries: Objectives of Vocational Learning and Vocational Qualification
Vocational learning always aims to enable people to deal competently with the demands of their work. Therefore skilled work is a particular point of reference for vocational learning and vocational training. The perspectives as to how qualification for and in work shall take place are different. The interest of the employees is to be empowered by vocational qualification to succeed in the ↑ labour market, to have the opportunity to transfer between jobs thanks to ↑ mobility, to seize career opportunities, to ensure a sustainable ↑ employability via their professional record, to build a social, personal and ↑ professional identity, and to be secured against unemployment as far as possible. This is possible only if comprehensive professional, social and personal competences have been developed on the basis of a good school education and a broad basic vocational training. From the employers’ point of view the focus is on the optimisation of productivity and business processes as well as on the improvement of global competitiveness. This entails a demand for workers who are able to act successfully in learning organisations and the corresponding ↑ innovation processes. There is little controversy that vocational education should always extend beyond the training of concrete skills for particular workplaces. In modern and service oriented societies it aims at the transfer of ↑ key qualifications or competences that are future-proof and allow for broad opportunities for action (ZOLINGEN 2002). The question is left unanswered whether these competences are supported in systematic ↑ teaching and learning processes and through the acquisition of knowledge, or whether
Conceptual Clarifications
Work On the one hand it is well known from everyday experience what is meant by work. On the other hand the conceptual clarification is extremely difficult. Work as useful human activity and as source of material prosperity are widespread anthropological and economic ideas. At the same time work is always performed under social and historical conditions. The forms of the societal organisation of work are the result of economic, technical and social factors, and often the hierarchical division of labour and the corresponding professional differentiation stabilise social and societal structures. “↑ Professionalism” as a form of this organisation of work can lead to a concept of social inequality (LEWIS 2000; ZILVERSMIT 2004). In this context work and the demand for workers and qualifications can be structured quite differently and subject to repeated changes due to the permanent pressure for rationalisation and the global competition. Processes of dequalification and selection can emerge, but there can also be new demands on the qualification levels. Work can promote potentials for self-realisation, but can also further the alienation of man. Working power is both a shaping potential and a commodity. Marxist philosophy has worked out this contradictory character of work. In ancient philosophy work – as the task of slaves and thus of non-political beings (!) – was related to the production of objects and artefacts. The occupation of freemen, on the contrary, aimed at the shaping of the polity, at good political agency (ARENDT 1981). The latter required autonomy and education. In TVET theory and in ↑ TVET policy this contradiction continues. Are the capacity to optimally cope with workplace requirements and
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
the manufacturing of products according to technical rules the relevant issues, or is the thing that at stake is the shaping of individual and collective working and living conditions as well as of the political context (DEWEY 1916a; LAKES 1993)? What is certain is that the coping with workplace requirements necessitates specific qualifications. This is an important curricular point of reference for vocational education. On the other hand each workplace is an environment for experiences where not only specific qualifications are applied, but where also competences can be acquired and enriched. Competences are subjective potentials for agency that extend far beyond concrete workplace requirements. Their development is facilitated when work is organised and shaped in a learning-supportive way. In principle work experience in the enterprise can also be analysed as a socialisation process. Here the focus is on the personal development as well as the social and professional integration into the organisational structures of the company and into the respective professional and technical expert groups. Finally the question remains whether the experiences in the ↑ work process can also give access to the dimensions of society and politics, in which case work experience would simultaneously be a part of political education (HEYDORN 1972; HEYDORN 1979; NEGT 1968).
Education The separation of education and work that is rooted in the philosophical tradition has already been mentioned. Up to the most recent European history of education, this tension continued: Is “education” the non-instrumental development of the individual, which is promoted in particular through the acquisition of the ideal contents of the classical languages, of culture, and of art? Can natural sciences and modern languages also be educational contents? Is it appropriate to have vocational, application-oriented training follow only after the completion of a phase of general education? Or is education possible also by means of the imparting of knowledge that is relevant for the context of professional agency and that might even have been generated in this context? What is crucial here is the answer to the question whether this is simple utilitarianism and the subordina-
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tion of man to economic and technical processes, or whether potentials for agency are released that allow for the shaping of work and life, independence and autonomy alike (BLANKERTZ 1963; DEWEY 1916a; HYSLOP-MARGISON 2001; LITT 1961). This contradiction is already featured in the dialectics of enlightenment: Is enlightenment a process of political emancipation, or of economic liberation (HORKHEIMER /ADORNO 1971)? However sharp this opposition has been accentuated in the past, there are nevertheless numerous representatives of enlightenment thought who overcame this dichotomy and viewed economic and political liberation together (for example: Benjamin Franklin). In the concepts of business development and in the course of the development of science and technology integrative positions have always been maintained, too (BLANKERTZ 1969). “Education” is often discussed in connection with schools. The Teaching curricula of schools can be detached from real contexts of application in terms of their educational contents, they can be oriented towards sciences or systems of knowledge, and they can focus on personal development and education processes. They can make contributions to moral education, compensate socialisation deficits, and realise political integration as an affirmative or critical programme. ↑ Vocational schools have been utilised for all these objectives. In principle, schools offer the chance to impart contents and to develop potentials for agency that reach beyond current societal demands and aim at coping with the future. On the other hand schools always also have the tendency to move away from the reality of work and life and to lose their life-practical relevance. Moreover, there is a danger of communicating “↑ inert” knowledge that can hardly be applied in practice. This way the school turns into an artificial social world of its own with particular demands, selection mechanisms and status-guaranteeing certificates, a social world that loses its connection with reality and nevertheless is able to secure social reproduction and the distribution of opportunities over generations – and thus maintains its social attractiveness. In this context vocational education programmes have been forcefully criticised: They have been supposed to impede personal development, equality of opportunities and so-
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cial advancement due to a “cooling-out” of educational interests (LEWIS 2000). Modern teaching and learning arrangements in general and vocational education in particular are guided by constructivist philosophy (DOOLITTLE / CAMP 1999). This means that they aim at actionoriented and ↑ self-directed learning that is focusing less on contents, and more on the forms and contexts of learning. This might also entail a new educational ideal that no longer emphasises systematic knowledge, but rather action competence and competence development in specific professional fields of action and the corresponding ↑ communities of practice (R AUNER / BREMER 2004).
Training Completely unlike the concept of education, “training” aims at directly imparting action strategies and techniques to cope with concrete work situations (BUCKLEY/ CAPLE 2000; TIGHT 2002). In this context motor aspects can be in the foreground, but verbal, mental and ↑ cognitive skills can be trained as well. In almost all cases the acquisition of applied knowledge is at stake (FRIEDE / SONNTAG 1993), as is the case in trainee programmes to prepare young university graduates for work in large enterprises. The concept of training is also used in ↑ continuing education when the issue is the acquisition of concrete and suitably usable social, communicative or technical competences. In the practice of vocational education and training this concept can be found when the imparting of modularised competence profiles is at stake, which have, for instance, become important in the Australian TVET system as “trainingpackages” (DEISSINGER 2005b). Altogether it remains unclear whether this must be regarded as the creation of behavioural dispositions with a certain proximity to behaviourist learning theories or as complex transfer processes which apply the knowledge stock acquired in a vocational education programme or in a study programme. The notion of training also captures short modularised programmes, which began to be developed in Germany some time ago as “training modules” (Qualifizierungsbausteine). Here the issue is about partial qualifications which were taken from ↑ vocational curricula and which are imparted sepa-
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rately in short periods of work experience in the company. They are part of in-company ↑ vocational preparation schemes for ↑ disadvantaged young people and can help to open access to a proper course of vocational training or to low-skilled employment. However, the model of apprenticeship training in the crafts, which was strongly based on the principle of imitatio – the sequence of demonstration and imitation – can also be regarded as a form of professional training. The industrial training model, the courses in training workshops and learning in workplaces combined with appropriate forms of instruction, also has the character of systematic training. In principle it can be assumed that whenever the emphasis is on vocational and practical learning in real workplaces or simulated work situations, some kind of training takes place as well. The objective is, on the one hand, the development of action routines, and on the other hand to become acquainted with action requirements and problem solutions in the company, which qualify for the demands of specific workplaces and are relevant in this context. This shows the closeness of the concepts of qualification and training. In vocational education and training this type of learning has been of great importance in the craft trades as well as in the industrial sector. The concrete forms of this vocational training, though, have changed. Courses were gradually replaced by project and action related forms of learning that combine the practical aspect of vocational training and the independent development of appropriate knowledge relevant for action. Therefore it is in principle questionable whether the aspect of training relates only to manual, motor and behavioural learning or whether domains of experience are opened up at the same time that offer starting points for vocational theoretical learning. Finally it also has to be considered whether the action potentials acquired through training and experience lead to an elaborate perception of work situations and demands and can have as a consequence increased proficiency in professional action.
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
2.2.3
On the Genesis of the Different Approaches “Work, Education, Training”
Work, Socialisation and Qualification Vocational qualification and socialisation have their historical roots in apprenticeship training in the craft trades. This pre-industrial form of training inseparably combined technical qualification with social integration into professional and socioeconomic status. ↑ Learning in the workplace and in the social structure of the craftsman’s enterprise was the core of the apprenticeship. Besides this model of vocational education close to the enterprises, which was common in Germany and England (GREINERT 2005), there emerged in ↑ France and Russia the model of the production school, which aimed to combine economic and technical progress with vocational qualifications through exemplary and innovative production (MEYSER 1996). In these two models two basic forms of production-related vocational education appear. In various European countries in-company apprenticeship training was supplemented by ↑ vocational schools in the 19th century so that a mixed, so-called “↑ dual system” (STRATMANN / SCHLÖSSER 1990) emerged in these countries, which continues to exist in part to this day. In this system forms of learning in the ↑ work process are combined with school-based learning, especially occupational theory. As a consequence of this development we have become aware of the fact that learning can take place at different ↑ learning venues (MÜNCH 1977). The three relevant learning venues are the school, the training workshop and the workplace. They are organised very differently and can open quite different substantial and methodological learning opportunities (PÄTZOLD / WALDEN 1995; EULER 2004a; 2004b). As a consequence of the progressive use of technology in work the opinion was held for a long time that the shift to school-based vocational education was unavoidable. It was supposedly only by means of the transfer of training sequences into training workshops and simulated arrangements for agency and learning that the pedagogical shelter could be won which was deemed indispensable for learning processes. It was only with the concepts of “↑ de-
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centralised learning” (DEHNBOSTEL / PETERS 1991) and the didactics of action-oriented learning that a reversal of the trend was initiated in the 1990s, and this counteracted the scholastic drift in vocational education and training. Now learning venues near the workplace are in the foreground once again. However, it must be in principle assumed that qualified vocational learning is possible in schools as well as in the workplace. Schools can supplement their instruction with facilities for the simulation of practical demands (training workshops, training offices etc.) and internships. Companybased, workplace related ↑ training places are extended with systematic qualification opportunities via exercise rooms, training workshops and courses. Despite many ideological controversies it can safely be assumed that different configurations of learning venues are equally appropriate for vocational qualification. An important difference, however, is the financing of these opportunities for vocational education. Schools are almost exclusively financed by the state; ↑ in-company training places are financed by the private sector. At the bottom of the question as to which combination of learning venues is the best for vocational education there is often the problem of responsibility and financing.
Education Practical vocational learning processes and experience in the world of work as they are provided in businesses are hardly put under the label of “education”. They serve the purpose of qualification or competence development in the same way training does. Traditionally the notion of education is more associated with scholastic learning. However, this is the result of a cultural-historically engendered misconception of the socialising effects and the development-supportive potentials of work. Because of the interest arising repeatedly in more practice-oriented school curricula, vocational topics were incorporated (K LIEBARD 1999; DEWEY 1916a). In the 19th century secondary schools specialising in natural sciences and modern languages developed beside the classical grammar schools. By means of the establishment of technical colleges an improvement in vocational education and training with a view to business development was promoted in many places. Systemat-
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ic, school-based vocational or work related learning processes offer the opportunity to develop a workforce that is capable of fostering technological or economic innovations. This idea affected the ↑ school system as a whole. Low-level schools always referred to the lifeworld of their students and taught subjects that had the character of ↑ vocational preparation. The grammar schools specialising in natural sciences, modern languages or business studies were also established because of the demand from society for a practical and vocationally oriented educational canon. Among technical colleges and universities of technology the French Ecole polytechnique must be particularly emphasised as a forerunner. It had high educational standards and aimed at the transfer of sophisticated, scientific knowledge with the objective of improving production. This model triggered the development of many similar technical colleges that were oriented towards the theoretical foundation of practical work as well as the transfer of fundamental scientific knowledge. But this also reveals a crucial, fundamental problem of vocational education and training. Are the occupation related contents to be imparted elementary and applied parts of scientific knowledge, or is this a question of inductive knowledge building that systematises experiential learning from production, work and business processes and transfers these experiences in a school-based form? This contradiction has not been definitively clarified to this day (GRÜNER 1978; RAUNER / BREMER 2004). It entails a consequence for school theory: It remains a disputed issue whether vocational education is a development-oriented career trajectory beside university education or a “cooling-out” of educational interests. The latter could be the case especially when vocational qualification opportunities are particularly oriented towards socially ↑ disadvantaged persons and immigrants and aim at rapid integration into employment. They neglect the individual claim to optimal support for all development potentials and lead to early selection processes (LEWIS 2000). Aspects of a critical vocational education or work pedagogy and the consideration of the political, social and company-related ↑ participation interests of employees are eclipsed, too. This discussion has been taking place in the ↑ USA in par-
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ticular with regard to the training oriented concept of qualification.
Training Training is a modern concept that became important with the emergence of modern industry and the corresponding demand for well-adapted, capable and socially integrated workers between 1880 and 1920. Besides the traditional apprenticeship training new forms of qualification had to be established. In part qualification methods from the craft trades were adopted by the industrial sector, and in part the preparation for the world of work also became a particular task for the school (ZILVERSMIT 2004). In both cases the focus was initially on the manual training of workplace related skills. Where this type of training was regarded as too narrow, new forms of vocational education emerged (SMITH 1999). The American discussion was dominated by the opponents Prosser and Dewey. Prosser advocated a training oriented, socially efficient and integrative preparation of the working class youth in school. Dewey, on the contrary, developed a critical concept of work pedagogy, which aimed at personality development, problem solving capacity, self-direction and participation in the democratic society (K LIEBARD 1999; ROJEWSKI 2002). According to this model the preparation for the world of work is part of a general education concept. German theorists of vocational education like Kerschensteiner also referred to this concept. 2.2.4
Research Questions and Methods of Relevant Research Approaches
Work, education and training as points of reference indicate different approaches to the field of vocational education and training, although they overlap in actual practice. In TVET research there are also fundamental ↑ research questions that are overarching. In this context especially qualification, occupation and ↑ labour market research have to be emphasised. Vocational qualification always takes place in specific qualification bundles, which are often put together in the tradition of occupations or ↑ occupational fields so that they follow the concept of occupations (DEISSINGER 1998). The
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fact that the occupational structure changes permanently is an unavoidable consequence of economic and technological change. Therefore it is important for ↑ TVET planning to be able to estimate future developments. Prognoses of the future development of qualifications and occupations have always been attempted in the context of occupation research. Their predictive value, however, is limited because the framework conditions, the economic and technological developmental trends, can hardly be reliably estimated – and because there are design options in technology and work organisation whose forms are unpredictable (RAUNER 1988c). General developmental trends like the emergence of a “service society” can be forecast quite well, but they can hardly be transformed into prognoses of the demand for qualifications. A new approach is featured by the ↑ sector analyses, which search for fundamental ↑ work tasks across the ↑ occupational profiles of a “sector” in order to have these tasks investigated by research in the ↑ vocational disciplines. Despite the prognostic deficits in occupation and ↑ qualification research, the future-compliance of vocational qualification and the development of the demand for qualifications are fundamental questions for ↑ TVET planning. With regard to TVET practice, this open reference to the future is multidimensional. On the one hand the issue is about qualifications that meet the current needs. On the other hand vocational qualification has to be organised in such a way as to ensure transferability with regard to new demands. From the employees’ point of view vocational qualification has to open up opportunities for ↑ mobility, and it has to be connective in order to facilitate a change of occupation if necessary. One possible way to put this into practice is the organisation of vocational education and training. On the basis of comprehensive basic training a change of occupation is easier than on the basis of narrow and onesided specialisation. Research on basic vocational training in this regard finds itself in various areas of tension. A ↑ central question is what actually can be regarded as fundamental for different occupations. Is this a question of various elementary practical activities and skills, or an issue of fundamental professional knowledge that facilitates transitions? Recently there has been a tendency to-
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wards a complex model of professional, social and personal competences. This presupposes competence-oriented forms of learning, which have to be realised particularly through project-oriented and self-organised learning.
Research Approaches to Occupational Work Whenever work and ↑ work processes are in the focus of TVET research, a reciprocal relationship is at stake. On the one hand there is the question how people can be adequately qualified for work and particular jobs. On the other hand work itself has a potential for qualification and ↑ further education, provided that it is organised in a learning-supportive way. By analogy to the concept of developmental tasks (HAVIGHURST 1972) this depends on providing forms of work organisation that shape the room for manoeuvre, the complexity of problems, the autonomy in work planning, communication and cooperation, but also the offers of assistance in such a way as to generate sophisticated and manifold demands that nevertheless can be managed from a subjective point of view. This leads to a multitude of ↑ research questions that can be answered only by means of ↑ interdisciplinary approaches. The analysis of work processes is a task for labour studies, the transformation of work process events into knowledge structures is a task for research in the vocational disciplines; and knowledge building through ↑ self-directed learning processes in the context of the mastering of work tasks is a process that has to be analysed and interpreted by the psychology of learning and agency. In this context it is often presupposed that the work process or business process itself can be shaped, but that in this shaped form it nevertheless determines the workflow. A more accurate model views the work process as an intersection of objectifiable demands and subjective competences. In this regard two dimensions should be distinguished. The external dimension of the work process shows the latter’s course and visible results. The internal dimension is precisely that basis of explicit knowledge and implicit familiarity with the situation (PAHL / RAUNER / SPÖTTL 2000; NEUWEG 1999) which comes into effect on the part of the working person. It is characterised by the security of the available operational potentials and action
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routines (LEONTJEW 1982), but also by the ability to surmount these routines and to adapt them to new situations (VOLPERT 2003). This is the point from which competence research starts, which attempts to make these action potentials accessible (VONKEN 2005). This objective is in some sense based on older work from research about professional socialisation and professional biographies (LEMPERT 1998; HOFF / LAPPE / LEMPERT 1985). In these studies the socialising factors of work as a social phenomenon were analysed very thoroughly and the conditions for personal development and biographical stability were identified. It becomes more and more obvious that the societal conditioning factors of ↑ internationalisation and ↑ globalisation also influence the working conditions to a considerable extent.
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proaches in the psychology of learning (DOOLITTLE / CAMP 1999; GERSTENMAIER / MANDL 1995) like “Anchored Instruction”, “Cognitive Flexibility” and “Cognitive Apprenticeship” stimulated this development. In the agency field of ↑ vocational pedagogy, work and business processes have become a ↑ new didactic point of reference, and they shape the practice of teaching based on learning fields. Pieces of information that are separated from each other according to the systematics of science are no longer in the centre, but application-oriented knowledge that is directed towards actual situations. The challenge is to correlate the structures of agency and knowledge. It is one of the central and open ↑ research questions in the ↑ didactics of vocational learning how these two structures can be related to each other in such a way as to engender good learning processes (FISCHER 2000).
Research Approaches to the Context of Vocational Education
Research and Training
To conceptualise vocational qualification as a mission of education is of particular interest to ↑ vocational schools (PAHL 2004). In this context the educational standard extends far beyond qualification for work demands since it aims at a comprehensive competence development on the ↑ domain-specific, social and personal level. Two basic concepts of school-based learning have to be distinguished: inductive learning based on everyday experience and work experience, and ↑ systematic learning based on scientific knowledge. Science-oriented learning looks for reference disciplines for occupations or ↑ occupational fields. The basic knowledge structures of these disciplines are adapted to the conceptual horizon of the students by means of didactic reduction (HERING 1959; AHLBORN / PAHL 1998; GRÜNER 1978; SCHÖN 1983). An intermediate position is assumed by didactic strategies which are oriented towards independent problem solving and ↑ self-directed learning (BECK / HEID 1996; BECK / K RUMM 2001) and which aim at the overcoming of ↑ inert knowledge in favour of application-oriented information. With this orientation vocational pedagogical teaching and learning research gained considerably in importance (ACHTENHAGEN 1995). Instruction designs and complex teaching-learning arrangements are intended to promote the generation of relevant knowledge. Constructivist ap-
Vocational training aims at concrete qualification and is therefore on the horizons of ↑ qualification research. The primary question is, How can different qualifications be integrated into a meaningful whole? Traditionally this purpose was served by the occupational form of training. Modern qualification concepts that leave out the notion of occupation have to find a new answer to this question. As a consequence sector research again becomes important. The second eminent question is the problem of qualification transfer. To what extent are qualifications that were acquired in ↑ specific training situations transferable to other actual situations? This question, however, can also be inverted: To what extent are systematic training measures required in order to transfer acquired knowledge to situations of agency or demand? The scarcely discussed, but widely used examination training is a good example of this problem. In general there is the question how qualification and training concepts for practical competences relate to the knowledge that is the precondition for this kind of transfer. In transfer research there is no doubt that knowledge acquired in complex situations through action-oriented methods is clearly better transferable than ↑ inert knowledge that was acquired in receptive learning processes. It is not least ↑ metacognitive knowledge that
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is important in this context, as it reflects on the contexts of learning and knowledge building and makes people aware of them. This shows that not only the logical knowledge building process, but also its structure in situations of utilisation can facilitate the learning and transfer process. If interpreted this way, the concept of vocational training is clearly not connected to the idea of mechanical and manual training and points in the direction of qualified knowledge acquisition. 2.2.5
Problems and Development Perspectives/Syntheses
In principle it can be observed that learning in the ↑ work process almost always combines elements of training and competence acquisition with educational demands. Intellectually undemanding training that is exclusively oriented towards strategies of behaviour or motion does not go far enough. Instead the issue is how to become familiar with professional demands as a basis of competence acquisition. Competences also include ↑ domain-specific knowledge that aims, following the traditional concept of education, at integrating the ability to shape the environment and the ability to realise one’s self. They can be acquired close to work processes or through systematic instruction or teaching. In the area of learning-supportive work organisation, theoretical reflection and teaching oriented towards professional practice lies the point of intersection where the work-, educationand training-related approaches of TVET research find their synthesis.
2.3
Occupations and Occupational Areas A. Willi Petersen
2.3.1
Introduction
Occupations and their classification or systematisations into ↑ occupational areas as domains of research and development are subjects of ↑ occupational research. Occupational research shows that the social context and research focus are important
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for an understanding of occupations and their classification. E. g. in the context of questions about the ↑ labour market, the evolution, progression and ↑ statistics of occupations and the concrete occupation profiles and jobs or the requirements and skill needs of occupations are significant (→ 3.1.1). However, vocational education research deals with occupations as well, but predominantly under ‘vocational’ aspects of requirements and qualifications within the occupational areas and with regard to the development of curricula and vocational education and training profiles and programmes. ↑ Research questions about classifications or systematisations of ↑ vocational training areas or disciplines and vocational education profiles are also relevant. Therefore both occupational research and vocational education research are engaged in the phenomenon ‘occupation’ and questions of classification or systematisation of it. Nevertheless, concerning the aims and research focus and the results too there are beside overlaps also definite differentiations. Depending upon an objective ↑ research approach, occupational areas and vocational training areas are partly defined by very different national and international characteristics. Moreover, terms like area, field, group, class or domain and discipline are often used synonymously in the context of occupation and ↑ vocation. In Germany, for example, on the one hand there are over 30,000 titles of known occupations (cf. STBA 1992, 3). On the other hand, there are around 350 vocational training categories of regulated occupation profiles according to the German ↑ Vocational Training Act (BBiG), and an indefinite number of other vocational training, ↑ further education and higher education profiles or training and study programmes. How and according to which criteria these occupations and vocational training profiles are classified and systematized in areas or fields depends crucially on the aims and purpose and the perspective of research respectively. Classifications of occupations and classifications of vocational education and training profiles are therefore mostly different because the results are based on different aims and research approaches. In the context of international questions, e. g. of comparison, transparency or recognition of occu-
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pation and vocational training profiles, it is of importance that the relation and differences between the occupation system and vocational education and training system be taken into account. Internationally, a systematisation and comparison of occupations for instance is usually simpler, while this is rather difficult and strongly dependent on the respective vocational education and training systems for the vocational training profiles. These show in addition and more or less with the same problems also the big debates about a European Skills and/ or Qualifications Framework. Starting from some international results, this article tries at first to find general objectives and approaches for classifications or combined systematisations of occupations and vocational training into groups or fields. Finally, the article shows results especially about the development of the occupational and vocational training classifications in Germany and which approaches to the classifications should be used. 2.3.2
Occupations and the International Classification of Occupational Groups
Not just through the increased ↑ globalisation of the ↑ labour market in the last few years, occupations and their classification and aggregation in areas, groups or fields have been an international domain of research and development. The “↑ International Labour Organisation” (ILO) deals since around 1923 with such an “International Standard ↑ Classification of Occupations” (ISCO). One main goal is to improve qualitatively international occupational and labour market research in their results, reliability and statistical comparability (cf. HOFFMANN 1999). Based on international ↑ research cooperation and broad acceptance the ISCO is also a guideline and orientation for many national Classifications of Occupations. The so-called ISCO-88, last updated in 1988a by the ILO, is valid even today. This ISCO exhibits a structure of ↑ occupational groups defined upon four levels of aggregation. Beside the two components “dictionary of occupation” and “value set for the variable ‘occupation’”, two “dimensions” are applied as criteria for the classification of occupations:
“Two dimensions of the skill concept are used in the definition of ISCO-88 groups: Skill level, which is a function of the range and complexity of the tasks involved, where the complexity of tasks has priority over the range; and skill specialisation, which reflects type of knowledge applied, tools and equipment used, materials worked on, or with, and the nature of the goods and services produced” (ibid., 6).
For the “skill” definition it is important that internationally, and comparably in Germany too, “skills” be understood as the ↑ occupational skills that are required to carry out the tasks and duties of the job, independent of the way these skills are acquired or the formal qualifications achieved by vocational training (cf. IAB 2000, 6). Occupations therefore can be classified by the two “skill” criteria whether or not a vocational training exists for this occupation. Nevertheless, because the occupational skills in many cases directly correspond to the qualifications acquired in vocational education and training or study programmes, there is often a relation between the “skills” and “education respective by qualifications” (Fig. 1). Insofar as it is a relevant research aspect, it should be noted that within the ISCO-approach the four respective five work-referred ↑ skill levels are defined in direct correspondence with the international levels of education, in which levels of vocational training and higher education are included: “The International Standard ↑ Classification of Education (ISCED) was used to define the ISCO-88 skill levels” (HOFFMANN 1999, 6).
Fig. 1: Interdependence of skill and education level
At the same time and based on this approach of levels there is a relation between the occupation and education system defined and, as is pointed out later, there should also be a coherence between occupational and vocational education research. In the result, the ISCO-88 occupational classification shows the following structure and number of occupational groups upon four levels of aggregation (cf. ILO 1990): – 10 Major groups, – 28 Sub major groups, – 116 Minor groups,
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– 390 Unit groups. The application of the classification criteria becomes clear from the first 10 main groups and from the remainder of the occupational groups too (cf. ibid.; HOFFMANN 1999, 7):
Tab. 1: ISCO-88 Major groups and skill level
These 10 Major and further ↑ occupational groups show that the criteria “↑ skill level” and “skill specialisation” are mixed in the systematisation. The skill level has, however, certain dominance as a criterion. For the occupational classification, very different solutions are possible due to the high number of occupational characteristics. Aspects of the quality and further development of ISCO-88 are therefore discussed also mainly in the context of international application and assignment. The research itself often points to the difficulties and problems of the development and updating of an occupational classification accepted worldwide. These are quite banal. “The limited resources devoted to ISCO-related work. About one work-year per year, divided between two persons, is been allocated to this work in the ↑ ILO” (HOFFMANN 1999, 16). In addition, a methodological problem concerning the use of the knowledge and results provided by the countries is: “Where do we find relevant information, given that few national custodians have established systematic procedures for updating their NSCOs, and that those who have do not necessarily inform ILO about their activities and findings? What are the criteria by which we can judge whether a reported development is (sufficiently) significant and widespread to be reflected in ISCO88?” (ibid.).
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Nevertheless, even in the build-up of networks with national experts problems arise: “Available experience seems to indicate, however, that many such specialists find it very difficult to evaluate proposals which do not correspond closely to their national experience and procedures” (HOFFMANN 2001).
Despite this, the ISCO-88 is based in general on the gathering and interpretation of national results and research work and can only be developed further in their interaction. Considering that there are over 230 countries worldwide it is clear that on the one hand some national results determine the ISCO-88 more strongly than others do. On the other hand, for many and often less developed countries without ↑ occupational research the ISCO-88 is the only base for developing their own ↑ classification of occupations. Despite some problems, the international acceptance of the ISCO-88 shows up also in their openness and support of region-specific adaptations. Based on ISCO-88, diverse variations have been developed: in 1992 the ISCO-88 (OCWM) for the “ILO/UNDP Asian Regional Programme on International Labour Migration”; in 1993 the ISCO-88 (COM) for the European Union; and in 1995 the ISCO-88 (CIS) for the “Commonwealth of Independent States” (cf. ILO/UNDP 1992; ELIAS / BIRCH 1994; HOFFMANN 1997; LAURIE 1998). Furthermore and in the sense of coordination, consultation and support services the ILO works and deals in many countries more and more directly e. g.: “National and regional training seminars were organized for China, Costa Rica, Kyrgyzstan and Thailand as well as for CIS member states, South East Asian countries and South Pacific countries” (HOFFMANN 1999, 4).
Therefore the classification of occupations according to ISCO-88 can be expected to become increasingly relevant wordwide. 2.3.3
Occupational Groups and Fields by International Comparison
A comparison of the classifications of occupations is a complex ↑ research field, such as the survey “Occupational Classification: concepts, methods, reliability, validity and cross-national comparability” (ELIAS 1997) points out. This cross-national comparison also includes world regions like the countries of the former Soviet Union, ↑ Aus-
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tralia or ↑ China. With reference to ISCO-88, one main problem of the comparison is that in the various languages there is an ambiguity in both the interpretation and usage of the words occupation and skills. The comparison therefore has focused more on the respective progress of the national acceptance or the direct national adoption of the ISCO 88: “Interestingly, China is now considering plans to introduce a version of ISCO-88 as its national classification” (ELIAS 1997, 19).
The ↑ classification of occupations in the European Union is also based on direct comparison to the ISCO-88. In the so-called ISCO-88 (COM) version the preparations and developments includes “the culmination of a series of lengthy and detailed investigations in the twelve countries of the EU, combining the knowledge of experts in occupational classification in each country with practical considerations for coding occupational information” (ELIAS / BIRCH 1994, 1). However, ISCO 88 and ISCO-88 (COM) show in principle the same basic structure within the ↑ occupational groups. Only a few of the occupational groups have been modified for the European Union. Some of the countries within the European Union have adopted ISCO 88 (COM) as their national classification, with slight variations. Other countries have developed a revised national occupational classification; and countries like ↑ France and Germany have national occupational classifications that do not link directly with either ISCO 88 (COM) or ISCO-88. The reasons for all the specific national occupational classifications are mostly very different and lead especially to the problem that the occupational groups and fields in the countries and international by are not comparable. Direct comparison of the occupational groups and fields with reference to ISCO-88 is therefore of special interest. Because of the multiplicity of classifications and countries, the comparison focused on here only concerns the very different approaches of the two examples ↑ USA and Germany.
The “Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System” of the USA In 1998, a new Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System was developed in the USA. The
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SOC has the following occupational groups and is compared with ISCO-88 (Tab. 2; cf. SOC 1998):
Tab. 2: Structure of the occupation groups of ISCO-88 and SOC USA
Reasons for the SOC approach are among others: “The key classification principle chosen for the new SOC was to continue the previous focus on work performed (with “skills-based considerations”). ... The International Standard Classification of Occupations was not used because it was not flexible enough for U.S. needs” (HERMAN /ABRAHAM 1999, 2).
Compared with the ISCO-88 there are within the SOC not only other criteria for the creation of the levels of aggregation. The structure of the new and first 23 SOC Major groups is based predominantly only on the criteria “skill specialisation”. Like for the systematisation of the 10 Major groups of ISCO-88, there is no mixed usage of the criteria “↑ skill level” and “skill specialisation” in the occupational groups. For example, the SOC Major group “Transportation and Material Moving Occupations” therefore include occupations at different skill levels like Airline Pilots, Co Pilots and Flight Engineers as well as Truck Drivers or Pumping Station Operators.
The classification of occupations in Germany In Germany, two official classifications of occupations have been used to date. First, the “Klassifizierung der Berufe – Systematisches und alphabetisches Verzeichnis der Berufsbenennungen – Ausgabe 1992“ published by the Federal Statistical Office (StBA Statistisches Bundesamt) and second the “Gliederung nach Berufsklassen für die Statistik der Bundesanstalt für Arbeit – Stand: September 1988“ have been published by the Federal Employment Agency (BA BUNDESAGENTUR FÜR ARBEIT, 1988). Concerning the levels of aggregation of the classifications the structure and number of the ↑ occupational areas, segments, fields, groups,
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regulations and classes, the difference in the two official classifications is shown in the following Tab. 3.
Tab. 3: Structure of the German StBA and BA ↑ classification of occupations
By comparison to the Major groups of the ISCO88 the “Berufsbereiche” of these classifications on the first level of aggregation is based also on a mixture of skill and occupational criteria. Nevertheless, the results are different as a comparison of the 10 Major groups of ISCO-88 with the concrete six “Berufsbereiche” of the StBA classification for instance points out:
The German approach of the 1992 revised version of the StBA classification represents a further development of the 1975 version. Although the new approach of the ISCO-88 was well known, ISCO did not have influence on the StBA classification (cf. STBA 1992, 9). This applies also to the BA classification of 1988, which beside some changes in recent years is mainly based on the old StBA classification of 1975. The purpose of the BA classification within the Federal Employment Agency classification is more or less “only” for persons employed in jobs covered by social security. By contrast the StBA classification includes these persons as well as all other employed persons such as self-employed and family members working in business, civil servants and service officials and clerical employees. The up-to-date StBA and BA classifications therefore have, beside the differences, also many clas-
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sification criteria in common particularly with the “Berufsgruppen” and “Berufsordnungen” on the third and fourth level of aggregation. In addition, the difference between the classification of “Berufsabschnitte” and “Berufsfelder” on the second level of aggregation is rather slight. On the one hand, the “Berufsabschnitte” of the StBA classification are defined as follows: „Sie umfassen jeweils solche Berufe, die sich im Wesen der Berufsaufgabe, in der Berufstätigkeit, in der Art des verarbeiteten Materials oder anderer Hinsicht ähneln“ (STBA 1992, 13). (They include such occupations that are similar to each other in the nature of the tasks, in the activities, in the type of material worked upon, or in other respects.)
On the other hand, the “Berufsfelder” of the BA classification are nearly defined accordingly: „Diese umfassen Berufe (i. d. R. Berufsgruppen), die Gemeinsamkeiten aufweisen im Hinblick auf die Arbeitsaufgabe bzw. die Tätigkeit, die Art des verwendeten Materials, das Berufsmilieu oder die allgemeine Arbeitsanforderung“ (IAB 2000, 8). (These includes occupations (usually groups of occupations) that have commonalities with regard to job tasks or activities, the type of material used, the professional environment or the general work requirements.)
These definitions contain classification criteria, which are mainly comparable to the “skill specialisation” criterion of the ISCO-88. As, for instance, the following concrete 20 ↑ occupational fields reveal, however, the criteria “skill specialisation” and “↑ skill level” here used are mixed as within the ISCO-88: Concerning the mixed criterion usage, for example, all electricity occupations like electrical installers or electronics mechanics belong to the ↑ occupational field 8 “Elektroberufe”. The electrical engineer, which is also an electricity occupation, however, belongs to the occupational field 12 “Technisch-naturwissenschaftliche Berufe”. The reason behind this classification is therefore not only the specialisation, but also the different ↑ skill level compared to the classification of ISCO-88. Nevertheless, the classification and usage of the criterion is not overall homogenous because e. g. the occupational field 1 “Agrarberufe, grüne Berufe” includes agricultural occupations at all skill level like agronomists as well as agricultural workers.
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In sum, a comparison of the occupation classifications shows on the one hand that the classifications exhibit internationally a relatively uniform structure and number of ↑ occupational groups or fields. This is no surprise, because in spite of all the differences the national and increasing by global ↑ labour markets are from many occupational aspects comparable. Thus, the number of occupational groups or fields worldwide is mostly, on the second level of aggregation, approximately 20 to 35. On the other hand, the content wise structure and classification of the occupational groups or fields show large differences. The differences have their origin in particular in the different and mixed applications of the criteria “skill level” and “skill specialisation”. Especially the very different application of the criterion “skill level” leads international by to a different structure and number of occupational groups or fields. Moreover, there are other significant problems, such as the international comparison of the ↑ statistics and development of occupations and occupational groups (cf. e. g. IAB 2000, 7). 2.3.4
International Fields of Education and Vocational Training in the Context of Occupational Fields
Up to now, the classification and systematisation of occupations and occupational groups or fields have taken centre stage. Here the jobs and ↑ occupational skills have been classified independently of the way these skills are acquired or the formal qualifications achieved by vocational training. It was noticed nevertheless, that the occupational skills in many cases correspond to the qualifications acquired in vocational education and training or study programmes. It is also of interest, therefore, to enquire how education and training are classified and what relationships between the classifications exist or should exist.
defined six “education levels” for the classification of education, which comprise vocational training and also higher education. The education levels 3 to 6 correspond to the skill levels of occupations in the ISCO-88. On the other hand, the education and therefore also the vocational training were classified at two levels of aggregation in the sense of “specialisation” into 10 groups and 26 fields: – 10 broad groups, – 26 fields of education (cf. UNESCO 1997a, 35 ff.). The first 10 broad groups of education have the following content structure:
In comparison and contrast to the 10 ↑ occupational groups of ISCO-88, these educational groups are not classified by the criteria “education level”. Here only the criteria “specialisation” or “subject” (“discipline”) are used. For instance, the educational group 6 “Agriculture” contains the according education, vocational training, and higher education at all levels accordingly. The comparable occupational group “Skilled agricultural and fishery worker” of ISCO contains only agricultural occupations at ↑ skill level 2. Comparison of the ISCO-88 and ISCED-97 there-
International Fields or Groups of Education For the occupational classification in the ISCO-88 mainly the criteria “skill level” and “skill specialisation” were used. The “International Standard ↑ Classification of Education” (ISCED) used comparable criteria. On the one hand, the ISCED-97
fore reveals, that the classifications are not in principle coordinated internationally. Only a correspondence between the skills and education levels exist and show the interdependence of the occupation and education and training systems.
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
Fig. 2: Interdependence of the classifications of the occupation and education and training systems
Because of the interdependence of the occupation and education and training systems a goal must be to improve the classifications in the sense of giving them more transparency and international by coordinated frameworks. This presupposes internationally aligned and coordinated occupation and education and ↑ training research, which, however, does not actually exist.
European Fields of Education and Training For Europe a new classification of “Fields of Training” under the joint guidance of Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, and ↑ CEDEFOP, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, were developed and published in 1999. This new “Classification of Fields of Vocational Education and Training”, the term “Manual of Fields of Training” being used for short, has a strong link to ISCED-97; and the classification used the same approach only with the criteria “specialisation” or “subject” (“discipline”) (cf. ANDERSSON / OLSSON 1999, 6). Thus, the European Manual can be described as a sub-classification of the ISCED groups and fields of education. During the development process there was much discussion about the approach to this European classification. Two main approaches to the classification of training programmes into fields were considered: by using the occupation and level oriented criteria of ISCO-88 or by using the subject and content oriented criteria of ISCED-97. Some European States recommended a classification based on ISCO-88. But “most Member States wanted a system linked to ISCED, and therefore the subject content approach was chosen” (ibid., 8). At the same time, however, the chance was taken to improve the coordination of the occupation and training classification system. This was for in-
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stance a goal beginning in the 1980s when a first European attempt to classify fields of training was already undertaken (cf. BENNER, H. 1982). The development of training fields with a link to the old SEDOC register, used as the former European frame of reference for occupational and vocational classifications did not succeed, however, as a recommendation and task of well coordinated occupation and education and training research (cf. ANDERSSON / OLSSON 1996). The up-to-date European “Manual of Fields of Training” as a sub-classification of ISCED directly used in a simple way at the first and second level of aggregation the 10 broad groups and 26 fields of education as shown in the ISCED-97 (see above). At the third level of aggregation, the European Manual classified the 26 fields of education further into – 65 fields of training (cf. ANDERSSON / OLSSON 1999, 10 ff.). The following excerpt shows that these fields of training were based on the subject content approach only:
Fig. 3: European Fields of Training (excerpt)
Like the groups and fields of education these European fields of training comprise also education and training at all levels. The fields of training therefore are partly very broad, as for example the description of the training field 525 “Motor vehicles, ships and aircraft” indicate. This field includes “the study of designing, developing, producing, maintaining, diagnosing faults in, repairing, and servicing motor vehicles […]” (ibid., 8).
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Vocational Training Fields in Germany Compared to the European fields of training, in Germany there is no comprehensive classification of training fields. Like the ↑ classification of occupations in Germany there is also no link to the international ↑ classification of education into groups or fields. Vocational education and training and their classification or systematisation into fields or groups in Germany exist in two ways and are partly related to the different level and groups of education and training. The first and simplest way to classify vocational education and training at all levels is the direct application of the German StBA and BA classification of occupations (see Tab. 3). This means that the whole spectrum of vocational education and training profiles or programmes are classified in the same way and structure as all occupations (cf. BA 2006). Within the German StBA and BA structure, for example, there are 33 “Berufsabschnitte” or 20 “Berufsfelder” and 88 respective 83 “Berufsgruppen”, which are used both for the classification of occupations and the education and training profiles or programmes. Compared to the European classification there are 26 fields of education and 65 fields of training and only some of the German fields or groups are more or less identical as the classification approaches are very different. Since the whole spectrum of vocational education and training can be classified in Germany along the lines of the occupations, the classification is especially used also for around 350 vocational training profiles as regulated occupation profiles according to the German ↑ Vocational Training Act (BBiG 1969/2003). Beside all other vocational training and further training profiles or study programmes these 350 vocational training profiles are in particular classified into 69 of the 88 German occupation groups (cf. BIBB 2004). This means at the same time that not all vocational training profiles exist for all occupation groups. Examples of the 69 occupation groups into which vocational training profiles are classified are (cf. BIBB 2004): 01 Landwirte (Farmers) 02 Tierzüchter, Fischereiberufe (Animal breeders, fishing occupations)
Handbook of TVET Research
… 14 Chemiearbeiter (Chemical workers) … 28 Mechaniker (Mechanics) … 31 Elektriker (Electricians) …
The second German way to classify vocational education and training into fields or groups is based more on a didactical approach and has a strong link to the ↑ vocational schools within the ↑ dual system of German vocational training. The dual system, which is described as dual as the training is carried out both at workplaces or on the job and in vocational schools, is therefore one reason for this specific way of classification. However, the second classification way is used only for around 350 vocational training profiles as regulated occupation profiles. The background and goal for the specific classification or systematisation of vocational training profiles into vocational fields is an official regulation of training recognition of a one-year course of basic vocational training, the so-called “Berufsgrundbildungsjahr-Anrechnungs-Verordnung” (cf. BGJAVO 1972). The basic vocational training year, either in the form of full-time schooling or based on a cooperative arrangement between a company and the school, provides basic vocational knowledge’s and skills required for every ↑ training ↑ vocation in one particular ↑ vocational training field. The specific systematisation of these vocational fields as a precondition of the regulation of training recognition therefore needs related didactical and curriculum oriented criteria, which are more or less similar to those in the subjectcontent approach. As a result, and within the upto-date regulation and recognition act of 2003 (cf. BGJAVO 2003), the following 14 vocational training fields are defined:
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
This structure and number of vocational fields is defined for vocational training profiles only for which a common basic training is present. The classification of these 14 vocational training fields is thus limited also of only about the half of all vocational training profiles. For the ↑ ICT vocational training profiles, for instance there is no vocational field. The structure of these vocational fields in Germany is furthermore important for vocational teacher training (cf. KMK 1995). In addition and because there is a direct link between the vocational fields and the structure of the study programmes for vocational teachers there is an interdependence between vocational education ↑ research fields too. The problems and questions regarding the changes and future structure of the ↑ vocational training fields therefore should be itself a specific subject of vocational education research. 2.3.5
Final Remark
The international classifications and systematizations, like the national, showed that the objectives and interests and thus the results of the occupations on the one hand and the vocational education and training on the other hand are not matched. The occupations and their classification into ↑ occupational groups or fields and the vocational education and training and their classification into groups or fields therefore have very different structures in most cases. However, there is a need for comprehensive and matched classifications because the occupation and the education and training system as interdependent systems are important bases with which to design and develop both the occupations and the vocational education and training (cf. PETERSEN / WARD / WEHMEYER 2004). To improve and especially match the classifications in ↑ occupational research and vocational education research their aims and methods must be better coordinated and their approaches to research more integrated. Nevertheless, how difficult this is, is shown for instance by the development of the new ↑ European qualifications framework (EQF), which describes and defines qualification levels first, and in a second step qualification areas or domains – relatively independently from the occupation system. On the other hand, this applies in
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the same way, e. g. to the development of the new “Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the recognition of professional qualifications”.
2.4
Vocational Education Research as an Innovation Process Ute Laur-Ernst and Georg Hanf
The ↑ effectiveness and ↑ sustainability of initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training are closely interrelated with the capacity for learning and innovation in institutions which carry out vocational education research, influence it politically and make use of its results. When this triangle of influence loses its impetus, the development of vocational education stagnates and lags behind the requirements of the economy and society. If the aim is not just to maintain the vocational education and training system but to shape it for the future, soundly justified changes are necessary on all levels (see e. g. BIBB 2000; HEIDEGGER / RAUNER 1996; KOCH / REULING 1994). Within this interplay of economy, ↑ policy and practice, applied problem-based vocational education research assumes the role of an anticipatory initiator, a competent contributor and a constructively critical evaluator of ↑ innovation processes with an ↑ interdisciplinary thrust (cf. K LEINSCHMIDT / PAULSEN / RAUNER / WENZEL 1978, for example). In this capacity it draws upon the concepts and tools of both social research and action research. However, it can only fulfil its complex brief successfully if it constantly develops itself and systematically improves its own theory formation and methodology (see BENTELER 1995). 2.4.1
On the Terms “Innovation” and the “Innovation Process”
What constitutes an innovation relevant to vocational education and training? What are the distinguishing characteristics of innovative processes in vocational education and training? (This discussion can be traced back to GUTSCHMIDT/K REIGENFELD / LAUR ET AL. 1974,51 ff.). The term defies an une-
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quivocal definition due to its relativity and “subjectivity”, not to mention its current over-use. Pragmatically, an “innovation in vocational education and training” can be defined as anything which has not previously existed in a given area of the system or field of practice. It may be a new recognised occupation or an alternative didactic method, a forward-looking structure for ↑ continuing education and training or a new type of education and training provider. Thus, innovations in vocational education and training can relate to the system (macro level), its administrative and executing institutions (meso level) and the participating individuals and the concrete ↑ teaching and learning process (micro level). They may, but need not necessarily, be original; in other words, it is quite possible that they already exist elsewhere, e. g. in a foreign vocational education and training system or in another educational institution. In the given location at the specified point in time, however, they must represent a change which is perceived by those involved as a new and promising means of: – improving upon the previous situation, – eliminating a pressing problem, or – opening up new options and opportunities. Innovations are not just ideas but practicable, operative models. They must be capable of being implemented in practice, where they must have a demonstrable effect. Nevertheless, in the vocational education funding landscape, singularity of innovation is held to be undesirable. On the contrary, innovation should ideally be transferable with ease and suitable for broad implementation. Effectively, however, to date a great number of innovations have remained singular events. Innovation processes take place in several phases, from conceptual design to development to incorporation of the new approach into everyday practice. How they take shape depends upon the particular form and substance of the innovation, but they also have independent characteristics: factors such as the combination of participants in the innovation process, the immediate context and the wider context in which it is put into practice, the methods applied in the process and the available resources create a distinctive interplay of conditions in every case (see LAUR-ERNST 1981b). Innovation processes vary considerably in their concrete detail. Nev-
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ertheless a certain amount of standardisation is imposed by funding regulations, research guidelines and the current “state of the art” for shaping such processes. These factors alter over time in response to changing political, practical, empirical and theoretical insights. Thus a transformation in the “philosophy” and structure of scientifically organised, practice-related innovation processes can be observed over the years: from the technocratic model in which a novel, ready-made “product” is introduced into educational reality to a participatory model in which researchers and practitioners develop the innovation cooperatively and translate it into everyday practice; from the scientific planning model to the dynamic learning process involving all participants; from product- to ↑ process-orientation. For innovation processes in German vocational education and training, there are a variety of “organisational templates”: – The strong tradition of national ↑ pilot studies carried out by the Federal Government (cf. DEHNBOSTEL / HOLZ / PLOGHAUS 1994), the Länder (Federal States) and the Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung (Joint Federation/Federal and State Commission for ↑ Educational Planning and Research Promotion (BLK); (for the essential background to this, see BLK 1992), – the trans-national ↑ pilot projects under European Commission programmes, which began with PETRA and continue to with today’s ↑ LEONARDO DA VINCI II (→ 2.5), – relevant R&D projects by well-known institutions (e. g. the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), Länder and university research institutes), – innovation projects under measures to support eastern Germany (QUEM or Regiokom), and – international pilot projects to support vocational education reform in partner and transition countries (e. g. the TRANSFORM programme with central and eastern Europe from 1991–2001; Hoene/ Höhns 2001, http://www2.bibb.de/tools/ fodb/pdf/eb_50005.pdf). In addition, the Federal Government and the competent ministries keep setting up innovation programmes on such themes as “learning with new
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
media”, a “learning culture of competence development”, “↑ lifelong learning” or “learning for sustainable development”, which may not be geared specifically towards vocational education and training, but are certainly of benefit to it. 2.4.2
Areas of Tension and Potentials for Innovation
Vocational education and ↑ training research in Germany has been and is likely to remain an area beset with tensions, thanks to the plurality of responsibilities for vocational education and training under the ↑ dual system, among other things. Conflicting political positions, the heterogeneity of the field of study, divergent stakeholder interests and academic rivalries are determinants of ↑ innovative action and give rise to ambivalent challenges. Research has to deal with these.
Change in Innovation Policy The state (Federal and Länder governments), employers’ organisations and trade unions have a considerable say in what kinds of practice-oriented vocational education and training research take place, and whether and how the results will be utilised for education policy purposes. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the policy sector placed its faith in an ↑ innovation strategy which treated pilot schemes as “trial runs”. These were used for the prototype testing of planned system reforms (e. g. the Kollegstufe (college-style upper secondary school) in North-Rhine/Westphalia, the Berufsgrundbildungsjahr (vocational training foundation year) or the Berufsakademie (college of advanced (dual) ↑ vocational studies). If it succeeded, the innovation – having passed rigorous scientific scrutiny – would be incorporated directly into the regulatory system. As a result, innovation projects and the accompanying research gained high political and social status, but this soon drew controversy. Consequently, policymakers retreated from semiexperimental pilot studies on the macro level and shifted the emphasis to the less controversial matter of shaping ↑ educational processes on the micro level (cf. RAUNER 2002d). While this reorientation, dubbed the “realistische Wende” (watershed of realism), depoliticised the content of vocation-
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al education and training research, it left it with an increasingly blunt set of instruments for tackling structural and substantive reforms. Despite the mounting problems (training place shortages, rapid technical and organisational change, individualisation and ↑ globalisation) and pressure to innovate in the 1980s and 1990s, the political actors no longer resorted to ↑ pilot studies for substantive modernisation of the system and its institutions, but tended to opt for changes in practice which were more marginal to the system. Only in the second half of the 1990s, a certain readiness to review constitutive system components was observed (e. g. in the Federal Government’s 1996 reform concept and in the recommendations of the “Alliance for Jobs, Training and Competitiveness” from 1998). This in turn gave rise to some interesting innovation projects which were implemented with success. One outcome of the shift in innovation policy from a state managed, top-down intervention towards a bottom-up strategy is that vocational education and ↑ training research gains greater latitude. Initiative and creativity are in growing demand but not necessarily utilised for structural reforms. The Federal and Länder governments (like the European Commission) create a very ambitious framework of support for innovations, but leave open the matter of which results they intend to adopt and incorporate into the regulatory system of vocational education. They rely primarily on the transformational effect of innovation projects at grassroots level, and on their successful transfer.
A Miscellany of Singular Innovations – Towards a More Strategic Approach? Partly due to the bottom-up strategy linked with the tripartite organisation and federal structure of the German vocational education and training system, research is expected to produce deliberately divergent concepts. The Federal and Länder governments subsidise their own pilot studies in accordance with their priorities; occasionally there is coordination between these two levels. The social partners pursue their reform ideas with appropriate innovation projects – usually separately, sometimes jointly (e. g. on the modernisation of examinations for apprentices in the metal and electrical
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sectors). Moreover, the sphere of vocational education practice (schools, companies, training centres) with their varied target groups, ↑ occupational areas and structural issues require tailor-made solutions, although the practitioners involved – unlike researchers – are often not particularly interested in sound scientific foundations or systematic dissemination of the results, perhaps even seeing this as an intrusion or a competitive disadvantage. There are a growing number of European ↑ pilot projects both under the community initiatives ADAPT/EQUAL and the action programme ↑ LEONARDO; there are also other trans-national pilot projects e. g. under the TRANSFORM programme (on the issue of national transfer cf. LAUR-ERNST 1997). On this level, Germany has taken part in the successful testing of models which are contradictory to current national ↑ policy and practice (e. g. the recognition of informally acquired competences, partial qualifications or ↑ modularisation). Nevertheless, the broadest possible use is made of European funding (for details, see the continually updated information service of the National Agency – “Education for Europe” at BIBB www.nabibb.de). Thus, over the years, a diverse range of one-off innovations have been funded. These coexist side by side – despite occasional incompatibility – and their effects had generally been limited (to a locality or a specific time). However, within the last generation of programmes the “valorisation” (i.e. the sustainable transfer building on achievements) of project outcomes became a major issue. The European Commission created an “Action Plan to Develop Innovation in Vocational Training”, which was published in July 2002. All projects starting from 2005 onwards had to include valorisation plans as standard. (EC 2007a; http://ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/leonardo/new/valorisation/doc/plan_en.pdf) The thematic concentration now being undertaken in almost all areas of funding undoubtedly stimulates debate. For quite some time both nationally and in Europe, it remained relatively unclear “where the journey will lead”. Rigidly uniform concepts were altered with greater pluralism in vocational education and training, the promotion of innovation at national and European level gave somewhat arbitrary and noncommittal signals.
Handbook of TVET Research
Since 1998 a new philosophy in the promotion of innovations has been adopted: Federal government and Länder have moved from a project orientation to a programme orientation. The promotion of model programmes is aiming at a better synergy of research and development activities; it is stressing the transfer of ↑ pilot project outcomes into mainstream VET and the ↑ sustainability of innnovations in the system. The innovation programmes became more closely linked with policy priorities. New programmes were, for instance, about: New learning concepts and the quality of learning; Improvement of co-operation between ↑ learning venues; Qualifying teachers and trainers; Self-directed and collaborative learning (for a review of the model programme approach cf. BLK 2005). In 2006 the Federal Government has established think tanks for innovations in initial and in ↑ continuing VET. This focussing of innovation activities has been partly driven by the European education and ↑ training policy since the beginning of the third millenium. With the setting of the common future objectives of education and training systems, jointly by the Commission and the Council of Ministers, programmes and activities on European (and national) level were geared towards policy priorities. The objectives were transformed into the work programme “Education & Training 2010” (EC, E. C./ DG, E. a. C. 2006; http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/2010). All activities on the European level have to contribute to the overarching goal of transforming the European Union into the most dynamic and competitive ↑ knowledge society (Lisbon agenda). The work programme came with the ↑ open method of coordination between the Member States. Member States agreed on – commonly-defined yardsticks (indicators/ ↑ benchmarks) enabling them to know where they stand and to assess the progress towards the set objectives; – comparative cooperation tools to stimulate exchange and dissemination of good practices. This approach is stipulating a more coherent reform policy based on targeted innovations.
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
Research as an Agent of Change It is still (unduly) common in higher education to look askance at research which is relevant to ↑ policy and practice, and not strictly in line with the classic paradigm of empirical analysis. There is ongoing criticism of the constructive, competent interference (not partisan involvement) of academics in the reality they intend to improve, combined with simultaneous analysis and reflection on the innovative (learning) processes they have initiated as well as the conditions in which they have arisen – known in the past as action research and now also called constructive research (see for example HEIDEGGER /ADOLPH / LASKE 1997). With this complex concept, vocational education research mapped out new territory in the 1970s (→ 4.1), paving the way for a complete rethink. This can be exemplified by the shift in the “scientific process monitoring” role in relation to ↑ pilot studies. Whereas this was originally understood as an independent, external monitoring function, now it has been aligned with the action research paradigm and become an “agent of change”. Accordingly, today there is a general requirement for: active support of the ↑ innovation process by research combined with a gain in scientific knowledge which goes beyond the specific individual case and ensures the transferability of innovation. There is no denying that the research process does not always succeed in striking a satisfactory balance between involvement and ↑ distance, between solving practical problems and adding fundamentally to the sum of knowledge. But in principle, action research has proved to be a suitable approach. Moreover, little is gained from a purist debate over methods. Rather, what is needed is further creative development of an integrative methodology for innovation research and a sustainable theory of constructive innovation in the public sphere (an issue tackled by ZIMMER 1997, among others). Often called for but still rarely practised in vocational education research, ↑ interdisciplinarity may be beset with tensions, but at the same time it harbours substantial, if so far unexploited, innovative potential. Complex issues can only be understood and answered by ↑ interdisciplinary means. Social sciences research into training, for example, needs a work-based perspective geared towards particu-
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lar skilled occupations in order to supply usable data for new occupations or training plans (→ 3.4.1). Pedagogic concepts are in need of restructuring with reference to approaches from educational and industrial psychology, if the aim is to support individual competence development. Likewise, it must be appreciated that concrete vocational education practice has the characteristics of a complex system; narrowly focused innovations are at odds with this vision. For instance, a didactically perfect learning concept is of little use to companies if it causes a noticeable increase in the costs of ↑ continuing education. Successful innovations imply an adequate balance between the action areas concerned and their goals. ↑ Interdisciplinary research is indispensable. 2.4.3
Functions in the Innovation Process
The range of tasks for vocational education research in the context of innovation processes includes (see BÄHR / HOLZ 1995): – identifying, specifying and operationalising innovation needs, – generating and collaboratively shaping innovations, testing and evaluating them, – implementation, transfer and dissemination, and – summative evaluation of the product and the process as well as impact analysis. All these tasks are in a dynamic interrelationship within the innovation process and are linked by multiple feedback loops. Innovation processes cannot be planned from start to finish but have constant surprises in store. They call upon all participants to demonstrate openness and flexibility, social empathy, analysis from different perspectives, creative solutions and compromises.
Identification, Specification and Operationalisation The departure point for an innovation is normally a known and acknowledged problem area. Elements which may assist with identifying and empirically underpinning the need for innovation are the findings of social sciences research, vocational education and training ↑ statistics, focused ↑ sector analyses, or insights from pure research. For some long
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time, comparative international vocational education research has been another source which has been helpful for delineating the necessity for innovation in one’s own system. In view of the common criticism that vocational education research is too slow to find answers, more emphasis is now being placed on early identification, pro-activity and working with scenarios (e. g. the national research consortium FREQUENZ http://www.frequenz.net; → 3.1.4). The basic data available must be supplemented with targeted research in order to define the need for an innovation more specifically and to prepare for its “location-specific” operationalisation. The process also takes account of political imperatives and practitioners’ interests. This marks out the scope for research input to the innovation project, and helps to identify the demand and the potential participants.
Generation, Collaboratively Shaping and Testing Initially a hypothetical concept is drafted, which presents and explains the connections between the problem to be solved and the proposal for solving it (“the innovation”). This provides the scientific and practice-related rationale for the innovation, and outlines its essential features. This “explication model” is not set in stone but usually revised during the course of the process. It also serves as the reference model for the dynamic “action model” which defines the key concepts and lines of action for implementing the innovation. The central elements implied by the action model are the ↑ innovation strategy, which for its part is dependent upon the participants’ capability and willingness to innovate, and formative (self-) evaluation. The empirical data and the experience gained enable feedback relating to both the innovative product and the process; the aim of this is to attain an optimum under the given conditions. Finally, testing must be carried out to obtain (empirical) evidence of the superiority of the innovation over previous practice, or all participants must recognise and acknowledge its positive effects. This presupposes a set of jointly defined success indicators/testing criteria. The methods applied in development and testing are predominantly qualitative: expert and partici-
Handbook of TVET Research
pant surveys, ↑ group discussions, interviews, (participatory) observation and environmental analyses. Systematic gains in knowledge via (semi) ↑ experimental designs in the course of ↑ pilot studies and ↑ pilot projects, while they may be rare, are by no means excluded.
Implementation, Transfer and Dissemination Experience shows that practitioners are more likely to greet innovation with resistance rather than with enthusiasm – even if they have participated in the project. After all it is they themselves, not the researchers, who are having to change. Consequently the actual attitudes of those concerned and the wider context of the planned innovation must be examined, continuously and openly, to avoid false assessments of the degree of acceptance. Moreover, there is often a lack of systematic study of the potential interested parties; the project participants are not generally representative of this group. This can result in false assumptions about the volume of demand. The most critical point is the constant insistence on “transfer” (see ALBRECHT / BÄHR Berufsbildungsforschung in Spannungsverhältnissen [Vocational education research in conditions of tension] 2001; BIBB 2001; NICKOLAUS / SCHNURPEL 2001). In the majority of instances it does not work. What militates against it is that many ↑ pilot projects take place under special conditions (more resources, exceptional regulations). These often spawn innovations which cannot be sustained in normal, everyday reality. This also explains why an innovation may never be anchored in routine practice once the funding has ended, not even in its place of origin. That aside, some projects finally turn to policymakers and the educational administration for help. If these bodies will not utilise their outcomes – despite the state funding – then researchers are powerless. The innovation will go unutilised. Clearly the causes of insufficient institutionalisation, dissemination and effective transfer are many and varied. They are located – often unrecognised or “repressed” – in the quality and the benefit of the innovation itself and the conditions in which it came about; in which case, a better system of transfer management is little help. In view of this situation, the question of the political and/or practical transferability of the
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
innovation (including marketing) needs to be addressed more clearly and in a different way than it has been so far (see EBERHARDT /KUNZMANN 1997, for example, on innovation-related cooperation ventures with central and eastern Europe). A realistic and well-founded resolution of this issue is part of the “transfer model” which is the third effective concept of an innovation project and, despite wordy descriptions, is often not sufficiently well thought through.
Evaluation and Impact Analysis Formative evaluation is generally an undisputed component of the ↑ innovation process. A meaningful summative evaluation, however, is now only occasionally carried out (on the specific issue of evaluation concepts see K ROMREY 1995). A review of the longer-term effects and side-effects extending beyond the project or the overall programme is extremely rare. This is true of ↑ pilot studies at national level, and it is only changing more recently. For a whole decade it was even more blatantly true of European Commission programmes. With the change from the second to the third generation of programmes in 2000 the Commission, with its valorisation strategy, introduced evaluation and impact activities involving disseminating and piloting the most innovative practices, exploiting them, developing them in different contexts and gradually incorporating them into the systems and ↑ informal learning processes. Since 2000 programmes start with an ex ante evaluation following a decision of the European Parliament and the Council. (EC 2007b; http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/evalreports/index_en.htm#trainingHeader) Pilot projects frequently have positive and longlasting impacts which go unnoticed or are underestimated due to a narrow fixation on the “classic” type of transfer. This calls for systematic impact research. In its third ↑ VET research report, the European centre for the development of VET (↑ Cedefop) has addressed this issue (DESCY/ TESSARING 2004) including both the foundations of evaluation and impact research as well as examples of evaluations of systems and programmes.
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Perspectives and Challenges
In future, vocational education research will increasingly be involved in generating and supporting innovations on all levels, in view of the growing pace of change, interdependency and ↑ internationalisation of the economy, the ↑ labour market and education (LAUR-ERNST /K ING 2000). It has an indispensable contribution to make to reforms and the shaping of the future (see e. g. WIERINGEN / SELLING / SCHMIDT 2003). Continual improvement of the tools of innovation – in a theoretical and a methodological sense – is every bit as necessary as revision of the funding rules (greater differentiation, more flexibility, greater share for research). Over 30 years or more of action-research-based innovation processes, little has been done to move this paradigm forward. There is a dearth of systematic (meta-)research and theoretical work on ↑ innovative action in social contexts. Innovativeness is also becoming a “crucial point” in vocational education and training. The signs of this are not yet evident enough. Unless innovation competence is boosted, structures conducive to innovation created, and a positive atmosphere for innovation established in all institutions of vocational education, it will not be possible to meet the challenges of the future.
2.5
Research on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in the Context of European Cooperation Pekka Kämäräinen and Martin Fischer
Context and Scientific Importance of the Theme This chapter presents an overview of the evolution of research in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in European cooperation programmes funded by the European Union. In this context TVET is understood as education and
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training which aims to equip people with skills and competences that can be used on the ↑ labour market (TISSOT 2004, 160). The European cooperation programmes that are taken into consideration have been managed by the European Commission, Directorate General Education and Culture (formerly DG XXII, initially Task Force Human Resources, Education, Training and Youth) and Directorate General Research (formerly DG XII). The examination of TVET research in European programmes and of the role of European cooperation for the development of TVET research is based on the following starting points: – From the early 1990s European cooperation programmes have been a major source of funding for TVET researchers. Due to the European funding it has been possible to promote TVET-related research throughout the participating countries. – The European TVET-related research activities have been based on heterogeneous academic backgrounds and have been brought together by the programme frameworks. Therefore, an examination of the evolution of European programmes provides insights into characteristic themes and shifts of emphasis between programme generations. – The development of TVET-related research in European programmes has been based on expectations to gain “European added value”. On the one hand this can be related to creation of European ↑ knowledge bases and to development of TVETrelated research communities. On the other the hand this can be related to the changing role of TVET research as contributing to European policy processes in the field of education and training. 2.5.1
The Role of TVET Research in Different European Cooperation Programmes
TVET Research in European Action Programmes for Education and Training In the early 1990s TVET research was promoted within ↑ European action programmes that covered different target areas that linked the theme ‘training’ to European labour markets. The PETRA programme focused on ↑ initial vocational education and promoted studies on the role of TVET in the transition from school to work. The FORCE
programme focused on continuing vocational training (CVT) and promoted sectoral studies on the needs for CVT and on good practice. The Eurotecnet programme focused on technological and social innovations and provided a platform for exchanges between country-specific demonstration projects. (For retrospective overviews of the earlier action programmes see BAINBRIDGE 1994; NYHAN 1998) From the year 1995 onwards the new European legislation made it possible to include the entire field of education and training in the impetus towards European cooperation. This was reflected in the launch of two European action programmes. The action programme Socrates covered the areas of general education (the strand Comenius), higher education (the strand Erasmus) and adult education (the strand Grundtvig). The programme ↑ Leonardo da Vinci covered European cooperation in different fields of TVET and in the interface areas between TVET and higher education. Within the Leonardo da Vinci programme the research-related activities were brought together under a specific strand “Surveys and analyses” (latterly named “European reference materials”). (See the documentation of the first conference of the Leonardo da Vinci strand “Surveys and analyses”, DIETZEN / KUHN 1998)
TVET Research in European Framework Programmes for Research The 3rd European Framework Programme for Research (that was implemented in the beginning of 1990s) did not contain targeted research areas that would have addressed the field of TVET. However, the priority area for Forecasting and Assessment of Science and Technology (FAST) promoted studies in ‘↑ human-centred production’ and in ‘social ↑ shaping of work and technology’. The 4th Framework Programme of Research (1994–1998) was equipped with a specific subprogramme for Targeted Socio-Economic Research (TSER). The TSER-programme had a specific priority area for promoting research on TVET and its contribution to socio-economic development in Europe. In this context it is essential to note that the TSER programme provided funding for thematic projects and for more overarching re-
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search networks that covered several thematic areas. (For basic information on the 4th Framework Programme, see CORDIS 1999) The 5th Framework Programme of Research (1998–2002) did not contain a specific support structure for socio-economic research. Within this programme TVET research was promoted under the research area “Improving human research potential and the socio-economic ↑ knowledge base”. This research area was established as a transversal area that complemented the work under the thematic priorities (e. g. the thematic programme for Information Society). (For basic information on the 5th Framework programme see the respective websites 2001; CORDIS 2006a) The 6th Framework Programme of Research put the emphasis on creating new cooperation structures for the European Research Area. Therefore the programme management tried to shift the emphasis to large-scale funding for Networks of Excellence and Integrated Projects. Thus the programme sought to create European infrastructures that bring together a critical mass of European research in broadly defined ↑ research fields. (For basic information on the 6th Framework programme see the respective websites 2006; CORDIS 2006b)
Integration of TVET Research into European Programmes The brief accounts on the changing programme structures and on the preconditions for promoting TVET research can be summarised in the following way: – During the first period TVET research was not included in the research areas that were supported by the European Framework Programmes for Research. At the same time the separate action programmes commissioned some TVET research activities that were directly related to the focal themes of the programmes. In these circumstances there were limited opportunities for developing a European TVET research culture. However, a major exception in the respect is the evolution in the sectoral studies of the FORCE programme that laid the foundation for several successor activities in European TVET research (On the development
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of the sectoral studies, see Kruse in this handbook (→ 4.3)). – After 1995, TVET research was eligible for European Framework Programmes and subject to targeted support by the TSER programme. At the same time the more overarching action programme for TVET provided a basis for launching a broader range of research themes and a wider variety of project designs. (On the thematic variety of TVETrelated projects in the 4th and 5th Framework programmes see E & T Cluster (2003)) – After the TSER-period TVET research was expected to become eligible under the general priorities of the European Framework Programmes. At the same time the preparation of new frameworks for European cooperation moved in the direction of the European Research Area and towards an Integrated Programme for ↑ Lifelong Learning. 2.5.2
The Variety of Approaches and Interests of Knowledge in European TVET Research
Following Hörner, four functions of European TVET research were mentioned by Sellin and Grollmann (1999, 77); accordingly Frommberger and Reinisch (1999, 329 f.) have suggested the same and also Lauterbach, Maslankowski and Mitter (1995, 15) and some others: – The ‘idiographic’ function of research provides an illustration of TVET in its national and culturally specific context. – The ‘↑ nomothetic’ function of research helps to find general rules within TVET (FROMMBERGER / REINISCH 1999 call this function quasi-experimental). – The ‘melioristic’ function of research refers to improvement of the practice of TVET in selected cases for piloting. To ‘meliorate’ originally meant improvement of farmland. – The ‘evolutionistic’ function of research helps to recognise contextual or universal trends in developmental approaches and in processes of change.
Research Approaches with Idiographic Function ↑ Research approaches with ↑ idiographic function describe TVET systems and the practice of TVET
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within the European member states. Typically, a national TVET system is assessed with respect to the following questions: (DESCY/ TESSARING 2001, 8–12): – How is a TVET system regulated, co-ordinated and steered? – How is vocational education and training financed? – What is the relationship between general and vocational education? – How are ↑ vocational competences acquired and certified? – How are TVET professionals educated and supported by further training provisions? Such research is funded by national resources as well as by European institutions. Results have been collected e. g. by Lauterbach et al. (1995– 2005), Koch (1998), CEDEFOP (2006d) and the ↑ European Training Foundation (ETF 2006.). Research approaches with an idiographic function on the one hand necessarily form the basis for other research approaches, in particular for international comparative research; and they illuminate the socio-cultural dimension of European TVET research. On the other hand idiographic approaches are confronted with special difficulties. These difficulties are substantiated through the dynamics of TVET; these differ from the sector of general education that is much more directly associated with the ↑ labour market and its variability and with similarly fluctuating demands and the requirements of private employers. Moreover, ↑ research problems are also caused by the fact that TVET has almost not developed categories by which its dynamics could be formed as the object of research (DREXEL / MOEBUS 2000). For this reason idiographic research is in danger of becoming out of date even before it has been published.
Research Approaches with Nomothetic Function The shift from idiographic to nomothetic ↑ research approaches can be related to different project designs or to different phases of work in trans-national cooperation. As soon as researchers compare national TVET systems they will be confronted with a search for general rules and principles. Thus the question of standards for comparative re-
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search is put on the agenda. A number of methodological and practical research problems are becoming obvious: A tertium comparationis that is generally accepted is missing (FROMMBERGER / REINISCH 1999; LAUTERBACH 2003b, 91 ff.) and, additionally, there is no TVET system that could be used as a sort of European reference model. Moreover, up to now research has not given empirical evidence for the competitive advantages of particular TVET systems. Although a connection between national qualification potentials on the one hand and technical, organisational and economic competitiveness on the other is assumed (cf. e. g. GEORG 1997a). It is for methodological reasons not even possible to quantify the effect of a particular TVET system for socio-economic development as the amount of accountable factors cannot be reliably isolated. (cf. TESSARING 1998b, 36; BÜCHTEMANN / VERDIER 1995). Attempts to solve these problems can be found in so-called functional analysis. Greinert has presented a functional-structural analysis, in the first instance for characterising the German ↑ dual system (GREINERT 1998), but then also for historical international comparison (GREINERT 2002). He suggested general functions of TVET systems (function of qualification, allocation, selection, absorption, utilisation and integration) which can be found in all European member states despite their different framework conditions. Hörner (1993, 19) speaks in this context about functional equivalents which make it possible to put heterogeneous phenomena on one level with respect to their function. As an example for comparative analysis with ↑ nomothetic function the topic of ↑ school-to-work transition can be taken into account. On the basis of several national and European research projects remarkably different transition profiles were detected: In Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria an unemployment rate of 8 % to 14 % was found for adolescent school-leavers; in Belgium, ↑ France, Ireland and UK this rate lies between 18 % and 36 %; whereas it is climbing up to 49 % in the Mediterranean countries (DESCY/ TESSARING 2001, 30). Following the TSER-project CATEWE (A Comparative Analysis of Transitions from Education to Work in Europe, 2000) determinants of these phenomena are seen in the respective nation-
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
al TVET systems on one hand and on the other hand in variables like sex, social status and the national heritage of the youngsters concerned. Apart from research that is explicitly labelled as comparative, nomothetic approaches are focused on ↑ research questions related to important dimensions of European TVET research such as the dimension of ↑ TVET policy, the social-structural and the socio-cultural dimension of TVET, the dimension of competence development etc. Selected research projects in these areas are: (a) The Socrates project “Paid Educational Leave in Europe – a strategy for ↑ lifelong learning?” (ARBEIT UND LEBEN 2000) which represents the dimension of TVET policy. (b) The socio-structural dimension is e. g. represented through research focussing on the relationship between TVET and social exclusion. Results gained from 16 of such thematic European projects are summarised in the so-called cluster project “Social exclusion and equality in education” (n. d.). (c) The socio-cultural dimension of TVET has been analysed in research projects which e. g. focus on the formation of ↑ vocational identity in different ↑ cultural contexts (FAME CONSORTIUM 2004). (d) Research results belonging to the dimension of ↑ vocational competence development understood as the acquisition of ‘↑ work process knowledge’ (FISCHER 2000) were collected and compared within a 10 nations network (BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002; FISCHER / BOREHAM / NYHAN 2004) and empirically investigated under the conditions of so-called learning companies (FISCHER / RÖBEN 2004).
Research Approaches with Melioristic Function In the ↑ European action programmes ↑ pilot projects have received more support than researchoriented projects (that have been promoted under the programme strands ‘surveys and analyses’ or ‘European reference material’). Altogether, such projects have generally been selected for European funding with an expectation improving the national ↑ VET systems and current educational arrange-
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ments or by promoting ‘European’ innovations to be disseminated across different TVET cultures. These aims emphasise a ↑ melioristic function of the projects. Below, some examples will be given on such projects: – The ↑ Leonardo da Vinci project “Intequal” (and its successor project “Duoqual”) studied the prospects for combining general and vocational education provisions via ‘dually oriented qualifications’. The project studied different reform concepts, pilot projects and established patterns for combining ‘academic’ and ‘vocational’ qualification goals. The melioristic interest was emphasised by relating the cases to each other as curricular “schemes” to be compared as different modes of implementing similar ideas (see BROWN / MANNING 1998; MANNING 2000). – Within the framework of Cooperation in the field of Science and Technology (COST) the European Union finances cooperation activities that are agreed between participating countries and the COST secretariat. In this context the ↑ COST Action 11 was carried out in the years 1997–2002 with a focus on the theme “Transferability, Flexibility and ↑ Mobility as Targets of Vocational Education and Training”. The action was prepared in the early 1990s with a feasibility study that analysed ↑ teaching and learning processes in TVET. As a conclusion the authors outlined a framework for promoting transferability of educational innovations and flexibility and ↑ mobility in the culture of teaching-learning processes (ACHTENHAGEN / NIJHOF / RAFFE 1995; ACHTENHAGEN 2003). According to this framework the COST Action was constituted on the basis of parallel working groups and joint conferences. In this context the researchers analysed the preconditions for promoting transferability, flexibility and mobility at different levels of educational development and within different national contexts (see the document on the final conference of the COST A11, ACHTENHAGEN / THÅNG 2002). – The newest research area that has been characterised by melioristic research interests during the recent years is that of ↑ e-learning (see eLearning Initiative n. d.). The related measures have been shaped to cover all educational sectors but considerable importance has been attached to issues that
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are relevant to TVET and for work-related learning (cf. FISCHER / GROLLMANN / ROY/ STEFFEN 2003).
Research Approaches with an Evolutionistic Function Research approaches with evolutionistic function draw attention to the relations between contextspecific and ‘universal’ preconditions for developing TVET in Europe. Such approaches are based on research hypotheses that take into account cultural diversity and a diffuse pressure towards homogeneity (among national TVET systems) through the process of European integration. From this perspective culturally specific development processes could be related to each other as parallel “system environments”. Thus, national TVET systems (or country-specific development of qualifications) can be linked to more comprehensive interpretative frameworks (cf. K ÄMÄRÄINEN 1996; HANF 1998; HARNEY/K ISSMANN 2000; MÜNK 2001). Similar hypotheses and frameworks can also be developed for analyses that focus on the demand for skilled workers in different countries. An the level of European comparisons such analyses date back to the early 1980s. In these earlier analyses the point of interest was to monitor how similar technological changes and similar needs to promote new competences gave rise to different solutions for organising the training of skilled workers in the European countries that were analysed (cf. SORGE / WARNER 1986; PRAIS 1995). On the level of European cooperation such findings were taken into account by a FORCE sectoral study that analysed the relations between ↑ work processes and vocational training in the ↑ sector. The study covered the old EU Member States (before 1995) as well as ↑ Japan and the ↑ USA (RAUNER / SPÖTTL 1996). When comparing the results, one extreme pole was provided by Greece where 14 different ↑ occupational profiles could be found in the car service sector. The other extreme pole was provided by the ↑ US concept of the “all-round mechanic”. The results of this European sectoral study (and of the related trans-continental comparison) were taken up by a follow-up project in the ↑ Leonardo da Vinci programme. This latter project developed a European framework curriculum for the occupational profile “car mechatronic” (see HEISE
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1998). The brief overview across different project generations shows how the evolutionistic function can be linked to different roles of research. A second example of similar studies with a focus on the development of TVET systems is provided by the Leonardo de Vinci project “Post-16 strategies and its successor project “Spes-Net”. At an earlier stage the project identified four main strategies for promoting parity of esteem (unification, inter-institutional cooperation, linkages via degree structures and enhancement of vocational learning). Later on the analyses were continued by exploring how the main strategies could be developed further with the help of complementary sub-strategies. (On the project Post-16 strategies see the main reports LASONEN 1996 and LASONEN / YOUNG 1998. On the project Spes-Net see the final report STENSTRÖM / LASONEN 2000.) A third example is the Leonardo da Vinci project “Europrof” that analysed the education and training of TVET professionals with a critical awareness of the separation of subject disciplines, pedagogic competences and of work process-oriented competences in the predominant models (BROWN 1997). In the successor project ‘Euroframe’ two strands of work continued on the basis of the common conceptual change agenda. One strand developed a framework for research institutes and degree programmes that can adequately support the Europe-wide education of TVET professionals (GROLLMANN /K RUSE / RAUNER 2003). The other strand analysed the prospects for European cooperation that is related to the continuing professional development of TVET professionals (ATTWELL / BROWN 1999). A fourth example of an evolutionistic approach is the joint project of ↑ CEDEFOP and ↑ ETF that focused on scenarios and strategies for TVET and ↑ lifelong learning in Europe. It sought to promote the competences to monitor the future shaping of TVET in the European member states and the related strategic choices. The scenarios were based on three alternative assumptions concerning economic and social development (cf. SELLIN 2002). Later on, the work with the scenario project provided a basis for a common mapping instrument to which different systemic components in European
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TVET development can be related (GROLLMANN / PATINIOTIS / RAUNER 2003, 9). 2.5.3
Different Aspects of the “European Dimension” and Implications for TVET Research
The expression ‘European dimension’ has been used as a basic requirement for projects to be included in European programmes. Below, three aspects of the European dimension in TVET research will be analysed: – Overcoming conceptual barriers and promoting European knowledge enrichment – Development of a ↑ European research community in TVET research – Contributing to European policy processes as a challenge to TVET research.
Overcoming Conceptual Barriers and Promoting European Knowledge Enrichment For TVET-related research the concept of European dimension has a special importance because of the diversity of the national TVET systems. This diversity is embedded in the national terminologies and in the culturally specific concepts for the phenomena in TVET. Yet, in order to get the capability to learn from other cultures it is necessary to undertake in-depth studies and to combine different aspects of research work. However, in the European projects this has often not been the case due to the short life cycles of individual projects. Therefore, the level of knowledge enrichment that contributes to the European dimension has been achieved in relatively complex projects and in project histories that consist of different evolutionary phases. (On analyses of project histories and of knowledge enrichment in European projects see K ÄMÄRÄINEN 1998b, K ÄMÄRÄINEN 1998a). Below, four kinds of project histories and corresponding patterns of knowledge enrichment are indicated as specific approaches to the European dimension in TVET research: – The above-mentioned European project history on ‘Post-16 strategies’ (LASONEN 1996; LASONEN / YOUNG 1998; STENSTRÖM / LASONEN 2000) compared different European strategies to promote ‘parity of esteem between general and vocational education’.
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From the perspective of knowledge enrichment it is essential that the partners try to identify themselves (and their national TVET cultures) within the framework of alternative strategies. In the next stage the project used the framework as a basis for analyses of the opportunities to learn from other cultures. This project history represents a pattern of trans-cultural knowledge enrichment across different conceptual approaches to TVET research and to the development of TVET systems. – The main activities of the European research network on “↑ Work process knowledge” were related to empirical analyses that document different cases of collaborative management of complex work situations on the basis of shared ‘work process knowledge’ (BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002). In the later phases the network became a nodal point in dialogue with parallel ↑ research approaches that focused on ‘↑ organisational learning’, on vocational ↑ curriculum development and on the educational relevance of ↑ workplace learning placements (FISCHER / BOREHAM / NYHAN 2004). This project history represents a pattern of connective knowledge enrichment across thematic areas of research and related knowledge utilisation. – The above-mentioned European projects on car mechatronics (RAUNER / SPÖTTL 1996; HEISE 1998) managed to ‘Europeanise’ the development of new ↑ occupational profiles and related training concepts. Thus, the said projects worked together in a cross-technological field with a perspective on integrative and ↑ work process oriented occupational profiles. In different phases of the project history this approach was developed and specified for the occupational profile, for the curriculum concept. The project history represents a pattern of generative knowledge enrichment with a focus on a specific area of research and on transfer between basic research and knowledge utilisation. – The above-mentioned Europrof project had related its analyses on the education and training of TVET professionals to European dialogue on an integrative change agenda (see ATTWELL 1998). The final phase of Europrof and the work of the successor project Euroframe were characterised by an effort to link common guiding principles to culturally adjusted and context-specific change agendas. The different strands of the Euroframe can
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be interpreted as an effort to work with a European main strategy and country-specific sub-strategies parallel to each other (see GROLLMANN /K RUSE / RAUNER 2003 and ATTWELL / BROWN 1999). In this respect the project history represents a pattern of transformative knowledge enrichment that takes into account different preconditions for promoting European innovations in the education and training of TVET professionals.
Development of European Networks and Research Communities in TVET Research Another aspect of the European dimension has been the evolution of European networks and ↑ European research communities in TVET research. In the earlier phases of European cooperation the research networks were based on personal connections between individual researchers and their institutes. After 1995 the new programmes provided a basis for networks with a broader thematic spectrum and with mutual cooperation (e. g. the TSERfunded network “Forum” (see FORUM 2000), the ↑ Leonardo da Vinci project “Europrof” and their joint ↑ communication platform “REM/European ↑ VET research” that was used in 1998–2000). This development in the networks provided the basis for the evolution of the VETNET network into the umbrella community of European TVET research. VETNET was established in 1996 as the TVET-related section of the European ↑ Educational Research Association (EERA). Gradually the VETNET programme at the annual European Conference on Educational Research ECER has become a central platform for knowledge sharing on European TVET research (see VETNET 2006). During the founding phase of the newer networks Cedefop (the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training) participated in their activities and organised a series of European seminars to promote knowledge sharing across European projects. At a later phase Cedefop linked theses activities to the development of web-based support services and of related publications under the framework of “Cedefop Research Arena (Cedra)” (see the respective website Cedefop Research Arena (2006a)). Parallel to these developments Cedefop established a regular European TVET re-
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search report that presented the main results of recent European and national research (see TESSARING 1998b; DESCY/ TESSARING 2001).
Contributing to European Policy Processes as a Challenge for TVET Research The Lisbon summit of the European Union (in March 2000) set targets for the development of European Union by the year 2010 and provided the basis for specific follow-up processes. In the educational follow-up agenda “Education and Training 2010” a major role is given for European frame ↑ work processes that prepare the grounds for European Higher Education Area (the ↑ Bologna process) and for European Area of ↑ Lifelong Learning (the ↑ Copenhagen process). (For more information on the agenda “Education and Training 2010” and on the educational framework processes, see 2006; website ec.europa.eu/education) From the perspective of TVET it is worthwhile noting that the Copenhagen process has put a major emphasis on the development of a common ↑ European Qualification Framework (EQF) and parallel to it a European Credit ↑ Transfer system for TVET (ECVET). Recently, the European Commission has finalised the EQF and presented it as a proposal to the European Parliament and the Council. Alongside this process the EU Member States are expected to adjust their national qualification frameworks to the EQF by the year 2009. Regarding the role of European TVET research as potential contributors to the new European policy processes it is essential to note the following developments: – Regarding the attainment of the ↑ Lisbon goals in the field of TVET a major European follow-up study was undertaken in 2004 to prepare the basic information for the meeting of the European ministers of education. The “Maastricht study” that was prepared by a broad consortium of TVET research institutes and national agencies prepared the ground for policy monitoring in several areas of developing TVET (see LENEY/AMMERMAN / BRANDSMA ET AL. 2005). – Regarding the preparation of the ↑ EQF and the ECVET the European Commission has appointed specific expert groups and has been using the work of ongoing European projects. These contributions
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
have been seen to be controversial and have given rise to independent studies and commentaries (As an overview on the preparatory measures and related studies see GROLLMANN / SPÖTTL / RAUNER 2006). – Regarding the support for the future development of national and sectoral qualification frameworks the European Commission is in the process of setting up new support structures and related projects. At the same time the national governments and the Social partners are launching their own preparatory measures at the national level. For TVET researchers these activities will provide the challenge to analyse the relations between European and national (or sectoral) qualification frameworks and their role in future ↑ TVET policies in Europe.
2.6
Research and VET Reform Policy in Transition Countries Peter Grootings and Sören Nielsen
2.6.1
Introduction
Countries in transition face tremendous challenges. The lack of professional research and development capacities is an impediment for establishing a sound basis to enable countries to develop their own reform policies. There is very little modern and relevant ↑ VET research in ↑ ETF partner countries. There seems to be almost a sociological law behind this situation, at least in post-socialist countries. We see a clear parallel in the pre-accession phase of the New Member States in Central and Eastern Europe. ↑ CEDEFOP in the late 80s/ early 90s opened its VET Research Forum (CEDEFOP 1992) to CEECs and the Soviet Union in order to integrate them into ongoing discussions in EU. But after the system changes there was everywhere a collapse of this ↑ research tradition. A similar situation exists today in the Western Balkans, Russia, Ukraine, Caucasus, Central Asia; the Northern African MEDA countries are different but they also have no genuine VET research tradition (→ 1.7).
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A more positive situation appears to exist today in the new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe (STRIETSKA-ILINA 2000) where VET research has to some extent responded to the challenges of transition and played a role in the VET reform process, particularly in relation to conceptualising a system for ↑ lifelong learning. However, VET research still suffers from certain weaknesses: e. g. too limited a field of investigation, inadequate quality, poor methodological approach and inefficient organisation in ↑ fields of research. Here we will concentrate on the transition countries outside the EU. What are the characteristics of the VET research tradition of former Socialist countries and why did it fail? Why is a proper VET research basis for VET reform policy formulation and implementation important in transition countries? How has the ETF supported the organisation of a more solid ↑ knowledge base in the partner countries? These questions will be discussed in this chapter and in a concluding section we will sketch opportunities for re-integrating transition countries in the community of VET research. 2.6.2
The Heritage from the Past: the Narrow Concept of VET Research in Socialist Countries
The fundamental transformation of economic and social structures has radically changed the function of the ↑ VET system. A whole new logic has been established. With the closure of many workshops and the reduction of facilities within enterprises, schools are forced to take care of the entire vocational education cycle. As a result, vocational education has become more theoretical and costs are increasing. In a market economy a new signal system between ↑ labour market needs and the supply of VET must be established and mediated, in most cases through social ↑ partnership. This reconstruction process is far from over in most countries. And this leads in effect to a completely new research territory for VET. The heritage from the past research tradition has found it very difficult to adapt to this change. Until the end of the 1980s research on vocational education and training in what are now called transition countries was mostly done in special-
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ised VET research institutes that focused exclusively on “internal” VET issues, such as curricula, textbooks, teaching materials and in-service teacher training. These institutes were part of a centralised, top-down and sector-specific system. Sometimes industrial sectors had their own VET research institutes. There was a clear division of labour between VET research institutes and research institutes serving other parts of the education system. These institutes were usually not involved in policy research; their work was of a technical nature. Fundamental pedagogical research was done at institutes that belonged to the Academy of Sciences or one of its branches, and policy oriented research came from institutes that were linked to the Party. Research on wider, VET related issues, interestingly enough, often originated from Youth research institutes linked to the Party’s Youth organisations. From the 1970s on, youth problems received increasing political attention. Generally, such problems were identified in terms of mismatches between the aspirations and expectations of young people and the socialist society’s needs. A whole new area of research developed, also of a comparative nature, and depending on the country’s political context, this research covered all issues ranging from adapting young people’s aspirations to reality towards advocating changes in society to accommodate the expectations of the younger generations (→ 4.6). This research also spilled over to other fields of social sciences, especially research on education and work, both within the ministerial related research institutes (Research Institutes of Labour and Pedagogical or ↑ Educational Research institutes) and within the academic research institutions (Institutes of Sociology) but rarely into economic research (ADAMSKI / GROOTINGS 1989). Often, however, specialised ↑ VET research institutes were untouched by these broader research trends and there was hardly any cross-fertilisation. They were also often considered to be too much part of the socialist educational system, in which vocational education for ideological and economic reasons always occupied a favourable position, certainly compared to secondary general and academic higher education. This explains why, after the transition, the traditional VET institutes in almost
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all countries have found it very difficult to adapt to the systemic changes in the relationships between vocational education, labour markets and employment systems. But even in those countries where the VET research institutes continued to exist, they have largely remained specialised on “internal” VET matters and have failed to relate curricular issues to those of the labour markets and work organisation (→ 3.7.1). They remained focused on the preparation of skilled workers and largely in terms of input-based approaches (curriculum contents, teaching plans, textbooks and teacher qualifications). Less attention has been paid to process issues such as the quality of learning processes and the integration of theoretical and practical learning. Only very recently, a learning outcome based approach is emerging but largely in terms of redefining educational standards (→ 5.4.3). At the same time, international pressure to focus on outcomes, relevance, ↑ efficiency and ↑ effectiveness has also pulled VET research almost exclusively towards serving – emerging and often nonexisting – labour markets and away from responding to the learning needs, aspirations and expectations of young people and adults. The – sometimes very critical – parallel tradition of youth research from the 1980s has all but disappeared from the research agenda. The overall result of these developments is that the ↑ VET system in many countries is not anymore able to face, without considerable external assistance, the challenges of systemic reform. We can sum up the still existing challenges for ↑ VET research developments in transition countries as follows: – The wider concept of VET research has hardly yet been developed from the narrow “internal” tradition – VET institutes have faced serious problems to get out of their ‘boxes’ after system changes – The trend to focus only on ↑ labour market relevance needs to be changed to include also learner needs – The need to catch up with new learning theories and modern learner-centred approaches.
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
2.6.3.
Knowledge-Based Donor-Led VET Reform Implementation
Widespread impoverishment has been the consequence of change in all transition countries. Institutional impoverishment in vocational education has led to the disappearance of innovative capacities within the educational system, in particular the vocational education part of it. VET systems have been forced to focus entirely on operational day-to-day provision of education and training at the cost of development. This was also the result of the closing down of central support systems, for ideological and financial reasons, especially those for ↑ curriculum development and inservice teacher training in vocational education. The building up of new support structures to replace the former ones has been slow. So transition countries today lack support structures for VET. In the ↑ ETF Yearbook 2004 and 2005 (GROOTINGS 2004; GROOTINGS / NIELSEN 2005) we have analysed wider aspects of the impoverishment of vocational education and training, such as the need to distinguish between modernisation needs and systemic reform needs. We have also addressed the neglected position of teachers and trainers and the need to think in terms of a double role for them in order to bring the reform of vocational education and training forward (→ 3.4.4). There is a dramatic lack of resources, financial and conceptual, to rebuild the vocational education and training system. Instead, a specific constellation of aid and cooperation is in place. The donor community now greatly influences whether skills development is taken up as a policy priority, what focus these policies take and how they are being developed and implemented. The combination of individual memories, institutional legacies and donor policies, in most countries, means that the key issue is seen by most national stakeholders to be the absence of funds to purchase up-to-date teaching equipment, renovate premises and pay decent salaries, in short: restore an institution that used to be doing just fine. VET reform processes, however, are ongoing in all transition countries. These are ↑ donor-led and designed by international experts with foreign Technical Assistance dominating the implementation in such countries. Here local education and VET ex-
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perts are very often employed as local experts and as a consequence there is a quite strong familiarity with EU policy frameworks (in fact often higher than in EU member states) (→ 2.5) as well as individual, national Western European examples of good practice. But these development activities are externally defined, technocratic (done with another purpose than understanding and recognition), and normally carried out as short-time activities having sharp deadlines. While these activities may provide a living for local academics, they do not lead to the building up of professional research capacities. Educational science, incl. VET, is theory as well as practice, and develops both knowledge about practice and theoretical knowledge. As practice, cf. teaching, learning and guidance, it belongs to the education system, and as theory it belongs to the scientific system. Expressed in the German language this difference appears clearly: education as Erziehung (practice) and as Erziehungswissenschaft (theory). There is a huge need for local theoretical understanding – or as a minimum a solid knowledge base – of VET reform policy formulation and implementation in the transition countries. Too often reform designs are not embedded in the existing institutional structures and for instance in the Western Balkans there are many examples of different ↑ VET system models being implemented side by side, e. g. the GTZ German dual system with social partnership and apprenticeships alongside AngloSaxon output-steered modularised credit accumulation systems (albeit without an adequate mechanism for recognition and accreditation in place). What is still lacking is a local capacity to undertake a “two-pronged analysis” (GROOTINGS 1992) which implies making a distinction between “(a) short-term policies to cope with the acute problems arising during the transition period, and (b) long-term policies to sustain progress once the situation has been more or less stabilized”. A national capacity to carry out such analysis could furthermore provide the basis for effectively defining what collaboration and/or assistance would be most appropriate in the field of VET.
The new ↑ VET policies all attempt to make vocational education more skills- and less knowledgebased and have the focus on learning outcomes (initially worded as skills and more recently as competences) rather than on inputs such as curricular programmes and teacher and trainer roles. The new policies also give priority to qualifications
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rather than processes of teaching and learning. However, a shift is now taking place, away from an almost exclusive focus on outcomes towards a rerecognition of the importance of learning processes. Most countries are seeking to re-establish the balance between a learning outcome-based policy and policies that focus on assuring quality of inputs and processes. Those countries that turned to qualifications and national qualification frameworks during the 1980s are bringing back an attention to processes. Those countries that did not introduce strict outcome-based policies are now including elements that have become part of national qualification frameworks, such as pathways, transparency and recognition (→ 3.3.4.5; → 3.3.4.6). This recent change also includes recognition of the role of teachers and trainers for quality education and training (GROOTINGS / NIELSEN 2005). It generally means a move away from a narrow – behaviourist – “skills” approach towards a much broader “competence” concept, rooted in constructivist learning theory. The development of ↑ new didactical practices is receiving attention as well as the search for approaches to help people develop new competences, such as the ability to learn, to cope with uncertainty and to be entrepreneurial. The notion of “skills development” as used in the international donor community is therefore in many ways at odds with current discussion and policy about modern vocational education and training and creates confusion in the communication with the education community. It is therefore obvious that a stronger local research foundation is needed for mediation of these discussions which have widegoing ramifications in transition countries. In sum, there is a necessity for creating local, critical research-based guidance on a number of dimensions in transition countries – on the input side to VET reform to ensure fit into context, embeddedness and ownership, in relation to processes to enable a better dialogue with universities on issues such as new developments in learning theories, and on the output side to continuously assess the results and wider implications of donor interventions (which are often the only developments taking place) by way of stimulating the setting up of independent accompanying research bodies (Begleitforschung) enabling the countries to as-
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sess early on whether and to which extent reform elements are functioning in the national context (→ 5.4.1). 2.6.4
ETF Instruments for Developing Local VET Expertise and Stimulating Local
The EU, through ↑ ETF, its specialised agency for assistance to VET reforms in transition countries in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and North Africa and the Middle East, has supported the development of ↑ VET research infrastructures since the early 1990s. This section will describe some examples as well as the development in the underlying approaches that has occurred during this period.
(a) National Observatory Network ETF has set up a ↑ National Observatory Network to contribute to broadening the existing, narrow “internal” VET ↑ research tradition and to overcome the difficulties in transition countries to transcend existing limitations of the VET ↑ research field. When ETF started its activities in 1996, partner countries’ policymakers and other key stakeholders had limited awareness of the potential role that VET could play in market economy development and its links with the emerging ↑ labour markets. Statistical data on education, training and labour were scarce and unreliable. These challenges were common to more or less all partner countries. The need to strengthen local capacities in gathering and analysis of information was obviously urgent, and ↑ ETF adopted the approach of creating small reference points/units (↑ National Observatories) to collect, analyse and disseminate information on VET, introduce national stakeholders to examples of best practice from the EU countries and provide support to ETF initiatives in their respective countries. In the 10 years since the launching of this capacity building project, the VET landscape in the partner countries has changed, and with that the awareness of policymakers that VET provision has to be aligned with ↑ labour market needs. Since the creation of the Observatories their functions have
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evolved from information providers to a much wider involvement in the reform process in the country. The type of reports and analysis has evolved from being descriptive presentations of VET developments and key indicators on a common format towards becoming more country specific indepth studies and analyses on the VET sector in its broader context, in support to current and future EU external assistance in the countries. In most of the 10 EU New Member States the National Observatories have proven their value by having become the leaders of the national consortia of ↑ CEDEFOP’s Referent; many have also become the host for ↑ Unesco’s Unevoc Centres. This and additional insertion into international networks will need to be expanded in the coming years (→ 1.7).
(b) Peer Reviews – Focus on Capacity Building in VET Sector Policy Assessment Since 2002 ETF has organised peer reviews in 10 countries of South Eastern Europe (www.etf.eu.int – Peer review reports on Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, FyR Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Turkey) as a follow-up to the ↑ OECD education policy reviews that were undertaken between 2000 and 2002 (OECD 2003c). ETF staff has participated in these reviews. Whereas the OECD reviews covered the whole education and training system and policies, the ones organised by ETF have focussed on the VET sector and the ETF teams involved peers from the region and from the new EU Member States to strengthen capacities in the region for VET reform policy analysis. The objectives of the peer review activity combine those of classical policy peer reviews and of the ↑ peer learning approach to capacity building: – Provide an external assessment of VET reform policy initiatives to national policy makers – Improve mutual knowledge and understanding of ↑ VET systems, issues and developments in South Eastern European countries – Promote regional networking, exchange of experience and co-operation among VET experts, stakeholders and policymakers
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– Increase awareness and facilitate transfer of VET reform experience from EU member states and candidate countries – Contribute to the EU aid programming cycle – Intensify co-operation between ETF and national authorities/experts from the region. In 2005 ETF has organised a regional peer review on curriculum reforms, based on a crosscountry approach with a focus on the implementation of VET curriculum reforms in four countries in South Eastern Europe and asking the question why, despite so much international assistance, so little national curriculum reform was taking place. The peers, all coming from the region, were ↑ curriculum development experts but did not all have a background in policy development. An EU expert facilitated the work of the teams (PARKES / NIELSEN 2006). There has been a concentrated capacity building objective in the peer review activity. The ETF approach to peer reviews can be considered as a combination of traditional peer review and more modern ↑ peer learning but also as something of a transitional approach, away from an expert-driven knowledge-transfer model towards participatory forms of policy learning. A critical review of practical experiences may help us to move forward on this (→ 5.3.4; → 5.4.5).
(c) VET TT Network – towards a Community of Practitioners around Emerging National VET Centres in South East Europe The reform of teacher and trainer education has lagged behind VET curriculum reform in many countries (→ 3.4.4). As a response ETF in 2002 set up a regional VET TTT network in South East Europe to support innovation in teaching and learning and to establish a platform for the participating countries in a period of vast transformation in the region. The Network carried out trans-national development projects in 2003; in 2004 members have jointly formulated a ‘Compendium of Innovative Practice in VET TT in South-East Europe’ (www.etf. eu.int); and in 2005 authors from the Network have produced a ‘Catalogue on VET Teacher Training Systems in South-East Europe’ (www.etf.eu.int).
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However, to achieve more permanent and sustainable capacities for innovation of teaching and learning there is a need to strengthen the participating new national VET Centres involved in the VET TT Network which have a potential leverage for carrying forward ideas and projects in this field. The ambition is to support their capacity to continuously innovate and adapt their VET systems to changing conditions, initiate innovation of teaching and learning, and enable them to take part in international networking and project co-operation. A new project will link ↑ ETF’s ongoing activities in the fields of policy learning, development of teachers as professionals and stakeholders in VET reform and other projects and will have a focus on how international assistance can better contribute to sustainable reform of national education systems (→ 2.7). Education reform can only be sustainable if reform policies are owned by local stakeholders and fit into context. This implies that ↑ local knowledge and initiative is a key source and starting point for change. The project focuses on how to organise policy ↑ learning platforms and environments in and between the countries. The development approach builds on new ↑ social learning theory as opposed to the external “expert” model. The project will test the principle of participating in ‘↑ Communities of Practice’ (WENGER 1999; WENGER / MCDERMOTT/ SNYDER 2002) to achieve certain learning outcomes, to qualify the ↑ professionalism of VET Centre staff and to make them stakeholders in reform (→ 5.1.2). The relationship between knowledge and action must begin with action, and the project will focus on “areas of pain”, structured so that these are clearly operational and targeted to address specific needs. Knowledge about action at an operational level should also lead to action at tactical and strategic levels in the internal organisation of participating VET Centres. Knowledge sharing will be integrated into ↑ work processes that create value for the VET Centres (→ 5.4.7). Other ongoing ETF projects such as the one on National Qualification Frameworks in CIS and MEDA countries have adopted a similar approach.
2.6.5
A Parallel to the Re-Integration of the New Member States in EU Research Networks?
This chapter started with the barriers to ↑ research in VET in countries under transition. As was the case with the CEECs (now new EU member states), also in other transition countries the ↑ research tradition and the VET institutional support structure dried up with the pressures for economic and political change. The “platform meeting” organised by ↑ CEDEFOP in 1991(CEDEFOP 1992) with representatives of VET research institutes from the Czech and Slovak Republics, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union also today vividly documents the tremendous difficulties facing the research communities in the early stages of profound transition. A lesson to be learned from the CEEC experience is that the EU funded ↑ Research programmes and the Education Action programmes have established a good basis for rebuilding a more consolidated knowledge-based approach to VET reform (→ 2.5). In all EU countries today ↑ HRD reforms are ongoing under the pressure from ↑ globalisation and informatisation, so this is a particularly rich period for trying to find common solutions to shared challenges. Another source of inspiration has been the involvement of new EU countries in ↑ CEDEFOP research projects. These are not open to transition countries outside the EU but there are good opportunities for knowledge sharing across borders, cf. the role played by Slovenia throughout former Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States’ potential role in the former Soviet Union. An interesting ‘local’ development is the creation of “The Balkan Society for Pedagogy and Education”, including VET, established in 1999 and organised by Thessaloniki University. The Society organises an annual conference on substantial issues like e. g. in 2004 Quality in education (TERZIS 2004). It includes researchers from all South East European countries who have organised a network in the Balkans and for the Balkans with an aim to develop their own approaches. This initiative may also be seen as a wish to articulate a response to the Northern European and Anglo-Saxon dominance in current education policy discourses and
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can maybe also be understood from a ↑ centre-periphery philosophy? There is a refreshingly critical tone in many of the scientific papers – and probably the time has come where we should start to learn from the particular discourses emerging in transition countries and together organise platforms for enriching policy learning.
2.7
Development Aid and VET Research Godehard Köhne and Reinhard Stockmann
Up to the 1990s ↑ TVET cooperation between industrialised countries and the so-called ↑ developing countries was hardly influenced by reliable scientific knowledge, let alone a specific ↑ theory of vocational education and training. Instead it was almost exclusively shaped by the ↑ experiential knowledge and the pedagogical practice of Western concepts of vocational education and training. This is confirmed, inter alia, by the numerous publications on this topic, which in part had a considerable impact on TVET cooperation, but can be regarded as contributions to theoretical discussion and development only to a limited extent. The majority of these studies are ex post reports on measures implemented in the context of TVET cooperation or internal reports and studies commissioned by national or international organisations, which were explicitly not issued as scientific publications by the contracting bodies (especially the ↑ World Bank). It was only recently that a growing number of contributions to the theoretical debate started to be published in the context of basic research. The relevance of comparative TVET research (→ 1.9) for TVET cooperation expressed in these publications can be explained by the definition of starting points, e. g. support of training for the informal ↑ labour market, which cannot be implemented by means of vocational-pedagogical experiences anymore. A much stronger reason for the growing interest in comparative TVET research, however, seems to be the observation that the further development of national TVET systems is possible only
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when the existing socio-cultural, political and economic conditions of education and training in the relevant context are taken into account (UNESCOUNEVOC 1989; K ING 1990; WORLD BANK 1991; GEORG 1997c; 2005; FREELAND 2000; DEISSINGER 2001d; UNESCO/ILO 2002; SDC 1994). The increased interest also appears to have been triggered by the activities of international research institutions like the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (↑ CEDEFOP, since 1975), whose mission is to contribute to the promotion and development of vocational training in the European Union, the international Network for Policy Review Research and Advice on Education and Training (NORRAG, since 1992), whose “Working Group” is concerned with international ↑ TVET cooperation, or the ↑ UNESCO International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (↑ UNESCO-UNEVOC, since 2000), which has the task of supporting the member states, especially ↑ developing countries, in the improvement of vocational training (→ 1.8; → 3.3.4.6). 2.7.1
Conceptual Classification and Thematic Distinction
Development Aid, Development Policy, Development Cooperation The terms “↑ development aid”, “↑ development policy” and “development cooperation” are often used interchangeably in political practice, but are clearly distinguished in political discussion. “Development aid” is a term for development-related activities of national and international institutions as well as non-governmental organisations. “Development policy” is a heading for the developmental goals and fields of activity defined by the political agents as well as for the programmes and strategies that serve the implementation of these goals. Finally, “↑ development cooperation” is the practical aspect of development policy and includes the concrete projects and programmes or measures agreed upon between national governments or between international organisations and states (NOHLEN 2000, 219 ff.).
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TVET Cooperation The term “TVET cooperation” (alternatively: TVET aid, ↑ TVET support) is not defined in a similar way. It includes both the services provided for this sector of development cooperation (“TVET aid” according to the classification above) and the objectives, support principles and support concepts formulated for this sector (“TVET support policy”) as well as the concrete training projects, programmes and measures.
cation and training in different countries (GEORG 2005, 187).
Thematic Distinction The following remarks on TVET research focus on studies and analyses of development cooperation that are concerned with the selection, planning, implementation and the impact of projects and programmes of ↑ TVET cooperation on the one hand, and the implications of such programmes for ↑ research fields in TVET research on the other.
Comparative TVET Research “Comparison” is a fundamental technique by means of which differences and similarities of objects and phenomena can be detected. The topics of comparison are single phenomena from a specific social sphere, which are viewed in the context of their relations with other societal domains (GEORG 2005, 188). As the method of comparison is used in many scientific disciplines it is no constitutive element of comparative TVET research (LAUTERBACH 2005, 46). The topic of “TVET research” in the strict sense is the study of “the conditions, processes and consequences of the acquisition of professional qualifications as well as personal and social attitudes and orientations that appear to be relevant for the ↑ performance of occupation-based ↑ work processes” (DFG 1990, 1 [translated from German]). Instead of this definition of TVET research, which is focusing on the epistemic interest, a definition formulated for TVET cooperation emphasises the benefit for the practice of vocational education: “TVET research has to clarify the foundations of vocational education, to establish its contents and objectives and to prepare its adaptation to technological, economic and social developments” (RADDATZ 1999, 62 [translated from German]). A comprehensive unfolding and documentation of the concept of TVET research has been achieved with the publication of the German version of the present handbook (2005). The term “comparative TVET research” does not differ from TVET research in terms of subject, mission and objective, but it refers predominantly to internationally and interculturally ↑ comparative studies of specific phenomena of vocational edu-
2.7.2
Objectives of TVET Cooperation as a Topic of TVET Research
TVET research contributes to TVET cooperation in manifold ways via feasibility, implementation and ↑ evaluation studies with a view to the development of concepts and strategies. The focus of research is currently on the topics “↑ effectiveness and efficency” and “quality and ↑ quality assurance” of vocational education. The interest in these topics was triggered principally by the ↑ World Bank, which, being the largest funding institution in the domain of education, not only influences the policy-making of ↑developing countries and of multilateral and bilateral funding bodies, but also dominates the related research activities (BENNELL 1996, 235). The publication of the WB Policy Paper “Vocational and Technical Education and Training. A World Bank Policy Paper” (WORLD BANK 1991) not only marked the beginning of a reorientation of the World Bank with regard to TVET cooperation, but also gave rise to or revived fundamental debates in education policy, which continue to the present day. Despite considerable criticism (cf. LAUGLO 1991, 1997; MADSEN 1991; LENHART 1993; A RNOLD 1994) the Policy Paper is considered the guiding framework for the World Bank’s TVET cooperation with developing countries until now. Many of the guidelines and approaches endorsed by the World Bank also made their way by and large into the relevant policy papers of international, multilateral and bilateral funding bodies (cf. AUSAID 1999; IDB 2000; UNESCO/ILO 2002; DANIDA 2004; ADB (=AsDB) 2004; on the funding bodies’ international TVET cooperation strategy cf. MAINTZ 2004).
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
↑ effectiveness and ↑ efficiency The major impulse for the (renewed) investigation of questions of the ↑ efficiency and ↑ effectiveness of vocational education was given by the privatisation of TVET advocated by the World Bank as the “most effective and efficient way to develop the skills of the workforce” (WORLD BANK 1991, 7), and by the corresponding hypothesis of the low cost-↑ efficiency and the lack of market orientation and adaptability of public vocational education and training. This position is endorsed by the World Bank with reference to the results of numerous studies performed in the context of a fouryear programme of research and consultation conducted by the Education and Employment Division of the Population and Human Resources Department of the World Bank, which were published as a summary in 1993 (MIDDLETON / ZIDERMAN / ADAMS 1993). According to these studies the ↑ efficiency and ↑ effectiveness of vocational education and training organised by public bodies or government institutions is very low. Moreover, the extensive state regulation of (formal) vocational education is viewed by the researchers as one of the major causes for disparities in the training and ↑ labour market. According to their position, vocational training is doomed to miss the qualitative and quantitative demand of employers whenever the state defines training contents and provides training opportunities largely without referring back to the private enterprises. The conclusion is that it is not the state that has to define training needs and contents, but the private economy as the major customer of human labour. It is not a (public) supplydriven training approach, but a (private) demanddriven training approach that reduces discrepancies in the training and labour market (MIDDLETON / ZIDERMAN /ADAMS 1993, 51 ff.; GILL / FLUITMAN / DAR 2000, 4 ff.). In order to validate its support strategy the ↑ World Bank conducted further studies, all of which ultimately confirmed the result presented by Middleton et al. (1993) – the low ↑ efficiency and ↑ effectiveness of vocational education and training organised by public bodies or government institutions. They also affirmed the recommendations derived from these findings, namely, reducing publicly funded training, intensifying the support for train-
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ing run by private businesses, and diversifying the co-financing by the beneficiaries (cf. SCHWEITZER 1994; PSACHAROPOULOS 1995; GILL / FLUITMAN / DAR 1998; 2000; CANAGARAJAH / DAR / NORDING / RAJU 2002). Other funding institutions and TVET researchers arrived at approximately the same results and recommendations in their studies (see, inter alia, UNESCO-UNEVOC 1996; ATCHOARENA 1996; LITH 1998a; OECD 1998; SCHIEFELBEIN / WOLFF / SCHIEFELBEIN 1998; ATCHOARENA / ESQUIEU 2002; WOLTER / SCHWERI 2003; DESCY/ TESSARING 2005). Unlike this, Tippelt (2000, 136) and Healy (2000, 25 f.) point out that an ↑ efficiency analysis of educational investments is deficient when the benefit is defined only as the additional earnings as a result of a higher educational investment (→ 3.5). The reason is that analyses of this type tend to neglect additional social and individual results. The limited explanatory value of ↑ efficiency analyses is further limited by insufficient knowledge on how skills and competences can be upgraded most effectively and utilised for economic growth and social ↑ well-being. Finally, limits are caused by deficits concerning available data and not least by the difficulty of defining proxy variables or indicators that allow for the measurement of the ↑ efficiency of TVET systems and programmes (cf. BERGMANN 1996; LIPSMEIER 2001; BERGHE 1996; BERGHE 1998, 35 ff.), and by the problem of proving the effects from the influence of ↑ human capital while excluding other factors. There are also objections against the view that in order to increase the ↑ efficiency and ↑ effectiveness of vocational education, a demand-driven training model must be given priority over a supply-driven model. A demand-driven training, according to its critics, pays attention only to the interests of business, whereas a supply-oriented oriented also takes the educational aspirations of the individual into account. Another argument against a purely demand-oriented training is provided by the difficulties that training providers face during the transition from a supply-driven to a demanddriven model for a lack of instruments and an inadequate preparation of their staff. This is confirmed by Harris (2001, 233), who, in his commentary on the transition in ↑ Australia, termed the role and function of training professionals a “hot spot”
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for TVET research. Another argument proposed by the critics in favour of supply-driven training is the observation that the demand for employees can actually be stimulated by the supply of qualified workers (SCHAACK / TIPPELT 1997, 9). However, according to King (1990, 7), Lauglo (1993, 7; 1996, 10) and de Moura Castro (1995, 4) this argument is untenable. In his further analysis of the two concepts, demand-driven training versus supply-driven training, de Moura Castro (1995) shows the limits of demand-oriented training and argues that vocational training is not just a passive response to the changing demands of employers. He advocates both demand-driven and supply-driven training, even though he assigns priority to demand-driven training. In fact this bilateral approach cannot be avoided according to de Moura Castro/de Andrade (1997, 103), for the assumption that the total or the greater part of training is taken over by the private sector is unrealistic. Lauglo (1997, 114) is pointing in the same direction when he argues that the critical view of public vocational education and training entails the risk of romanticising the private enterprises’ capacity and willingness to organise and finance vocational education. These reservations towards the private sector were already raised by Schweitzer (1994, 4) with the thesis that the quality and extent of training provided by employers depended crucially on the rate of economic growth, the institutional climate in the country, and incentives for investments in training. In international ↑ TVET cooperation the demanddriven training approach has received widespread support despite the criticisms. Nearly all multilateral and bilateral funding bodies adopted this approach as a guiding principle for ↑ TVET support in the relevant sector concepts and sector policy papers.
Quality The question of ↑ efficiency and ↑ effectiveness inevitably put the question of the quality of vocational education on the agenda of political discussion. The ↑ World Bank (1999, 47, 7) defines quality, besides access and delivery, as one of the “three pillars of a good education system” and assigns a key role to quality. Quality dimensions mentioned by
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the World Bank, without drawing a distinction between general and vocational education, are (the shaping of) ↑ teaching and learning processes, motivated staff, and the development of relevant curricula. The quality of teaching and learning processes depends on whether the processes are well matched to the requirements, results and outputoriented, and whether they are continuously monitored with a view to strong ↑ quality assurance. The quality of motivated staff is based on solid initial training and the regular engagement in ↑ continuing education, on adequate pay and career opportunities. Relevant curricula are characterised by their flexibility and adaptability, their contributions to social development and ↑ well-being, and by enabling the acquisition of competences sufficient for the global economy. The World Bank did not operationalise these quality requirements by defining indicators in terms of agreed variables for the concrete (usually quantitative, qualitative and temporal) description of a state of affairs (description of problems, aims or underlying assumptions) (GTZ 1989, 56). The above-mentioned policy paper names “indicators” (cf. WORLD BANK 1991, 53 ff., 2000), but these indicators have no relation whatsoever to the quality dimensions. Instead, they capture input or output-oriented objectives like educational expenditure relative to gross domestic product or student entry rates by educational sectors and school types. Additionally they do not comply with the understanding of indicators as agreed variables. Even in the latest version of the World Bank’s strategy paper (2005) quality dimensions and the corresponding indicators are not specified or described more precisely. The little systematic analysis of quality dimensions and criteria as well as the lacking definition of quality indicators for general and especially vocational education give evidence of the World Bank’s obviously low interest in this topic. The same applies to the regional development banks like the ADB and the IAD. Unlike this, the ↑ OECD and nearly all European organisations like ↑ CEDEFOP, Eurostat, Eurydice and ↑ European Training Foundation give broad attention to the identification of quality dimensions and features as well as to the development of indicators.
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However, in a detailed study of the indicators developed by the various organisations up to 1998 van den Berghe (1998, 27 ff.) comes to the conclusion that the major part of the educational indicators available at the international level refers to the system of general education and is descriptive in nature (BERGHE 1998, 46). In order to assess and improve the quality, indicators are required that should be carefully designed yardsticks with sufficient information on appropriate ↑ quality criteria and on the quality requirements that have to be met (BERGHE 1998, 26). Examples of this kind of indicator and methodological steps for the development of quality indicators are given by van den Berghe in his further discussion (BERGHE 1998, 50 ff.). Stahl/ Severing (2002) also have analysed European concepts of quality assurance in vocational education and training. They criticise the fact that in the quality debate a considerable transnational exchange of theories, concepts and practical examples is still absent (STAHL / SEVERING 2002, 35). Moreover, the quality debate, according to the authors’ conclusion, remains confined until now to a discussion on systems of criteria and on norms and ↑ quality management issues. It is only occasionally that a debate on the development of specific substantial criteria for vocational-pedagogical practice takes place. Accordingly procedures and criteria for the evaluation of teaching and learning processes have hardly made their way into the quality debate to this day (STAHL / SEVERING 2002, 44). It is less aspects of quality, but rather issues of comparability that are in the focus of a study by Freeland (2000) on the OECD publication “Education at a Glance – OECD Indicators”, which was first published in 1992 and has been regularly updated since then. A fundamental shortcoming of this kind of study, according to Freeland, is that their scope is too narrow as they cover almost exclusively structures and features of the TVET system whilst cultural particularities are largely ignored. Besides, studies of this type have the tendency to generalise data, which leads to the impression that the countries in question are equal and the data collected are comparable (FREELAND 2000, 14). Freeland objects to this simplification, for in his view factors like the given re-
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source allocation, skill endowments, government structure, social and cultural composition and the ↑ labour market operations have a crucial influence on the results of international ↑ comparative studies (FREELAND 2000, 17 ff.; see also K ING 1993; GEORG 1997c; DEISSINGER 2001d). Methodological problems of scope or coverage, categorisation and measurement also have effects on the results. Despite these possible shortcomings Freeland argues in favour of international comparative studies as studies carried out on the national level only would bring about considerably less information for decisions in education policy. Freeland’s position is supported by other TVET researchers like Tessaring (1999) and, emphatically, Lauterbach (1995– 2005; 2001). Discussions about quality aspects of vocational education and training are a major topic in ↑ TVET cooperation on the European level (→ 2.5). The impetus was given by the strategic goal set by the European Council in March 2000 in Lisbon to make the European Union the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010 (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2000). To achieve this goal the heads of state and chief executives of the Union called for a programme to modernise the education systems and decided in March 2002 in Barcelona to make the European education and training systems a world quality reference by 2010 (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2002b). The necessary measures will be based on the three fundamental principles quality improvement, facilitation of access for all and opening towards the world. The call for quality improvement in vocational education and training was affirmed in the decision of the European Council of December 2002 and the declaration of the responsible European ministers on enhanced cooperation in vocational training of November 2002. Since then ↑ quality assurance, under the keyword “↑ Copenhagen process”, is a focus of European ↑ TVET policy. In 2002 a permanent working group on indicators and ↑ benchmarks was established, in 2003 a technical working group on quality in VET, and in 2005 the European network on quality assurance in vocational education and training. A further proof of the current relevance of quality assurance in vocational education is the “Work
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Programme 2006” of CEDEFOP (2006c). According to this programme the “achievement of high quality and innovation in the vocational education and training systems” is one of the four focal points of the mid-term priorities 2006–2008. The associated ↑ research programme “Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training” aims to improve cooperation in this domain by supporting the work programme of the newly established European network on quality assurance in vocational education and training, and by communicating, implementing and testing the Common Quality Assurance Framework (CEDEFOP 2006c, 39). Special activities that are explicitly mentioned in the work programme with regard to these priorities and focal points are the projects “Statistics and Indicators” as well as “Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training” (CEDEFOP 2006c, 16; 39). The ↑ OECD also increasingly directs its attention to the quality of education and training and supplements its system of indicators with indicators to record the ↑ performance of students and the competences of teachers as well as the quality of ↑ teaching and learning processes (cf. OECD 1994; 2004c; 2006). Nevertheless indicators for the quantitative measurement of e. g. ↑ participation in education, educational expenditure or educational outcomes dominate, especially with regard to general education. This applies also to indicators that were developed in the context of the “World Education Indicators” project set up jointly by the OECD and UNEVOC in 1997 (→ 5.4). In international TVET cooperation, quality issues in terms of quality assurance and ↑ quality development are still of relatively little importance (ARNOLD / FABER / PRZYKLENK / WIECKENBERG 2001, 62). However, it has actually to be expected that also in ↑ developing countries there will be an increasing tendency to subordinate education to “rationalisation” (RIBOLITS 2006, 9) or “functionalisation” (GONON 2003, 15) in economic terms. Accordingly the interest in procedures and instruments of ↑ quality assurance and development in education and training can be expected to increase in these countries as well. Arnold, Faber and Wieckenberg (2001) investigated the question how a ↑ quality management sys-
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tem had to be organised that suited not only the conditions of education and training providers, but also the specific needs of ↑ TVET cooperation. The aim was to develop a quality concept with a simple approach and a manageable set of instruments (ARNOLD / FABER / PRZYKLENK / WIECKENBERG 2001, 62). As a result of their studies they worked out a quality model and presented it to the public together with guidelines for its application (A RNOLD / FABER / PRZYKLENK / WIECKENBERG 2001, 59–94; see also ARNOLD 2002, 67–133). Thus an integrated concept for the introduction and application of approaches to quality assurance in TVET research is available for the first time. 2.7.3
Strategic Developmental Goals of TVET Cooperation as a Topic of TVET Research
Until recently “development” was equated with economic development, and well trained skilled workers were regarded as a prerequisite for balanced economic development (cf. BMZ 1993, 29). Accordingly development cooperation and TVET cooperation were above all committed to the establishment of a viable economy. Since the worldwide adoption of the Millennium Declaration of the ↑ United Nations in 2000 (UNITED NATIONS 2000), however, the reduction of poverty is not only a primary goal of ↑ development cooperation; instead, all measures and programmes have to serve the objective of poverty reduction.
Economic Development For decades ↑ TVET support has been based on considerations of ↑ human capital theory, whose basic idea is appealingly simple: investments in the acquisition of knowledge, skills and competences lead to higher individual benefits in terms of income as well as corporate and social utility in terms of increasing productivity and/or a modernisation of society. In order to demonstrate the relationship between educational investments and development predominantly macro- and microecomic analyses are carried out. The greatest success has been in confirming the relationship between educational investments and income at the individual level. In developed countries as well as in less
Research in Relation between VET Policy, Planning and Practice
developed countries microeconomic studies show that income rises with higher ↑ educational attainments (cf. BÜCHTEMANN / SCHUPP /SOLOFF 1993, 16). The effects of education and training on the economic development of a country, on the other hand, are still disputed, as is the question what macroeconomic growth effects are associated with training and to what extent the competitiveness of a national economy is improved (cf. TIMMERMANN 1996, 212; TIMMERMANN / GRAFF 1995, 339 ff.; VEICHTLBAUER / SCHLÖGL 2001, 15; GEORG 2005, 95). What is clear anyhow is that a simple causal mechanism according to which investments in education and training promote economic development and growth does not exist. Obviously other factors have to come into play, e. g. a reliable system of law with actionable legal sanctions; cultural orientations like industriousness, openness to innovations and entrepreneurship; a well-functioning ↑ labour market with opportunities for qualified workers; and, of course, an educational system that features a sufficient degree of ↑ efficiency and adequate access options. These factors are hardly ever taken into consideration in economic analyses. What is almost completely neglected is the meso level, the level of organisations and enterprises. Although this level appears particularly important as it could establish a connection between the macro and micro levels, the question of corporate benefits of education and training is the one that is least investigated (see BÜCHTEMANN / SCHUPP /SOLOFF 1993, 17). This is astonishing especially because enterprises should have a greater interest in the evaluation of educational investments given a production culture that relies intensively on ↑ human capital. Moreover, the founders of human capital theory, Mincer (1958) and Becker (1964) were originally only interested in the benefits of ↑ in-company training. In order to analyse the effects of TVET co-operation, mainly programme evaluations are carried out. As there is an extreme lack of valid and reliable data in most ↑ developing countries due to missing or underperforming institutions for the procurement of information, it is as a rule not possible to determine macroeconomic effects, but it can be assessed whether the objectives of the projects were achieved and what non-intentional effects
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have occurred. Unfortunately at present there are only a few effect-related studies with an acceptable methodological standard. These can show that the enterprises and trainees involved in vocational training measures benefit from the latter, but that large-scale systemic reforms are successful only in rare cases. Existing structures can be changed in accordance with the aims of the programmes in question only superficially and in a few selected domains (e. g. single occupations, sectors or venues) (cf. STOCKMANN 1992; STOCKMANN 1996; GREINERT / HEITMANN / STOCKMANN 1997; STOCKMANN / MEYER / K RAPP /KÖHNE 2000). Further results from ↑ evaluation research suggest the conclusion that few programmes of TVET cooperation so far reach the most impoverished parts of the population. With regard to formal vocational education and training this was to be expected because it presupposes the very qualifications that poor people lack. Nevertheless there are also studies that can demonstrate a distinct poverty-orientation of certain TVET projects (see DÖRRENBECHER 2001 for the Philippines). From the available evaluation results some conclusions for TVET co-operation can be drawn. Successful projects and programmes are characterised by the fact – that they are in compliance with the aims of the partners, their institutional and organisational capabilities as well as with the predominant sociocultural values, norms and structures, – that they were piloted by field studies investigating the different levels and domains of support and the connections between them, – that they are equipped with adequate monitoring and evaluation systems for the project management, – that measures are carried out at different levels (e. g. consulting at the systemic level and ↑ pilot projects at the implementation level).
Poverty Reduction Since the beginning of this century both national and international ↑ development policy and cooperation are facing a need for reorientation. The worldwide adoption of the Millennium Declaration of the ↑ United Nations in September 2000 and the Millennium Development Goals that were
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agreed upon in September 2001 in order to implement the declaration have created an unprecedented basis and political ↑ commitment for global development policy. Since then numerous governments and international organisations have oriented their development policy and cooperation towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (UNITED NATIONS 2000; 2001). Given this background a programmatic reorientation has to be defined for ↑ TVET cooperation, which has experienced an unmistakable loss of importance in comparison with earlier decades: neither in the Millennium Development Goals nor in the associated ↑ benchmarks is there any explicit reference to vocational education. A justification for the support of vocational education is thus possible only indirectly by assuming that vocational education contributes to the superior goal of reducing poverty (WORLD BANK 1999; BMZ 2005a; BMZ 2005b; UNESCO 2006). To what extent this assumption is correct and how programmes of TVET cooperation have to be organised in order to work as effectively, efficiently and sustainably as possible are fundamental questions for vocational education and ↑ training research. In this respect effect-related programme evaluations with sophisticated methodological designs seem to be more appropriate than macro and microeconomic studies, which so far provided hardly any insight into the effects of TVET co-operation. What is missing is above all longitudinal analyses as well as research projects on the long-term scientific monitoring of TVET programmes. Any research on this topic furthermore suffers from a shortage of reliable data. The setting up of a reporting system on education as well as the qualification of the necessary staff are as urgent as the extension of existing systems to contents from vocational education and training and qualitative indicators, which also necessitates the consideration of the different levels (micro, meso, macro) of agency. In order to secure the comparability of systems of indicators that allow not only for the measurement of quantity, but also for the assessment of the quality of vocational training programmes, considerable efforts with regard to information and coordination are still necessary. At present there is no generally accepted catalogue
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of indicators; the definitions and methods of operationalisation differ; and a single methodological framework is absent. Moreover, the question should be examined whether the concentration of the research perspective on the costs of vocational education and on the demand-oriented ↑ labour market approach as advocated by the ↑ World Bank can still be justified in the face of mass unemployment and underemployment, especially given the Millennium Goals. The inclusion of impoverished economies, the socalled informal sector, the expansion of the ↑ tertiary sector – which offers additional employment opportunities especially to women – and the consideration of vocational education as a cross-cutting theme in the course of institution building seem indispensable. Closer cooperation between TVET research and funding institutions could not only contribute to analysing central development issues and using the results for the conception of policy papers and the realisation of programmes, but also lead to the consequence that vocational education and training is once again assigned greater importance in ↑ development aid.
Section 3: Areas of TVET Research 3.1 The Development of Occupations Morgan Lewis/Georg Spöttl 3.2 Research in the Vocational Disciplines Jörg-Peter Pahl/Felix Rauner 3.3 VET Systems Research Thomas Deißinger 3.4 VET Planning and Development Jeroen Onstenk 3.5 Cost, Benefit and Financing VET Robert Lerman 3.6 Occupational Work and Competence Development Martin Fischer/Nick Boreham 3.7 VET Didactik Lorna Unwin 3.8 Shaping Work and Technology Paul Oehlke/Peter Brödner
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3.1.0 The Development of Occupations Morgan Lewis/Georg Spöttl 3.1.0.1 Introduction How (→ 3.1.1) occupations develop is a basic ↑ research question because the phenomenon “Occupation” (DOSTAL 2005) and the qualifications required for it are not the only solution for the tasks to be completed by skilled workers in industry and trade. There are alternative ways to attain these qualifications and they are taken in practice. Dostal, undoubtedly one of the most prominent researchers on occupations, has referred to the complexity and the ambiguity of the simple term “occupation” (cf. DOSTAL 2005, 105 f.). Luther’s work (1483 to 1546) at the latest made the term occupation, and the secular comprehension of occupation, subjects of public discussion and of numerous interpretations ever since. Luther’s predominant achievement was that he used the words occupation and ↑ vocation for secular tasks (vocatio externa), for an office, a status and for activities in the world (cf. WOLF 1969, 154 f.). He thus overcame the close bond between occupation and the clergy in the sense of a “vocation” by God’s call. A closer look at current developments obviously reveals a “↑ professionalisation” of occupational work (→ 3.3.3.2). This concerns not only the consolidation of higher ranking and ultimately academic occupations – as is often found in American sociology. It is rather about a “professionalisation” of “practical work” as a special form of ↑ performance within society. In this light, international discussion falls short in its reflection on “occupation”. Occupation is mostly reduced to productive work and ↑ employability without taking into consideration the relevant social implications (→ 3.1.2). The latter, however, are of special relevance in vocational education and training: access to social structures and competency development in order to guarantee a co-shaping of society as a statement of education. The study of Vocational Education and Training without ↑ qualification research is unimaginable. Qualification research, on the other hand, has to span work, industrial and handicraft skilled work
up to the development of curricula which also considers the shaping of learning processes. All types of determinism regardless of its nature must be avoided. This line of argumentation is very important as meanwhile vocational education and training discusses a work-oriented turning point in vocational education as a matter of course (cf. GEORG 1996a, 637; FISCHER 2003a, 7). Thus the access to ↑ occupational profiles and curricula is well accepted (→ 3.4.1). The focus is laid on “one of the pillars” as there are other parameters which are also highly relevant for the shaping of ↑ occupational profiles, such as the socially relevant demands for education. In order to formulate a basis for the shaping of Vocational Education and Training it is important to discuss the challenges in the world of work. Based on this, a common coherence between educational and employment systems and other “external” factors can be determined. This is one of the prerequisites for the development of occupational profiles which are socially acceptable by reconciling educational interests and the interests of the “real society”. This statement, however, is tantamount to the fact that the old logics of the shaping of occupational profiles are exhausted and have to be re-structured (→ 3.1.3). Competency development for the ↑ performance of ↑ occupational tasks is the second central pillar of occupation and vocational education. An occupation is determined by many dimensions and cannot be reduced to performed work and specific vocational qualifications. Such a reduction hampers vocational education in the closer sense and must be overcome by dealing with this issue as an ↑ interdisciplinary mission. It is not surprising, therefore, that ↑ occupational research has not advanced for many years because it cannot be performed monodisciplinarily. The existing social-scientific or occupational-scientific ↑ research methods are applicable in a very limited way even though they have often taken up these themes (cf. DOSTAL 2005, 105 ff.). Neither university-based vocational-pedagogical research nor scientific research has yet
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been able to promote occupational research to a specific position. It remains unclear whether current, newly established occupational-scientific research will succeed in reaching this target. Currently the following basic questions of occupational research (→ 3.2) are being discussed: – Analysis and systematisation of occupational ↑ work tasks and ↑ work processes as well as the corresponding means of work; – The shaping of occupations and the design for ↑ occupational fields; – Working and learning and the shaping of their interrelationship; – Change in occupations and the layouts for occupations as well as the ↑ classification of occupations; – Qualification and competency; – The transition from general education schools to vocational education and training and from education to the working life; – Change in work and occupations in a globalized world and – Early recognition of a need for qualification and occupational prognoses. This overall orientation of occupational scientific research does not encompass all important themes of vocational educational scientific research – i.e. ↑ status allocation, a sociological or philosophical and/or culture-specific reflection on occupations do not play a role. Nevertheless, important fields are included that can be accessed via empirical approaches. The articles in this section demonstrate this in an impressive way. Overall, vocational educational, scientific research can be conceived as research relying on empirical discussion of the world of work, i.e. research trying to achieve qualitative-empirical access to industrial and handicraft (skilled) work. The insights such research yields can inform and advise vocational educational politics designed to shape the occupational profiles, curricula, and learning and teaching processes that are needed for qualification and competency development (cf. BECKER / SPÖTTL 2006, 1 ff.). Howe (2005) concentrates his discussion of ↑ historical research on occupational fields and underlines the importance of occupational structures and profiles. The question of the timeliness of occupations plays a central role. Surveys into the his-
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tory of occupational fields or individual occupations play a minor role in vocational ↑ educational research. If occupational structures will continue to be of great importance in the German-speaking countries – and this is not yet foreseeable – it is evident that historically oriented research on occupational fields will still be pursued (→ 1.9). If this is not the case and if other structures for the ordering of initial and further training will be implemented, e. g. via the ↑ modularisation and the European Qualification Framework, very basic questions on the relevance of occupational fields vs. cluster methods or sector approaches would have to be clarified. Particularly interesting links are provided by the historical vocational educational research that has intensively discussed the development of the dual vocational training system, industry-typical training of apprentices, handicraft master training and others and this has presented plentiful results. If developments in occupational structures are to be maintained in the German-speaking countries, research on ↑ occupational fields could join in for the sake of continuity. Structural changes towards an Anglo-Saxon orientation could lead to a concentration of surveys that discuss the processes of change and describe the contrasts between, what is new and different in a global strategy for vocational education and training. In the first case, vocational educational scientific and educational scientific research will be of major importance because the (occupational) world of work and the individual are the centres of interest (BECKER / SPÖTTL 2006 and BUCHMANN / HUISINGA 2006). 3.1.0.2
The Vocational Educational Scientific Approach
The vocational educational, scientific approach deals with access to work, ↑ work processes, change in work and the related implications. The results can be used for conclusions with regard to the need for qualifications, qualification and occupation profiles, curricula shaping and the consequences for learning processes. The (occupational) educational scientific approach to ↑ qualification research is based on the fact that the perspective of insight into ↑ curriculum research and ↑ curriculum development and/or ↑ curriculum design must aim at the safeguarding of subject de-
Areas of VET Research
velopment and evolvement. This can, however, not be guaranteed and societally accounted for without the foundation of an empirically secured need assessment of concrete work capacities. Socially necessary work capacities are the result of complex configurations based on technological, economic, legal and social developments (→ 3.1.1). It is likely that the “research on early recognition” of a need for qualification will play a predominant role in the future. There are at least two approaches: (a) Prognosis and prospective vocational educational research (cf. GROLLMANN 2005a; LENEY/ COLES / GROLLMANN / VILU 2004; SCHMIDT / STEEGER 2004; SCHMIDT, S. L. 2003). (b) ↑ Research approaches with a focus on ↑ vocational educational science (WINDELBAND / SPÖTTL 2003a; 2003b SPÖTTL / WINDELBAND 2003, 2006; HÖPFNER / SPÖTTL / WINDELBAND 2007). Prognostic research and research on prospectivity in vocational education began by dealing with the future of vocational education in the 1960s. That research aimed at providing an empirically secured contribution to the planning of vocational education. There has been a long-standing argument on whether prognostic research is able to yield reliable results for the future along with the necessary future openness. Among the roots of prognostic research may at least be counted classical ↑ educational planning and the educational economy, the assessment of the consequences of technology and economic and social scientific prognosis research as well as industry sociological research and their numerous varieties. Step by step this research approach has been criticized from various sides resulting in a “prospective turning point” based on an openness to the ↑ shaping of work and technology and thus “relativising” the prognosis approaches (cf. MARTIN / RAUNER 1988). A mixed form of the prognosis and prospective approaches was common at the beginning of this decade within the European network FREQENZ that relied on the early recognition of a need for qualification and the identification of new employment fields. The results of these studies ultimately concentrate above all on trend estimations. At the same time a vocational educational, scientifically oriented approach to early recognition of a need
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for qualification was developed which was oriented towards an assessment of qualitative changes in the ↑ labour market rather than to long-term trends (→ 4). Mid-term changes were identified and thoroughly screened for content requirements with the need for qualification. This approach aimed both at fields with a need for qualification and the reaction thereon with a view to the shaping of ↑ occupational profiles. Thus it clearly goes deeper than FREQENZ in terms of content challenges by focussing on domain orientation. The vocational educational, scientific approach of early recognition thus gains special importance as it delves considerably deeper into the discussion of the object, ultimately the future relevant domains, than the FREQENZ surveys and even sociological ↑ qualification research. The difference with regard to sociological qualification research results from the different perception of the term qualification (cf. MICKLER 2005, 130). Sociological qualification research does not marginally deal with the quality of work incorporated into the ↑ work tasks (→ 3.1.5). Instead it concentrates on the technical and organisational working conditions within a socio-technical system of an enterprise. With regard to the analysis of the qualification requirements, industry-sociological research adhered to Hacker (1973) and eventually developed four kinds of requirements for work capacity: sensomotoric behaviour, perceptive experienced behaviour, requirements for thinking in a sense of diagnostic-planning behaviour, and work motivation (cf. MICKLER 2005, 131). The basic challenges of work can be described with these tools; however, it cannot describe how the contents of an ↑ occupational profile should be shaped. The question of the development of occupations and occupational profiles is thus not a question of development per se but an intensive discussion of different ↑ research approaches and their contributions to the development of occupational profiles.
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3.1.1
Handbook of TVET Research
Occupational Research Werner Dostal
3.1.1.1
Development of Occupational Research
Occupations, ↑ professions and trades have been described and evaluated in art, literature and the sciences for thousands of years. In traditional ↑ historical research the relevance of occupations and trades to historical events is mostly underestimated, but with the new trend of reflecting the economic and social background of political events, occupations and trades have attained a new relevance. In Germany, there was a tradition of descriptive occupational analysis in the early 20th century (see e. g. MOLLE 1968) that showed the need for a scientific framework for the allocation of the phenomena which had been described. This was the beginning of ↑ occupational research as an ↑ interdisciplinary field which cut across the scientific landscape. At first, the situation was very unsatisfactory. The topics of occupational interest were covered only as marginal elements within several branches of research most of which were uncoordinated. In 1967, occupational research was institutionalised in Germany as the Institute for Employment Research (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, IAB). Parallel to it, vocational ↑ training research in Germany was institutionalised as the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildungsforschung, BBF, later integrated into the Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, BiBB). In the early years, occupational research did not have a solid basis in a shared understanding of its topics. “Systematical and comprehensive approaches for a scientific analysis of the complex phenomenon of occupations and trades are not available up to now ... ‘Occupational Research’ is today only a global definition for all those scientific activities which deal in any form with questions referring to occupations at all or with specific trades and professions” (FENGER 1968, 328).
In the period since those words were written, we have experienced 35 years of occupational research. Many theories and methods have been de-
veloped and numerous findings presented (see the overview on the results in MERTENS 1988 and K LEINHENZ 2002). This article provides a short overview of the concepts and findings of occupational research, concentrating on the details that are relevant from an employment and ↑ labour market perspective. The connection between occupational research, on the one hand, and vocational education and training research, on the other hand, is also addressed. 3.1.1.2
Definition of the Term “Occupation”
It is first necessary to clarify the meanings of the different phenomena (see DOSTAL / STOOSS / TROLL 1998): The notion “Occupation” in German is much more comprehensive than it is in English. In German, it includes “Profession”, “Trade”, “Job”, “Career” and “↑ Vocation”. So it is difficult to transfer this German notion to a relevant understanding in English. A further problem arises in that the notion “Occupation” has both vernacular and technical, scientific usage. An analysis of the available literature shows a specific multidisciplinary understanding of the multiple definitions and interpretations of the several notions in the field of occupations (see Survey 1 in DOSTAL / STOOSS / TROLL 1998, 442). Belonging to an occupation means not only playing a certain role in employment or having received specific professional training, but far more importantly, it is central to the allocation of the individual in society. Occupational and professional allocation seems to be a basic human right. The following aspects are of central relevance: – Freedom in the choice of an occupation as the basis for the free development of the personality (Basic Law in Germany, Art. 2 and 12) – Occupation as a core element in the planning of life (see CRUSIUS / WILKE 1979) – Occupation and trades as instruments for structuring society (BECK / BRATER / DAHEIM 1980) – Occupation and ↑ profession stabilisation and extrapolation of social patterns (HESSE 1972) – Occupation as a basis for social allocation in society (CRUSIUS / WILKE 1979) – Guarantee of job status (previously a given in German law, today this is no longer valid)
Areas of VET Research
– Occupation as a collection of values in an employment society (BECK 1996) – Working life using professional competences (MAIER 1996) The multiple dimensions shaping occupation make it impossible to come to a short and simple definition. A reduction to job tasks or specific professional competence is not sufficient. Gathering the several descriptive elements relevant for a single occupation in a modular form may show the complexity of the occupation, but far more relevant are the interrelationships of these elements, which leads to a new quality. And only this comprehensive understanding is able to give occupation its special meaning, one which enables the individual to find a personal and social identification. Occupation in this definition is not just the sum of modular elements independent of each other, but mainly the integration , the cement which puts together an organic structure and becomes a bearable anchor for the identification of the individual. Out of the many dimensions which constitute occupation the most important will be quoted: – Job tasks and activities – Qualification, experience and essential competence – Work procedures and techniques employed – Relevant tools – Materials and products influencing job ↑ performance – Area of activity in the plant – Regional location and milieu of work and – Branch of economic activity – Position within the hierarchy of the establishment – ↑ Occupational status, ↑ professional status – ↑ Mobility of entrance and leaving In the ↑ occupational research of the IAB, occupation is defined by the following dimensions (see HENNINGES / STOOSS / TROLL 1976; HOFBAUER / STOOSS 1977; STOOSS / TROLL 1988, DOSTAL / STOOSS / TROLL 1998): – Integrated bundle of qualifications in a characteristic pattern of knowledge and social competence. – task areas relevant for these qualification patterns and characterised by a specific combination of tools, objects and work environment.
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– scope of activity which is defined on the basis of hierarchical position. It emerges from the functional combination of the demand side (job, establishment) with the supply side (job holder). It is fostered by occupational status, organisational unit and the specific milieu of work. – Allocation of the structural and evaluative aspects of an occupation in the patterns of society. Early investigations of the multidimensional structure of occupation, its historical relevance and its current pressure for adaptation to changes in employment and society revealed a complexity which could not be served by such a global definition. So it was necessary to simplify the definition and concentrate on “the performance of job activities … as the dominant dimension of occupation” (HENNINGES / STOOSS / TROLL 1976, 6). But the structural change of work caused by automation and informatisation makes it difficult to recognize job activities through observation. So additional elements, such as the following, became more important (see DOSTAL / STOOSS / TROLL 1998, 447 ff.): – Emancipatory function of a job – Social and personal identification through occupation – Social stability as a result of closed ↑ professions – Ethical aspects while performing a job It becomes clear that occupation, when seen in the broad sense, has a core function of describing tasks and activities in an employment system with a high rate of labour division, while also covering additional elements like social allocation and the acceptance of a specific professional responsibility. These elements have deep historical roots (see e. g. HESSE 1972) but there is a need to regularly update and redefine the concept (DOSTAL / STOOSS / TROLL 1998). The driving forces in labour and in society, e. g. employers, associations, political institutions, labour offices, vocational training establishments, need aggregate notions and models on a low level of complexity. Only those simple but also sharp definitions are suitable for orientation, action and evaluation of employment and training. The notion of “occupation” was able to perform this function for a long time, especially in order to comprise the complexity of labour for peripheral areas on a simple and understandable level. In career choice it is
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especially important to evaluate the alternatives in training and application of skills in a job chosen for the future. The clearer the picture of a single occupation, the better are the possibilities for a responsible occupational choice that includes a decision about optimal vocational education. Afterwards this picture can facilitate the step from education into employment and further orientation in a career and in society as well. Thus occupation is a central concept that applies to individuals both in working life and society. Occupations carry specific images, have their own rankings, and send signals for income, evaluation and development for individuals inside the employment system and outside as well. 3.1.1.3
Occupational Research as an Interdisciplinary Task
The multiple notion of occupation does not allow a single-discipline interpretation. In several ↑ research traditions, occupation is allocated as a sociological factor (see some recent positions in KURTZ 2001), but there are other relevant disciplines. ↑ Occupational research covers a whole scale, beginning at the one end with research on vocational education and training, at the other with research on employment and the ↑ labour market. Both ends have large capacities of personnel and funds while occupational research, in between the two, has low budgets. This situation results in a sort of gravitation towards the ends which makes it difficult to preserve autonomy for the core of occupational research. Research on vocational education and training dominates with its long tradition of working on occupational competence and with occupations in general. On the one hand this research is concentrated in the BIBB (elaborating the concepts of the Dual Vocational Education, which is dominant in Germany), on the other hand it occurs in university faculties for pedagogics of vocational training (education of the teachers for the ↑ vocational schools). Both are active in occupational research on qualifications and skills. Compared to these big players no other scientific actors in the field of occupational research have any quantitative significance in Germany. Some work is performed in ↑ ergonomics, some in em-
ployment research, some in psychology or in ↑ statistics. But at the core of occupational research in Germany we find at best not more than about 20 scientists. 3.1.1.4
Central Topics of Occupational Research
At present occupational research contains the following central topics:
Analysis and Classification of Tasks, Activities and Tools As performed in descriptive occupational analysis, jobs can be characterised by the relevant tasks, activities and tools used in different occupations. This depends on analysis, classification and evaluation. The broad literature about work and vocational skills, about the organisational structure of employment and all further details of work in society can be used as a basic stock of information. Empirical work offers further knowledge. The instruments mainly used are observation and interviews. Interviewees are workers and employees, who are asked about their own occupational activities, and other people, such as managers, colleagues or customers. The results of such empirical work are monographs on single occupations that describe the multiple dimensions of work and work environments. The new possibilities of multimedia can bring a better understanding by including audio visual elements. At present the results of descriptive occupational analysis can be found in the “BerufeNET” of the German Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit), presented on the internet (www. arbeitsagentur.de) and in a large variety of special publications. The step from descriptive matters to research analysis begins with classifying, compressing, evaluating and structuring these basic data about occupations. This sort of research attempts to make more comprehensible the details of the manifold landscape of occupations. The customers for this research are people making career choices, career advisors, and teachers, as well as professional associations, placement agencies, social partners and policy makers. This information is very important for
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the design and further development of vocational training. To provide a better overview and to deal with the large variety of occupations resulting from historical development (→ 3.1.3), and fostered by the growing specialisation and labour division in employment, occupations are classified in fields or families, which show a certain homogeneity. These ↑ occupational fields are very useful in career service and in vocational training. From the point of view of ↑ occupational research it is impossible to define those areas or fields independently from certain purposes. Single occupations come and go, arise and disappear, but their content and structure do not change very much. On the contrary, ↑ occupational areas or fields are in a continuous but imperceptible state of change. From the point of view of vocational training those occupational areas or fields are of far higher significance than single occupations and they characterise the stability of the occupational landscape in the long run. So occupational research serves two relevant areas: – Further classification and structuring of single occupations in standardised patterns (see e. g. PARMENTIER / SCHADE / SCHREYER 1994), – The aggregation of single occupations into larger units like occupational areas or fields or “occupational families” (see e. g. HARTZ 2002). Classification and aggregation – both efforts are performed mostly combined – are very helpful for the evaluation of occupations in their organisational and legal aspects. It is important to define minimum skills in critical areas, as in medicine or security jobs, for regulations which cover specific groups of employees with certain competences and for international comparisons. In personnel management, in planning, and in administration of personnel in enterprises or in public service, occupational allocation is still relevant and helpful.
Status Allocation by Occupational Research A further dimension of occupational research can be found in the allocation of status. That means the position of single occupations in the ranking of jobs, qualifications, employers, income, labour conditions, and in additional dimensions, which are evaluated in the framework of society.
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Qualifications and Competence In occupational research, occupations and jobs are predominantly classified on the basis of their tasks and activities. But very often these dimensions are replaced by qualifications and competences. This interface with vocational research is served by occupational research through specific activities: occupational research looks for bundles of skill-sets from the point of view of job content, and compares these bundles with adequate qualification patterns (see further information in DOSTAL 2003). While research on vocational education and training concentrates on the development of competence for the individual, curricular organisation and teaching, occupational research deals with the application of competences on the job and the consequences for ↑ status allocation. ↑ Occupational research shows a special sensitivity to innovative change in employment. New demands for skills or competences on the job first emerge within single elements of activity. Generalization requires detailed knowledge of occupational structure and trends in labour division. Surveys provide the basis for signals to vocational education and training to modernize and restructure curricula and other elements of teaching (→ 4.1; → 3.3.5). The overview of occupations and ↑ occupational areas or fields respectively is the basic pattern for all actors in employment and training. It is an important result of competent occupational research.
Decision and Threshold Oriented Occupational Research As discussed before, occupational research has to give support to coping with two threshold points – vocational choice, and transition from vocational education to employment, see Mertens/ Parmentier 1988). Occupational research examines the behaviour of individuals and groups around these thresholds. In vocational choice (first threshold) knowledge is necessary about the “landscape” of occupations, in order to make a competent choice. In the transition from vocational education to employment (second threshold) information is needed about the ↑ labour market and the employment situation of occupations. Occupational research fos-
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ters these processes, and its findings provide information for use in making choices, for counselling and for ↑ specific training.
Dynamics of Occupations: Global and Individual Change of Occupations Occupations show dynamic changes. Change of occupations means the change of elements, the emergence of new occupations, and the disappearance of former occupations, as mentioned before. Occupational research aims through observing these changes to find the driving forces, to put the divergent events into a global structure, and to come to a final assessment (see DOSTAL 2002 and WINGENS / SACKMANN 2002). Combined with these topics a special form of occupational research has emerged: Some new jobs contain activities which were performed outside of the employment system previously. This means a certain form of ↑ professionalisation. In the service sector in particular, new jobs have emerged that were not known before. Some tasks and activities are well known, but they had formerly been performed in other combinations or in the household. The emergence of new jobs, new occupations or new ↑ professions is an important area of occupational research. But there are also trends visible which show the reverse. Some professional activities dissolve and drop from the employment system. This is often caused by new technologies, by changed skills or by new social patterns. Traditional jobs are lost and replaced by a certain technology or by working at home or self service. These developments can be called de-professionalisation. Occupational research has shown that both tendencies, professionalisation and de-professionalisation may alternate in the trend of development. Some occupations arise and dwindle in a short period, they are only relevant for a short time – or vice versa – they lose their relevance for a short period and come back again in a pattern which is only marginally changed. The individual’s change of occupation is a wellknown phenomenon in employment. In the lifelong perspective change of occupation is a very usual element in coping with sectoral or regional structural impacts. Occupational research deliv-
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ers the measurement framework for the identification and the evaluation of occupational change. Individual occupational change has two dimensions: Subjective occupational change is a sort of feeling of the individual and can be identified through interviews, but it is difficult to get a systematic classification to identify real occupational change. Objective occupational change is measured by the change in a given classification. If an individual changes from one group into another group of occupations, it is reasonable that the occupational “landscape”, defined by occupational research, is influencing the final findings. If this pattern is highly detailed, then occupational change is obvious, but if the pattern is wide-meshed, then occupational change may be invisible. ↑ Occupational research has to allow for applicable classifications and definitions for the necessary ↑ distance between the several identified occupations. 3.1.1.5
Quantitative Occupational Research
While the previous considerations showed the qualitative branch of occupational research, the quantitative branch has very relevant for producing results, which are needed for administrative measures, ↑ labour market information and public opinion (DOSTAL / STOOSS / TROLL 1998). Quantitative occupational research needs clear and applicable classifications, which are the basis for quantifying qualitative data gained by surveys and interviews (for basic information about occupational classifications see FRIELING 1980). Such classifications are crucial for all quantitative research. The clusters must be designed intelligibly and selectively, the same cases must be assigned to the same categories, different cases must be classified into distinctive categories. Classification work (coding) must be organized and impersonal, that means that different individuals must make the same assignments for the same cases. Classification work produces labels, which influence all further research. It goes without saying that a great number of classifications may be developed in occupational research. Mostly they are very detailed, show several levels and a hierarchical structure. Classifications need a context of explanations and very clear definitions of categories. It is very important to find a
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single dimension, otherwise it will be difficult to develop a comprehensive structure. This is also the main problem in occupational classification: occupations are multidimensional, and the classification itself must be multidimensional. The existing occupational classifications worldwide contain job titles and cover structure in a decimal classification order. Structure seems to be predominantly influenced by job tasks, but often it is a mixture of further dimensions like status or competence or level of qualification (this can be found especially in the International Standard ↑ Classification of Occupations, ISCO, see ILO 1990), which overlays job tasks. This confusion of several dimensions in one hierarchical classification causes major difficulties and is no longer acceptable, but it is nearly impossible to change a long-standing system. If a new classification is introduced, it will be difficult to ensure consistency and comparability of the data over time. The occupational classification used in Germany has its origin in 1967 and has remained unchanged in its basic structure up to now. The ISCO is similar. In principle, each scientific project needs to build a classification to cover its ↑ research questions without a loss of information. The dynamic characteristics of occupations can be managed only with dynamic classifications, that means open classifications with the possibility to allocate new items in the resulting structure. With the powerful data processing infrastructure currently available, occupational surveys should store job titles in their full text, and carry out the classification work as a further step following later. Then it is possible to use these data for other research questions with a different classification structure. The gathered data – maybe of long term empirical research – can be reclassified with no information lost. For the future we need several classifications for the several dimensions of occupations. Each dimension, e. g. tasks, activities, tools, skills – level and type of subject – status, position etc., should have its own classification, which can be used in an integrative way. A singular approach to this concept are the questions and classifications in the German micro-census (www.destatis.de). Those multidimensional classifications are operable only with computers, while the former classifications
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were designed for human processing. It is hoped that the new ISCO which is being prepared for introduction in 2008, will take these ideas into consideration. 3.1.1.6
Loss of Relevance of Occupations?
With a dynamic labour environment and a change in qualification policy which aims at global competence as a basis for a high rate of flexibility and a declining stability of occupational allocation, the traditional term occupation is subject to criticism. ↑ Professionalism is no longer relevant, occupations are only valid for marginal clusters, the tempo of change in employment is growing and it makes no sense to cling to outdated concepts. Now and in the future we will have an open employment landscape with new opportunities away from the classical interpretation of occupation and ↑ profession. Occupations and professions are too rigid for quick change, too narrow for an integrative work situation and overloaded with additional elements which interfere with the new demands of a dynamic economy. The trend from an organisation designed for occupations to a process oriented organisation will abolish any form of ↑ professionalism in the long run (BAETHGE / BAETHGE-K INSKY 1998, 462 ff., 470). Professions and occupations are only valuable for orientation in vocational education. There are further arguments which weaken the concept of occupation. The primary elements constructing occupation as tasks, activities and tools lose their relevance, while secondary elements like status, work milieu and autonomy come into the foreground. This changed the understanding of professionalism and occupational characteristics and transferred the significance to fringe areas. This was the reason for new definitions like the concept of pure tasks as a functional element used mainly in projections of the shape of the labour force. In the “virtual ↑ labour market”, a new data basis for computerized placement by the Bundesagentur für Arbeit’s profiles of competence replaced occupational allocation. Similar developments are visible in the process of ↑ globalisation. International models born in countries with a low level of ↑ professionalisation penetrate the personnel policy of multinational en-
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terprises, without regard to national occupational structures. There are further arguments, which all tend to define a reduction of patterns which are described by occupations. This discussion seems to make any research on occupations obsolete. But this conclusion is precipitous and – if a complete definition of occupation is regarded – is disproved. The more complex and manifold the dimensions, the more stable are the concepts of occupation and profession. In this case the loss of a single dimension does not destroy the whole building (K LINKHAMMER 1999). The declining stability of employment structures and the growing ↑ mobility of job holders reduces identification with employers and strengthens identification with occupation (see VOSS 1998). The same can be found in the decline of family structures, regional allocation and religious groups. Individual existence is based on the remaining connections in working life and therefore on professional image. In a society with these developments, ↑ occupational research has the task of strengthening the term ‘occupation’ as an anchor for the identification of the individual, especially in a time of such turbulent change. 3.1.1.7
Occupation in Globalizing
Occupation seems to be a typical German phenomenon. In a globalized world, occupation will lose its meaning, or change its characteristics. It is clear, that in most countries labour is structured not by occupations but more by sectoral or status terms. Occupational patterns, for Germany often tied to the specific vocational education in the ↑ dual system, seem no longer relevant. But in a more detailed view it can be shown that the heterogeneity between countries is less different in occupational terms but far more so in educational terms. Occupations are very similar in their real patterns, but education shows big differences. In most countries, vocational education is concentrated in schools, and integration within the employment system is only marginal. In Germany, the dual system for vocational education dominates at the skilled worker level is and is mostly allocated in the employment system – more than
70 % of the young people leaving school get their ↑ occupational skill in this system, which is classified by occupations (TESSARING 1999). So the previously discussed model of occupation in the background of the German situation is reduced on this dual vocational education system. If the model is expanded into a comprehensive multi dimensional structure, then the international patterns will become very similar. Countries with a high rate of self-employed workers show more natural occupational structures, for the influence of the enterprises does not dominate the employment in its details. The broad application of the ISCO classification worldwide indicates the relevance of occupations and ↑ occupational research, possibly in the field of quantitative studies. As an example, the ↑ labour market problems of the youth in most countries with vocational training that is not integrated into the employment system may be a result of a lack of longitudinal data about occupations. Occupational research might contribute to a better evaluation of supply and demand in occupations, ↑ professions and trades. Single sectoral analysis is not able to cover these information gaps. 3.1.1.8
Occupational Forecasting
For long term career planning ↑ occupational forecasting with a time horizon of at least 40, possibly 50 years is necessary. An individual working life lasts this long. But such forecasting has never existed, even in areas of stable employment. Occupational research is not able to elaborate forecasts for such periods. As an alternative, occupational and ↑ qualification research has developed the “concept of differentiated information” (CHABERNY/ SCHOBER 1988), an information pattern as a set of manifold data taken from the areas of employment, education, labour market and other relevant aspects. Career planning can be fostered by these data, and the quality of decision improved. This concept also comprises aspects of flexibility and substitution (K AISER 1988) which play an important role in an open labour market and are relevant for the occupational decisions of the individual. A total correspondence between supply and demand is not possible in the labour market. Therefore, job seekers must be prepared to offer com-
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promises.The same is true for employers. To fi nd a good compromise market information is necessary and very useful. Occupational research has to respond to information requirements on both sides – from the employer and the employee. It has to gather data, to put it into comprehensive models, comprised of the vague elements and the fixed aspects, to find the potential for flexibility and substitution. With all these complex data in mind, it should be possible to elaborate forecasts for single occupations and for the structure of future employment on the one hand and for the outcome of the educational system on the other. Both can be integrated in a model for the future ↑ labour market with a time horizon at a maximum at 20 years. 3.1.1.9
Summary
The huge amount of data gathered by occupational research makes it easy not to get lost in this thicket. Occupations have manifold dimensions, which are more or less relevant. It is important to find a tolerable definition of the term “occupation”, which represents the identification of the individual on the one hand and the employment in its labour division pattern on the other hand. Some dimensions based on vocational education and training may not overlay the dimensions connected with employment. The beginning of occupational consciousness is defined by career orientation and choice, then concentrated in vocational education. Modern ideas of continual occupational change imply a demand for flexibility, addressed under the discussion of so called “↑ key qualifications” (MERTENS 1974; BUNK /K AISER / ZEDLER 1991). This means a sort of “Joker”-skills, usable in all occupations. Occupational research has shown that individual identification in an occupational role with a clear concept has a higher relevance than early demands for flexibility. Based on these ideas, occupational research is charged with the task of collecting and analysing the manifold elements which are contained in the term “occupation”. The interrelationship of these dimensions, their real meaning and also their harmony with one another have to be taken into account in order to come to a clear and relevant im-
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age of the complex model called “occupation”. Then occupational research will be able to cover the needs of all partners: identification of the individual, planning of labour division in the employment system and a structural pattern in society.
3.1.2
Sector Analyses Georg Spöttl
3.1.2.1
A Need for Structuration
Never before in the cultural history of mankind have ↑ workplace structures and ↑ occupational profiles witnessed a swifter and more dramatic change than in the post-modern period (from the 1970s on) (cf. DAUENHAUER 1998, 9). Computer aided storage and applications have transformed the entire office and communications technology. And there is more to it than that: The reorganisation of work and technology has become most important (cf. SPÖTTL / HECKER / HOLM / WINDELBAND 2003, 55 ff.). These technical and structural changes exert an impact on work places that entails a reshaping of qualificational profiles and thus of occupational profiles. Nevertheless – and this is where ↑ sector analyses start to be of interest – these changes make it difficult to clarify for what and how qualification and occupational profiles have to be shaped, as the previous “boundaries” have become blurred. These boundaries have to be identified: are they related to business, sectors, or technology? Technological boundaries can be partly dropped, albeit not entirely, as individual occupations are being fused into a so-called “transversal occupation” across different technologies and adjacent fields of technology. Typical examples on the academic level are the so-called industrial engineers who normally concentrate their studies on both machine building and business management subjects. Mechatronic is a good example for occupational profiles as this occupation characteristically concentrates on transversal technologies. Technological boundaries are considered to be very wide and thus open (e. g. ↑ IT technology). Technological applications linked to the corresponding company and work organisation, however, determine the context
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of occupational ↑ work tasks and therefore have a great impact on the challenges faced by a sector. Occupational boundaries and occupational profiles are subject to constant processes of change, which entail the periodical new shaping of occupational profiles. This in turn implies a closer look at sectors, branches, sections – or similar fields – and the changes occurring there. The terms branch and branch occupations are enjoying a great topicality. Although the term branch is defined as a specialist area (DUDEN 2001, 148), it remains vague as the basis for vocational educationalists and the boundaries of occupational profiles. Economic and business branches can be highly variable and may be seen in a very wide or a very close context as just specialist areas. In practice a branch entails very diverse associations. Often the entire electrical industry is called a branch or only a segment thereof, such as the Hi-Fi branch. There are a great number of other examples of a branch, but these are inadequate for focusing research interests and ↑ research objects. For vocational educational scientific and other ↑ research approaches, it is necessary to formulate a specialisation of ↑ research fields, which facilitates the access to the concrete world of work. The precise determination of sectors and sector analyses seems to be the appropriate instrument. 3.1.2.2
Selection of a Sector and its Definition
A Variety of Sector Models As a rule macro-economic classification structures are at the centre of interest for the discussion on sectors. Within the framework of Fourastié’s Three-Sector-Hypothesis – he describes the emergence of the service society and at the same time the decline of the industrial and ↑ knowledge society (cf. HELMSTÄDTER 2000, 10) – Fourastié (1954) defined: – The secondary sector (producing industry) – The primary sector (agriculture, forestry, fishery) – The ↑ tertiary sector (service sector) (cf. FOURASTIÉ 1954). Another sector classification very common in national economies is structured into economical branches according to the main categories
– Agriculture and forestry, fishery – Producing industry – Trade and transportation – Service companies (cf. HELMSTÄDTER2000, 15). There are numerous other sector definitions, such as the definition according to economic subjects (companies, state, private households and others), which is used to achieve a total national account (cf. BECKS 1973, 84 f.), or the IAB model for the analysis of services (cf. WEIDIG / HOFER / WOLFF 1999). It is of interest that the emergence of new ↑ information and communication technologies also witnessed attempts to introduce a further “quaternary” sector. This is no longer discussed today due to the fact that the new information and communication technology is used and applied everywhere and simply represents a transversal technology. Therefore a further sectoral delimitation is not recommended, as it would rather hamper the dissemination and the study of its impact. These examples already prove that sectors and sector terms may be differently proved, defined and designed according to the involved practical tasks and fields of interest. For the sector term to be clarified here, it is important to characterize a basis for ↑ fields of research that can be accessed with a tolerable expenditure and with a clear classification of the field of ↑ occupational profiles. Sectors defined in this way, however, may be identical with occupational profiles. While this could be the case, it is not compulsory. The ↑ occupational field “metal” for example encompasses numerous branches and “sectors” such as the automotive sector or the automotive service sector, production and manufacturing technology, machine building and plant engineering, steel forming, and others. It is thus clear that the general conception of branches and/or sectors is widely defined and may rather be classified as an analytical category. In order to get to a deeper insight for vocational ↑ educational research, an approach to branch structures should be delimited as to sector structures or fields of production to be helpful. Moreover a sector understanding in a double sense should be worked out: (a) On a macro level, fields relevant for vocational education and training must be named which eventually constitute a vocational educational sys-
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tem. Surveys on individual or all such fields on issues such as political-economical relevance, development directions, need for qualification, and occupational profiles also contribute to gaining an important insight into the development of vocational educational systems and to utilising them for a vocational ↑ educational policy. Relevant research methodological accesses are widespread and pursued by internationally oriented organisations such as the ↑ World Bank, the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (↑ GTZ) or national ministries (cf. SPÖTTL 2000b; WORLD BANK 1997; SCHMIDT, J. 2003, 82 ff.). The main objective is to form a safe basis for the further development of vocational educational systems. Normally quantitative and qualitative data and information acquisition is at the centre of interest. The qualitative approach concentrates on system relevant developments in regions, industry, fields of technology, schools, ↑ labour market etc. Nevertheless Dröge (1995, 35) concludes that studies of this kind dominate the structural characteristics of systems and clearly neglect the process related aspects of “system behaviour”. To avoid this error, ↑ sector analyses must not be confined to a macro level if a contribution to vocational ↑ educational research is to be made. (b) On the meso level it is crucial to go beyond the reflection of structural interrelations – as is done on the macro level. The “dimensions of skilled work” must already be assessed, the change of tasks and the contents of ↑ work tasks must be highlighted and a first, target-oriented conclusion for the “new configuration and further development of occupational profiles and vocational educational plans” (SPÖTTL 2000a, 207) must be compiled without going into detail. The sector comprehension on this second level aims at classifying the surveys to an unambiguously defined context in order to safeguard the validity of further surveys. Sector boundaries must therefore be clearly visible and delimited. Contrary to the widely defined macro level, which seeks to identify structural interrelationships, the subject of the survey is unambiguously defined in order to reach context specific statements in a transparently described sector. In a further step and based on vocational educational scientific ↑ qualification re-
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search, the context relevant for the contents of occupational initial and further training – and this is of special relevance – must be further assessed. As for vocational education and training this always includes a detailed discussion on the “shop-floor” with all its implications. Bringing to mind the fact that sector specific surveys are still to assess the economic, structural, qualificational, competency oriented and occupational relevance of ↑ research objects the question has to be clarified how a sector is characterized if the above mentioned analytical categories are not suitable for this task.
Definition of a Sector for Vocational Educational Scientific Surveys For a relevant methodical survey, a sector is characterised by: – A specialisation dealing with comparable and similar tasks, marked by similar structures in the fields of production and service; – Data, ↑ statistics and studies which – nationally and if applicable also transnationally – cover the same specialization and which can be utilized to assess sector specific developments; – The definition of work tasks based on statistical systematics (cf. NACE 2004); – The discussion of products, customers, knowhow, service requirements, specialized tasks, which do not differ structurally. With regard to the automotive repair sector, these characteristics serve to exactly define the relevant delimitations. At first sight the “automotive repair sector” comprises the entire production and supply industry as well as the service and repair trade including filling stations, leasing companies, twowheeler companies, second-hand car dealers and others. When the sector is viewed based on the above definition, however, a differentiation can be made into production and service, repair and trade. The first category, the production, encompasses the car manufacturers and their suppliers (they manufacture products), whereas the second category comprises service, repair and trade. Trade is mentioned here as it is directly linked to service and repair units. The second category excels by a close orientation toward the customer who is the direct contractor. The second-hand car trade can also be
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allocated (unless it is independent), as there is a close objective relation between technology and service and cars. Filling stations and leasing companies are excluded. They specialize in sales and leasing and cannot be structurally compared with automotive service and repair or automotive trade (cf. RAUNER / SPÖTTL / OLESEN / CLEMATIDE 1994). The “Recycling Sector” calls for an entirely different practical definition. This term cannot be found in established statistics and catalogues of standards (e. g. NAICS (= North American Industry Classification System) or ISIC (= International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities) catalogue of standards – Ordinance 1999/42 (EU 1999), although it is mentioned in the NACE classification. The very heterogeneous recycling sector can only be defined based on the Closed Loop Economy/Waste Disposal Legislation. Accordingly a different term must be chosen: “closed loop waste economy”. This term implies a notion of the prevention, the avoidance and the utilization of waste. Thus it encompasses the sum of the recycling process (closed loop), the waste disposal economy and the closed loop (the comprehensive idea). The sector therefore includes the collection, the separation, the reprocessing and the production of products and secondary raw materials eligible for marketing. In Europe the term comprises at least 13 branches such as used glass, used paper, used cars, used wood, building rubble, used textiles, used electronic devices and others (cf. ENTSORGUNG ‘00 2000, 37/38). Incineration, sales and landfilling thus also form part of the “recycling sector”. As a matter of fact, however, other ↑ work processes are taking place than just those in the above-mentioned case. Again only the sector specific definition opens up a clear-cut field of research. In absence of this delimitation we run the risk of allocating e. g. used cars and their dismantling to the automotive service and repair sector although this is a typical case for recycling. Consequently it is evident that surveys quickly draw the conclusion that a car mechatronic would be perfectly eligible for car dismantling. The special literature mentions this phenomenon as so-called “mirror occupations”. What is ignored is the fact that there is a big difference in the prerequisites for car mechatronics and “recyclers”. The “recy-
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cler” dismantles a car according to the stipulations of the closed loop and waste economy legislation whereas the car mechatronic carries out service and diagnostic tasks and repairs – the exact opposite of the tasks of a “recycler”. In this case the domains of the two actors reveal different structures. In sector-oriented surveys this fact becomes more than evident. 3.1.2.3
Object of Research and Delimitation to Other Fields of Research
An important advantage of the delimitation of a sector as described above is that objects of research can be unambiguously identified and their relevance can be justified in depth. For example, it is obvious that sociological studies of the automotive or the recycling sector predominantly deal with questions of development and current changes in the sectors, with socio-technical characteristics and perhaps even with the diffusion of ↑ information and communication technologies (ICT). Such a broad focus results in simplified conclusions about requirements and qualification measures. Vocational educational scientific analyses on the other hand which start their surveys within these clear and “homogeneous” sector structures are able to assess the exact importance of dimensions such as diagnostic work in the automotive repair sector or the role of ICT in recycling plants. Such analyses can determine both the practical and the theoretical knowledge necessary to deal with ↑ work tasks. The results can then be used for closer investigation at which point case studies and work process analyses should start in order to yield reliable results for a work-oriented shaping of ↑ occupational profiles. The true research interest of ↑ sector analyses is thus the preparation of profound field surveys that can identify specifics such as how diagnostic instruments are exactly configured, how they are used depending on corporate and work ↑ organisational developments and what are the consequences for the qualification levels, vocational education, occupational profiles, training levels and concrete qualification measures (cf. BECKER 2003; BLINGS / SPÖTTL 2003; WINDELBAND / SPÖTTL 2003c). Sector analyses are the starting point for a deeper probe into the vocational educational scientific ac-
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cess of the world of work at the shop-floor level. Such a problem should also include the executive floors as they allow for a placement of more thorough and more extensive studies at those places of the sector that are most likely to yield new findings for qualification requirements. They can help to create the prerequisites to decode the “knowledge incorporated into the practical occupational life” (MARTIN / PANGALOS / RAUNER 2000, 27) in order to incorporate it into the development of occupational profiles and curricula. This perspective presumes that both the macro and the meso levels are accessed and that sector studies – in spite of their analytical character – define their objects of research in a way that sectors can be comprehensively accessed. In earlier studies, the so-called FORCE studies, (cf. KRUSE 1991, 1 f.; SPÖTTL 1992) have identified the objects of research via sector studies (Kruse had drafted a first concept for a sector study in the retail sector and Spöttl optimised this concept for the automotive repair sector). This research concept was also applied in a recent ↑ Leonardo da Vinci research project. The sector approach once again proved to be successful. The following objects of research can be identified: – Delimitation and definition of a sector. The boundaries have to be drawn in a way that an economically relevant area with all its qualification issues can be unambiguously assessed. Delimitation is required most of all for areas that are marked by completely different economic concerns and modes of production. In addition it must be ensured that sector analyses are designed in a way to safeguard a congruence of the field of analysis and nationally available data. – Reference to existing studies. A reference to national studies and experiences should be established, above all if the latter are available and documented. – Characteristics and structure of a sector. The characteristics of a sector should be laid out with reference to other sectors. Questions regarding heterogeneity or homogeneity, national structures, the applied instruments, the objects of work, the company structures, the grade of specialisation and the forms of work and work organisation should be answered.
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– Institutional and social context. The role of the social partners (trade unions, employer associations, sector associations), the ↑ participation and representation of workers in workers’ participation committees and in initial and further vocational training should be laid down. Furthermore the legal situation of companies, their ↑ participation in consortiums, the restrictions regarding opening hours and working hours, the quality and warranty regulations, the protection of the customers and the situation of initial and further vocational training are of relevance. – Employment and work in a sector. With regard to employment and qualification: The employment structure should be surveyed, including the changes taking place over a number of years, the existing occupational structure and its changes, the situation of initial and further vocational training as well as the process of ↑ personnel development as a whole (proportion of women employed, part-time employment, qualification structure, management structure etc.). – Changes, dynamics of change. Factors have to be identified that are adequate to characterise changes such as demographic developments, technological changes and innovation, business environment, work organisation and forms of corporate organisation, computerisation, ↑ internationalisation, occupational structures, requirements for initial and further vocational training. In addition the change of tasks has to be assessed. – Initial and further vocational training and recruitment. The importance and the level depend on the change of tasks. Statistical data, initial and further vocational training concepts, financing, participation of companies, chambers, trade unions, schools, target groups, participation of the workforce depending on their educational level, amount of ↑ in-company training, etc. have to be assessed. 3.1.2.4
Research Methodological Specialities and Overlapping with Other Fields of Research
↑ Sector analyses serve as a general access to the structures of a certain sector (as described in the preceding chapter) and the dissemination of vocational educational scientific case studies and ↑ work process studies. As an independent research
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instrument they aim at the access of (skilled) work, technology and vocational education and training/ qualification in a selected sector. ↑ Work processes in an occupational context play a major role. This is where sector analyses come close to ↑ ergonomics (↑ studies of work), which was established as an autonomous sociological ↑ research approach in the 1970s (cf. BERGMANN 1991, 169 ff.). This approach concentrates on issues such as “according to which rules and processes the day-to-day ↑ work processes are taking place in occupational contexts” (ibid, 269). Although this is not yet the objective of sector analyses it becomes relevant for more extensive vocational educational scientific studies. An ideal overlap can be stated with regard to the discussion of the ↑ research field of “work”. The “studies of work”, however, comprise everything adequate for the coping with ↑ work tasks. As already stated in the literature (BERGMANN, J. R. 2003, 135), this makes the generalisation of statements extremely difficult. Due to this insight, sector analyses start on a higher level in order to be able to place deeper surveys into the work of world in a well-measured amount. Therefore they differ from: – The research on training ordinances, as the development of ordinances is not yet valid, – Work-scientific ↑ qualification research as analysis, evaluation and shaping of work tasks is not yet taking place, and – Industrial sociological research, as this is not clearly about the analytically relevant levels and dimensions for the comprehension of the complexity of the social structure of work in our society. 3.1.2.5
History and Research Tradition
In Europe, sector analyses based on a vocational educational scientific background first played a major role in the FORCE programme carried through at the beginning of the 1990s. In Germany this kind of analysis was next to unknown. In several sectors – e. g. the retail sector, the automotive repair sector, road transportation – the further development of vocational education in connection with the development of corporate organisation was to be studied, however, without the so far usual descriptive comparison of vocational education systems or a hypothesis-guided research. Therefore sector analyses was developed as a – sort of new –
instrument (cf. K RUSE 1991; SPÖTTL 1992; RAUNER / SPÖTTL 1995a). In the meantime this instrument has been established in vocational education science and is applied as soon as a sector is still unknown and has not yet been surveyed with regard to Human Resources Development, or if a sector is subject to considerable change which may be relevant for qualification measures. ↑ Sector analyses in the international context have meanwhile been made in many projects guided by the author (cf. SPÖTTL 2000a). 3.1.2.6
Perspectives for Development
Sector analyses aim at – Pointing out a frame of reference where current trends in individual sectors including their implications are shown. In the context of vocational education research the development of vocational initial and further training is examined. – The preparation of deeper studies, e. g. case studies and ↑ work process studies, so that the structure of a sector is clearly assessed in order to exactly place deeper studies on selected issues. This increases the chance to access valuable practical and theoretical knowledge for ↑ curriculum development and the shaping of ↑ occupational profiles with the help of case studies and ↑ work process analyses. Sector analyses have developed into a highly efficient instrument for vocational ↑ educational research and have proved to be successful in both national and international studies. One great advantage is the fact that the design of the studies is based on a vocational educational scientific research interest and that the results are therefore directly applicable for the planning of vocational education and qualification development. The reason for this is that the sector orientation guarantees closeness to the world of work and entails advantages such as orientation to practice, assessment of experience knowledge and work-oriented findings for the planning of vocational education. This is where sector analyses clearly differ from the intention of similar studies in neighbouring sciences. It is, however, crucial that this instrument is used by researchers on vocational education and training who have a complete overview of the research
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interrelations and who also have previous knowledge and experience in the sectors to be surveyed.
3.1.3
Historical Occupational Research Falk Howe
3.1.3.1
Introduction
In vocational education and training systems, it is regularly asked whether ↑ training vocations, ↑ occupational profiles and ↑ occupational areas (→ 2.3) have to be revised or whether it is necessary to develop new training vocations. In Germany, since the nationwide recognition of training vocations in the 1930s (so-called trade lists: RWIM 1934; DATSCH 1937), occupational areas, occupational structures and occupational profiles have been modified or renewed several times. Because of the rapid technological and economic change at the beginning of the 21st century, the dynamism has seemed to increase. Thus the German Federal Institute of Vocational Training and Education (BIBB) emphasized that during the last decade the system of recognised training vocations went through the biggest modernization push in its history (BIBB 2003). Discussions about the development of occupational ↑ training regulations and ↑ vocational curricula are founded mainly in the same way. That is why it is necessary to revise occupational areas and to create new, “contemporary” occupational profiles: Technical innovations have led to changed or novel qualification requirements for expert work to which training vocations had to be continually adapted. In Germany, electrical engineering has proved an exemplar of this paradigm (HOWE 2004). This approach, technological determinism, is very convincing at first and seems to be suitable to explain the genesis of training vocations and occupational areas. In addition, it is directly aligned with the widespread and catchy idea of a quasi “natural” occupational development whereby the arising and dying off of occupations follow pre-fixed ways and laws (cf. RAUNER 1998a, 159). However, the appropriateness of this approach to analys-
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ing social, economic and technical phenomena and developments has to be criticised. Three decades ago occupational sociologists rejected technological determinism as insufficient (e. g. HESSE 1972; Beck/ Brater 1977). Instead, models were developed that assume interrelations and interactions of different fields of influence. Gradually, comparable approaches also became accepted in vocational education research (e. g. BENNER 1977, 48; POELKE 1987, 27 f.; H EIDEGGER /JACOB / MARTIN ET AL. 1989, 123; GRONWALD / SCHMIDT 1996, 23; PETERSEN 1996a, 106; R AUNER 1998a, 14). According to non-deterministic research-approaches, the central concern of ↑ historical occupational research is to analyse the origin and the development of ↑ occupational standards. In doing so the classification and demarcation of occupational areas and their associated training vocations and occupational profiles are interpreted in each case as a historical occurrence. The superordinate interest is to identify outside effects, interrelations, breaks, interdependences, traditions etc. in their history. But historical occupational research pursues more than a historical interest: an understanding of the shaping of training vocations, occupational profiles and occupational areas in the future profits from the critical consideration and appraisal of chances, barriers and demands of their genesis (cf. HOWE 1998, 2000). 3.1.3.2
Historical Occupational Research as Desideratum
A survey of the international ↑ VET research shows that studies of the history of training vocations, occupational profiles or occupational areas are a desideratum (→ 3.1.1). Publications concerned with their origin and development are sporadic and do not claim to be a comprehensive historical investigation. Indeed, publications such as festival or jubilee writings of associations, federations, chambers etc. (e. g. VEI 1927; ZVEI 1978; HEE 1995; IEE 2005) offer suggestions for further ↑ historical research. Also interesting are genealogies of occupations and ↑ professions, mostly presented on the internet (e. g. GENEALOGIES OVERVIEW 2005; ARCHITECTURAL GENEALOGY USA 2005; GENEALOGIES AUSTRALIA 2005; AGRICULTURAL GENEALOGY AUSTRALIA 2005; GENEALOGIES UK 2005). But these
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genealogies normally are just listings of occupational titles and renounce explanations. Accordingly these occupational genealogies can only lead to the first cornerstones for the historical occupational research that must be deepened in content. However, from historical VET research (→ 3.2.2) there are important and firm findings on which historical occupational research can draw, e. g. relating to the development of vocational training systems, of apprenticeship in industry and craft and of vocational education in schools (cf. e. g. HOFFMANN 1962; PÄTZOLD 1980, 1982, 1991a; GREINERT / HANF / SCHMIDT / STRATMANN 1987; STRATMANN / SCHLÖSSER 1990; K IPP / MILLER-K IPP 1995; GREINERT 1995b; GORDON 2003). In addition, historical excursions in publications of ↑ occupational research can also deliver clues or suggestions for historical occupational research (e. g. H ESSE 1972; BENNER 1977; RAVAV 1927; 1930; MOLLE 1968; FLYNN 1988). Neither historical VET research nor occupational research, however, can answer the ↑ central questions of historical occupational research, because they are limited to a general understanding of occupations. Therefore their research results as a rule do not refer concretely to particular ↑ vocations or ↑ occupational areas.
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3.1.3.3
Associated Fields of Historical Occupational Research
The most important criticism of technology determinism is the insight that ↑ training vocations and ↑ occupational profiles are not coincidence but “constructions”. The different and partly contradictory interests of the parties involved in the construction process are reflected in these constructions as well as the different general conditions and the state of the occupational area (cf. e. g. HESSE 1972, 31 ff., 93). Therefore, the approach of associated fields is very suitable for historical occupational research (Fig. 1). The field “occupational administration” represents the juridical bases, conditions and restrictions for the practice of vocational education and training as a result of economic, educational, social and employment policy. The focus is on the legal grounds of regulatory procedures concerning the construction and recognition as well as the abolition of ↑ vocations. The legal reference to the proper realisation and supervision of vocational training and education on the basis of occupational training standards is likewise important. The field “occupational construction” deals with questions of the creation or abolition of occupational profiles and the demarcation of occupational areas. Here it is interesting to find out what the regulation procedures look like and who the responsible actors and integrated parties are. This also
Fig. 1: Associated Fields of Historical Occupational Research
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includes an analysis of the accepted general principles, arrangements and criteria, the approaches and methods that are used as well as the resulting occupational profiles and ↑ vocational curricula. In the field “occupational work”, changes in skilled, expert work are taken into consideration. First it refers to the objects of the work including the working context. Second it refers to the working methods as the procedures used in the ↑ work processes and the tools as working means. The organisation of the work and the demands which are put on it from different sides are the third main aspect of this field. These three fields of immediate influence on the genesis of training vocations, occupational profiles and occupational areas interact with each other and are also influenced by the actual state of the occupational system. The associated fields are embedded in technical, social and economic changes which reflect the general framework and have an indirect effect on occupational development. Only the differentiated consideration of the different fields and factors of influence and their interaction permits a sound investigation of the origin and development of vocations and ↑ occupational areas. From this perspective, ↑ historical occupational research has to answer particular questions about: – The first working tasks, assignments or activities in the occupational area whose ↑ performance requires new or changed skills, knowledge and competence; – The contents and purposes of the first initial education and the first further training in the occupational area; – The causes and conditions at the time of the appearance of occupations in this scope of functions; – The causes and conditions at the time of the establishment of a systematic training for skilled workers or craftsmen; – The reasons for elaborating new or for revising existing ↑ occupational profiles, training curricula and examination requirements in the occupational area; – The relevant laws, orders and regulatory decrees referring to the construction, the recognition and the abolition of ↑ training vocations or occupational profiles;
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– The authorities, organisations, federations and individuals who deal respectively with the construction of training vocations or occupational profiles, and their intentions, interests and general models – The technical improvements and innovations as well as changes in the ↑ labour organisation and their consequences for the occupational area and the single training vocation or occupational profile; – The social, political and economic circumstances or basic conditions affecting the construction of training vocations or occupational profiles; – The approaches with which expert work or crafts should be analyzed for a transformation into vocational curricula; – The regulatory procedures to elaborate a new or changed structure of occupational areas as well as to create suitable training vocations or occupational profiles; – The demarcation, contents and intended work spheres of the training vocations or occupational profiles; – The experiences encountered with the enacted training vocations or occupational profiles, – The consequences learned from these experiences for the advancement of training vocations, occupational profiles and occupational area. Answering these questions provides a basis for analysing the essential factors which stamp the occupational genesis, and for identifying continuities, problems and dilemmas, but also success and proof in the occupational area’s history (cp. HOWE 2004). 3.1.3.4
Genealogy as a Working Basis
An important result of ↑ historical occupational research and at the same time a central working basis for further studies are genealogies that show the temporal development of ↑ vocations (Fig. 2). Genealogies offer overview-like answers to the basic questions of when occupational areas and the accompanying training vocations or occupational profiles originated, how this system differentiated over the course of time, which vocations were abolished, summarized or divided even further and how long the training vocations or occupational profiles had continued.
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A genealogy is based, primarily, on the analysis of occupational registers and trade lists. Unfortunately, these documents are only listings of job titles and, as a rule, give no information on occupational contents. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate and analyze ↑ training regulations, ↑ vocational curricula and occupational reference books as well as appropriate periodicals, theses, monographs and retrospectively collected editions (an example of a method is offered in HOWE 2001b, XX–XXIX). 3.1.3.5
Phase Division of Historical Investigations
It is a challenge for ↑ historical research to identify phases in the development of the object being investigated. Together the associated fields and the development phases result in an investigation grid, which helps to cope with historical occupational research projects. Assuming that such a system is given at all, it is obviously required to search for the following phases in the development of a system of ↑ training vocations and ↑ occupational profiles respectively:
Phase I: Emergence of Regional and Company- Specific Training Vocations or Occupational Profiles In a first phase there is no standardised system of training vocations, occupational profiles and ↑ occupational areas. No uniform instructions exist referring either to the trades in which a vocational training can be graduated or to the teaching and exam contents. ↑ Training regulations and vocational curricula are made by companies or from institutions like chambers of commerce or employers’ associations which have an interest in the de-
velopment of skilled workers. As a result, apprenticeship is very regional and company-specific. Example: Germany: Until 1933 no system of nationally-recognised vocational training existed. The Trade, Commerce and Industry Regulation Act of 1869 and its numerous novellas had founded VET ↑ legislation which led to a regional and company-specific practice of vocational training.
Phase II: Establishment of a Standardised System of Training Vocations or Occupational Profiles In the second phase, training vocations or occupational profiles are established that are valid for every ↑ vocational school and every training company nationwide. As a rule, occupations in which an apprentice can graduate are listed at the same time. The decision as to which institution, i.e. which ministry, which authority or which federation is responsible for the shaping, realization and examination of vocational education and training, is also reached in this phase. Procedures and approaches are developed about how the training vocations or occupational profiles are to be constructed and the decision as to who has to be included in this regulatory procedure is designated. Finally, to provide a basis for regular vocational training, curricula are published that fix the contents and objectives of the apprenticeship. Example: Germany: Until 1945 uniform and nationwide recognised ↑ vocations were set up under the authority of the Nazi regime. Authoritative lists of occupations determined in which occupations vocational education and training could take place.
Fig. 2: Genealogy of the Elektromaschinenmonteur (Electric Machine Assembler)
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(Interim) Phase III: Affirmation or Revising of the Standardised System of Training Vocations or Occupational Profiles The third phase, an intermediate phase, shows how the standardised system of training vocations or occupational profiles, which has been created thus far, including the appointed responsibilities and procedures, proves itself under changing social, economic and technological conditions. Thus two basic trends can be thought of: Either the system is confirmed to a great extent, or there are more or less extensive changes which especially concern the demarcation of the occupational areas and the contents and objectives of training vocations or occupational profiles. Finally, these changes can lead to a break and the establishment of a new system in principle (fall back to phase II). Example: Germany: The education system set up in the Third Reich was not seriously questioned after the Second World War. Rather the existing system of recognised vocations with uniform and nationwide binding training regulations was taken over to a great extent.
Phase IV: Consolidation of the Standardised System of Training Vocations or Occupational Profiles The proven responsibilities, functions and procedures in the system of training vocations or occupational profiles are consolidated in the fourth phase. In particular, this concerns the fields of “occupational administration” and “occupational construction”, i.e. the juridical bases, conditions and restrictions for maintaining the system as well as the regulatory procedures are confirmed or made as a rule. Example: Germany: In 1969 the ↑ Vocational Training Act was enacted. It codified the prescriptions and regulations legislated in different laws for vocational education and training in companies. With this step the consolidation phase of the recognised system of ↑ training vocations was initiated.
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Phase V: Reformation of the Standardised System of Training Vocations or Occupational Profiles The ↑ globalisation of national economies and the ↑ internationalisation of ↑ labour markets have caused the ↑ VET systems to face increasing pressure for reform. Basically changed qualification requirements have been declared. At the same time, in accord with the ↑ Copenhagen process, there are efforts to make vocational qualifications more comparable within Europe. Therefore ↑ occupational standards and ↑ vocational curricula have to be revised relative to their objectives and the examination requirements. Example Germany: Since the second half of the 1990s there has been a continuing, unique reform push in the recognised system of training vocations. Clearly about half of all vocations approved to date (through 2004) were updated or were even newly developed at that time. In general, the stated phases can be applied to systems of training vocations or ↑ occupational profiles. Thus they build a chronological base of historical occupational investigations. Moreover, the details of the occupations and ↑ occupational areas to be investigated come into play only at the level of the associated fields discussed above. 3.1.3.6
Relevance of Historical Occupational Investigations
Beside its science-systematic considerations, historical occupational studies have practical implementations for fields like occupational counselling, the employment service, occupational ↑ statistics and job advertisements as well as work and social jurisdiction and occupational, labour and tariff law. (cf. MOLLE 1951, V; HOBBENSIEFKEN 1980, 14; LIPSMEIER 1996, 41). Beyond this, there is the unanimous appraisal that a reflected discussion on up-to-date questions assumes a reconstruction and critical reflection of historical developments or influences and their interaction with socio-economic and technical-economic changes. At this point ↑ historical research can lead to important insights (cf. e. g. SCHLIEPER 1957, 9; STRATMANN 1970, 827; PÄTZOLD 1980, 6 f.; BEHR 1981, 11; GEORG /KUNZE 1981, 7; PETERSEN / RAUNER 1996, 91).
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With this enlarged perspective the following central fields of application of results of the ↑ historical occupational research are opened up.
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↑ occupational profiles. The confrontation of longlasting versus short-lived occupations can lead to basic conclusions about the suitability of different criteria for defining stable occupations.
Field of Application “VET discourse” Findings of historical occupational research can supply a specific input for actual discussions of ↑ VET research, planning and development as well as ↑ VET policy. Internationally there are very different appraisals of how systems of training vocations or occupational profiles and occupational areas should be developed in the future. The dynamic is reflected in a wide spectrum of approaches, measures and suggestions of different quality and outreach. Discussion of the basic questions of whether and how training vocations, occupational profiles and occupational areas should be continued profits from a consideration of the past experiences of different countries with different concepts.
Field of Application “Regulatory Procedures and Occupational Standards” The controversies that arise around the necessity to develop new or to revise existing occupational standards and the following negotiations around their key points, contents and objectives are remarkably unhistorical. Decision-making is often supported by investigations like occupational analysis which refer to the existing occupational structure. Because the actual state of occupational areas has a decisive influence on their advancement, it is fundamental to know the conditions and context which led to the current situation (→ 3.4.1).
Field of Application “Criteria of Modern Training Vocations or Occupational Profiles” A characteristic of debates on the development of new training vocations or occupational profiles is the inability to define what are the constituent criteria and quality features that constitute a stable occupation. There is still no occupational theory that delivers ↑ quality criteria for the development of modern, sustainable occupations. Historical occupational research can help at this point by comparing the life cycles of ↑ training vocations or
Field of Application “Curricula for VET Teachers and Trainers” Historical occupational investigations are a prerequisite for developing curricula for the education of VET teachers, lecturers and trainers in technical colleges and universities. Important objects of these curricula are the contents of expert work in the ↑ occupational area. With these deeper insights into the origin and development of the training vocations, occupational profiles and occupational areas, this research becomes an element of the teacher’s and trainer’s training. For those who are confronted with the enacted education and training contents and objectives in the ↑ vocational curricula, it is essential to know how these have come about. 3.1.3.7
Conclusion
In spite of the meaning and relevance of its findings, historical occupational research is nowadays still a distinct desideratum. Results of the few actual investigations, nevertheless, obviously prove that there is no deterministic connection between technical evolution, changed qualification requirements and occupational development. Specifying the insight that training vocations or occupational profiles are “constructions”, historical occupational research can work out how the varied basic conditions and the different interests of the parties involved in the construction process have influence on purposes, contents and the creation of new training vocations or occupational profiles as well as on the time and course of regulatory procedures. Historical occupational research provides evidence that training vocations or occupational profiles, as an organising principle of the ↑ labour market, were and can be shaped: The future of training vocations, occupational profiles and occupational areas is not a problem of prediction, but a problem of shaping.
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3.1.4
Prognostic and Prospective Vocational Education and Training (VET) Research Philipp Grollmann
3.1.4.1
From Forecast to Prospectivity
Various methods and ↑ research approaches of vocational ↑ training research concern themselves with the future of vocational training. The objective of this research is to make a contribution to rational planning – i.e. planning based on empirically and logically verified arguments. Prognostic research in the strict sense is supplemented by the demand for a general orientation towards the future and to an openness to future developments – prospectivity – for research approaches that are oriented to the design of training programmes (R AUNER 1994). Even historical TVET research (→ 3.3.3; HOWE 2000) has high relevance for the future, as it has a general ↑ commitment to provide recommendations regarding the design of (future) vocational training and education practice. Prognostic research differs from other approaches in TVET research because the subject of research is the future. There can, of course, be no empirical substantiation for what will happen in the future. Nevertheless, various scientific methods do exist to obtain well-founded statements about the future. A special form of the derivation context is always necessary, which lends plausibility to conclusions regarding the research topic of vocational training in the future. This derivation context is reflected in the questions and methods of the ↑ research design used in each case.
Prognosis and Planning since the Late 1960s Within the framework of establishing Federal German vocational training research in the Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildungsforschung (BBF) [Federal Institute for Vocational Training Research], today known as the BIBB, great importance was attached from the very beginning to the planning of vocational training. Especially in the research conducted by Main Department 1: Structural Research, Planning and ↑ Statistics, the strategic view
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was anchored to the future. This task of vocational ↑ training research was also contained in the meanwhile annulled §§ 60–72 of the BBiG (Vocational Education and Training Act) in its original version dated 1969, which formed the basis of vocational training research (ALEX 1999; SCHMIDT, H. 1995). Since that time, forecasting the development of system variables of vocational training as well as of qualification requirements has played an important role, as is documented in the issues of the relevant scientific journals dating from this period (cf. e. g. PORNSCHLEGEL 1968; SZANIAWSKI 1973). Thus in an analysis of the guiding principle of scientific management in labour-market ↑ related sciences and the reduced derivation context between the actual situation in business enterprises and qualificatory targets in the training programme research of the Arbeitsstelle betriebliche Berufsausbildung [Vocational Training Office], the later Main Department Head of Department 1 of the BBF emphasised the importance of forecasts as a constituent input for the development of programmes and curricula (PORNSCHLEGEL 1968). The results of forecasts are here highlighted as an essential ingredient of the design of training programmes and curricula alongside the normative grounds put forward for training objectives and the results of scientific studies of the ↑ labour market. Besides this anchoring of forecasts in vocational training research, from the 1960s until well into the 1980s various other approaches relating to the planning and economics of training measures were also introduced into such research. These originated in terms of the disciplines involved from a context of socio-economic substantiation (BAETHGE / GERSTENBERGER /K ERN ET AL. 1976); and they supplemented the orientation of labour market research and vocational research towards prognostics (→ 3.1.1; BUTTLER / FRANKE 1992).
The Prospective Turn in TVET Research The classical planning approaches and economics of vocational training and education, assessment of the development of technology, prognostic research in economics and sociology and industrial-sociological research may be considered as the roots of different varieties of future-oriented vocational training research. Their diversity reflects the
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fundamental target square of vocational training with its four corners of work, technology, economy and training. These ↑ research approaches came in for growing criticism towards the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s: on the one hand the low information content of the studies was criticised and on the other hand fundamental assumptions were called into question (cf. GRÜNEWALD 1979). In particular the one-sided derivation context between the “requirements” of the employment system and training objectives was a target of criticism (BECK / BRATER 1977). Education and training were now viewed by most socio-economic research approaches to a greater extent as being an independent functional area of society Within the framework of discussion concerning “Socially-Compatible Technology Shaping” and in the context of “Work and Technology” research, the basic idea of “Qualifications to (Co-)shape Work and Technology” (RAUNER 1988a) was introduced into vocational training research. This basic idea also finds its origin in the critical assessment of the above-mentioned, traditionally onesided, derivation context between technological innovation and curricular reform. This one-sidedness is set against the concept of shaping technology. The concept of shaping work and technology highlights the instrumental limits of technology and moves the focus onto the nature of the development and use of technology as social processes (RAUNER 1988a). The intended and unintended effects and consequences of technology are to be internalised in an emancipatory concept of education and training and curricular development. According to this concept, the skilled work (Facharbeit) itself potentially makes a major contribution to the future of vocational training in its interplay with the organisation of work and with technology and its design. This concept later found its way into the project “Berufe 2000” (see below and MARTIN / RAUNER 1988). A form of vocational training research that integrates the potential and de facto contribution of skilled work into the shaping of work organisation and technology – in other words its fundamental freedom of design – into its various approaches is designated by Rauner as prospective TVET research (1994). Prospective vocational training research is thus the complement on
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the research side of vocational training that is oriented towards the design of TVET programmes. 3.1.4.2
Traditions of Future-Oriented TVET Research
Economics of Education and Planning of Training Measures – Governmental Macro Planning The scientific planning and ↑ economics of education experienced a boom in the 1960s and 1970s. In connection with the Sputnik shock, the attestation of the German education catastrophe by Georg Picht (1964), and the alliance between conservative and emancipatory educational reform ideas, a mood of a new beginning in ↑ educational policy was engendered that was subsequently reflected in a number of expert reports and commissions of experts (cf. e. g. DEUTSCHER BILDUNGSRAT/BILDUNGSKOMMISSION 1972). It was in this milieu that the ↑ Manpower Planning Approach was developed, which had been imported to Germany from the ↑ United States to harmonise the education and employment systems. This soon reached its limits (BLAUG 1970). In this ↑ research approach, the derivation problem is solved by the statistical projection of retrospectively and/or currently observable developments – e. g. growth rates in certain ↑ occupational fields or branches of business – and their extrapolation, on the basis of which structural planning in the educational system is then carried out. Various other approaches to ↑ labour market and vocational research evolved into a critical assessment of the rigid assumptions of this field of research (EDDING 1995). The Manpower Planning Approach in its pure form allows for no substitution and flexibility or ↑ mobility between individual specialised ↑ labour markets. Furthermore, in some cases the effects of demographic developments such as the decline in the birth rate were underestimated and the fundamental assumptions regarding social behaviour, such as the choice of training and occupation, were massively refuted by empirical experience (FRIEDEBURG / OEHLER 1995). The Manpower Planning Approach is compared with the so-called ↑ Social Demand Approach (BLAUG 1970). In connection with the recourse
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to basic individual rights of choice with regard to training and occupation, the planning task here is largely seen to consist of providing a sufficient number of available openings in courses of training to be able to cater to the decisions of students from schools and universities regarding the choice of training. It is thus a question of a supply-oriented approach. From the methodological point of view, this approach is not based on the development of branches of the economy but on observable trends of individual decisions regarding the choice of training programmes. The axiomatic theory of the Social Demand Approach was highly compatible with the programmatic theory of egalitarian and emancipatory efforts to expand education and training. This approach was therefore employed above all in the field of universities and similar institutions of higher education, but it also soon experienced a repulse as a result of the phenomenon of so-called “over-qualification” (TEICHLER 1974). In the final analysis, the social demand approach is based on the assumption of infinite flexibility of the supply of labour. Both approaches are only conditionally applicable to vocational training, as the reduction to supply and demand cannot do justice to the diversity of protagonists and the inherent complexity of qualitative curricular questions in (dual) vocational training systems. More recent approaches in the economics of education and training circumvent the planning problem by means of a maximum possible degree of individualisation of decisions regarding the supply and demand of training measures, e. g., through so-called “vouchers”, like those first advocated by Milton Friedman.
Assessing Technological Development ↑ Technology Assessment (TA) originates in America. American technology assessment was institutionalised in the form of an Office for Technology Assessment, which acted as an informational service to the U.S. Congress. The objective was to obtain timely and scientifically substantiated answers to technology-induced or project-induced political issues (DEITMER 1985). In TA it seeks to weigh the intended and unintended effects of the use of technology in order to obtain a rational basis for decisions regarding the “Whether” and “How” of in-
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troducing the technology in question. Besides the ecological and economic consequences of the use of technologies, as a rule the social dimension of technology is also investigated. TA in its original form is also very widely defined with respect to the term “technology”. An ↑ interdisciplinary basis and attention to different spheres of social interests with respect to the research topic and methods are, therefore, essential methodological features of TA. Various attempts on the part of different political factions to establish TA in Germany at federal levels have failed. (In the ↑ United States, after two decades of work, the office closed in 1995.) In Baden-Württemberg, TA was institutionalised in 1990 through the creation of the Akademie für Technikfolgenabschätzung. From the viewpoint of vocational ↑ training research that is oriented to the design of training programmes, two points of criticism are directed against TA: in contrast to implicit variant forms, TA is an approach that runs the risk of objectifying the classical model of ↑ technical rationality as a linear end-means relation. Moreover the planning and design problem is placed in the hands of experts and is thus in confrontation with the above-mentioned education and training objective of the “Qualifications for Co-Shaping” and of a ↑ participative development of technology (→ 3.8). 3.1.4.3
More Recent Approaches
In current, future-oriented vocational training research, it is possible to make a distinction between interventional, shaping-oriented and analytical methods. A further distinction can be made between observing and participative methods. These differences are exemplified by the approaches deriving from the “Network for the Early Recognition of Qualification Requirements, FrequencyNet” sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) as compared to scenario approaches. These are in some cases carried out in conjunction with the ↑ Delphi method.
Early Recognition Since the mid-1990s, early recognition has been the guiding principle of the “FreQuenZ” network
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sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research: this stands for the Early Recognition of Qualification Requirements in the Network, in which various research institutes are to contribute to the early recognition of qualification requirements through subprojects (BULLINGER /ABICHT 2003; BULLINGER / BOTT/ SCHADE 2004). Quite clearly, this guiding principle of early recognition indicates an increased modesty with respect to the temporal planning horizon. Whereas in the past, forecasting research worked on the basis of planning periods of between 5 and 15 years, the key area of focus of the early recognition programme is the identification of developments that are relevant to the future but are already detectable today, and for which it is possible to assume a relevance for future vocational training. It is less a question of forecasting probable developments than one of identifying important processes of change in vocational training and its context. Thus the commission from the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research states: “... new fields of employment are to be identified, for which hitherto no personnel qualifications exist”. In this context it must be noted that under the conditions of the dual system a course of training is generally not introduced until a sufficient supply of openings for trainees becomes visible in business enterprises. This means that early recognition relates to or should relate to an already completed but hitherto unperceived development of qualifications possessed by certain persons within companies or on the external labour market who have received no specific (adequate) corresponding training. The “requirements of practice” with regard to early recognition are therefore not oriented towards some point in the future, but to the processes of the present, and thus, in the end, to the current requirements situation” (translated from ALEX 1999).
In this ↑ research programme, various methods are used that serve to identify such acute processes of change. Procedures and methods that are used include the identification of “trendsetters”, field interviews at companies, analyses of situations-vacant ads or ↑ comparative studies at the international level. The various institutes within the network are linked to each other via a virtual communications platform to be able to rapidly exchange data and information. Moreover the ↑ communications platform used also offers access points for interested parties with different perspectives. The differ-
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ent projects vary with regard to both their analytical or shaping orientation and their participative or observational nature. Currently a network of the early recognition of skill needs is also set up on the European level (BULLINGER / SCHMIDT / SCHÖMANN / TESSARING 2003).
Delphi The ↑ Delphi method has established itself in various forms in social research. What the different variants have in common is that they obtain relatively precise judgements about diffuse topics (HÄDER 2000; HÄDER / HÄDER 2000). The origins of the Delphi method lie in the military sector, where it is employed to support strategic decisions. The method was introduced by the Californian RAND Corporation, a private research institute, within the framework of sponsored research in the 1960s to investigate questions concerning the interrelationship of technological and social development in a broader context. Major features of the Delphi method are a multi-level structure and feedback loops. In the case of Delphi surveys, in principle the whole spectrum of sociological surveys can be used. The “decision” regarding the methodological details depends on the economics of the corresponding research project, the subject matter, and the size of the population of experts. One thing that all Delphi ↑ research designs have in common is that the population of respondents is confronted with the results of the first survey in order to participate in further iterative rounds of questioning, so that on this basis they have the opportunity to revise their own answers if need be, to make them more precise or to be confronted with other questions which still remain open. In Germany, the last prominent occasion on which the Delphi method was applied was the so-called knowledge and education Delphi (KUWAN / WASCHBÜSCH 1998; STOCK / WOLFF / KUWAN / WASCHBÜSCH 1998; STOCK / WOLFF / MOHR / THITKE 1998) commissioned by the Federal Minister for Education and Research. The objective of this effort was to gain insights into the structural development of knowledge and correspondingly of the education and training system up to the year 2010.
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Delphi investigations are frequently concluded with scenarios. Scenarios were announced in advance for the results of the knowledge and education Delphi of 1998, but have so far not been worked out. According to the distinction made above, the Delphi method can be classified as a participative method. ↑ Participation is ensured through a high status of interest groups and panels of experts as well as through the multi-level structure of the method. The Delphi study named above has an analytical design, as no direct action strategies were derived from it.
Scenario Method in Vocational Training The first approaches for the scenario method originate from the school around the American futurologist Hermann Kahn (K AHN / WIENER 1967) in the 1960s. In its euphoria about scientific planning and the future, this school sought methods that represented an extension of the conventional methods of sociological forecasts. In particular, as an instrument of strategic management planning, the scenario method later proved its worth as a mediumto long-term planning instrument. At big oil conglomerates such as Shell, the demand for strategic instruments like the scenario method was awakened by the shock of adjustment within the framework of the oil crisis in the 1970s. Traditional planning methods had been based on the assumption of stability over time. It was assumed that certain boundary conditions of a decision or of a decision-making area would remain constant, or that the course of development of a variable regarded as a boundary condition remains constant. From this starting point it was now possible to forecast certain variables that were important for entrepreneurial planning (e. g. expected sales or demand for a product). All theoretical and practically implemented approaches employ scenarios to represent alternative action-guiding schemes relating to the future of a certain topic and decision-making area. The following quote reflects the common nucleus of all planning activities carried out with the aid of the scenario method: “A scenario is generally understood to be the description of the future development of a certain subject of fore-
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casting in the case of alternative boundary conditions” (HANSMANN 1983, 11–12).
A further fundamental characteristic of scenarios is that their purpose is not to produce correct forecasts about the future, but rather to influence the thinking of decision-makers and protagonists so that they become aware of the different implications of certain possible paths of development in order to be able to react flexibly. Scenario planning is thus not a scientific method but rather a practical tool to help arrive at decisions with a margin of uncertainty and to open up design and action options. It can therefore be classified in the field of participative methods. The paramount objective is not the precise forecasting of developments and data for certain variables but the creation and/or honing of different action-guiding concepts about possible futures of a defined topical area.
Shaping and Analytical Variants The scenario method was applied for the first time in the field of vocational training in Germany within the framework of the project “Berufe 2000” (HEIDEGGER /JACOBS / MARTIN ET AL. 1991). In this connection, special attention was drawn to the high utility of scenarios as pictures of possible or desirable futures in the process of “discursive communications” and as an instrument of design-oriented planning of vocational training. Scenarios are also used in more recent approaches of the early recognition of qualification requirements within the framework of industrial sciences (WINDELBAND / SPÖTTL 2004). In modern management literature, not only the utility of the results, but above all else, the utility of the process of drafting scenarios and of weighing possible action strategies is highlighted. These processes help members of organisations to develop joint ideas about organisation targets or at least to find a common language and to communicate possible problem areas or conflicting interests. Scenario planning is thus – in modern terminology – also a contribution to the creation and to maintenance of a “learning organisation” (HEIJDEN 1996; SCHOEMAKER 1995; SCHOEMAKER 1991). Whereas in the case of the cited German projects the focus was on the discursive development of joint models concerning the future of TVET, in the
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models originating from the ↑ human resource development (HRD) context the question of the desirability of alternative futures is not posed. These approaches focus on the weighing of possible action alternatives, strategies, against the background of alternative and inherently consistent, plausible futures. Action strategies that are suitable for the greatest number of possible futures are designated as “robust”.
Procedure in Scenario Planning As a rule, the procedure for building up a scenario starts by visualising the different contextual conditions and/or dimensions for the relevant topic area and then vary in these individually in different ways in a second step. Different constellations of contextual conditions are then compressed to form scenarios. Scenarios are thus ideal types about the future in the Weberian sense. On the basis of these scenarios, it is possible to check out strategies and action alternatives for their ↑ effectiveness and to give these concrete shape. Depending on the application context and conditions, designing the scenario can be carried out on the basis of extensive scientific data collections (e. g. in ↑ Delphi rounds) or only on the basis of the evaluation of already available knowledge, e. g. secondary evaluations – a method which for reasons of cost is suitable for small organisations (LENEY/ COLES / GROLLMANN / VILU 2004). Based on the prior discussion there are two lines of distinction regarding future-oriented TVET research. Research can be classified according to two criteria. It can be based on an analytical or an interventional, shaping-oriented paradigm and it can be participatory or non-participatory and observant. Examples can be found in the matrix below: participatory
Observant
interventional, shaping oriented
Berufe 2000
manpower planning
analytical
HRD Business Scenarios
classical labour market research and prognostics
3.1.4.4
Can Prospectivity Replace Prognostics and Planning in Vocational Training Research?
According to the Dutch organisation developer Kees van der Heijden, the optimum definition of time periods for the planning of scenarios is to be found where the quantity of possible relevant uncertainties with regard to a planning object coincides with the quantity of variables that are capable of being forecast (Point S in Fig. 1). In his opinion traditional forecasting methods (F = forecast) are suitable as a well-tried tool for a shorter planning horizon, while later periods of time – as van der Heijden succinctly notes – are governed by the principle of “Hope” (H).
Fig. 1: Different Periods of Time and Suitable Planning Methods (from HEIJDEN 1996)
Experience with traditional approaches of the economics and planning of education and training indicates the limitations of classical prognostics (→ 3.1.1). Only a few influencing and orientation variables of vocational training – such as for example demographic development – can be forecast with a relatively high probability of occurrence. Apart from this there is no solution for future problem complexes in TVET that would derive from the nature of the matter. The processing and utilisation of future-relevant research results with regard to design options is always specific to the interests involved. Against the background of the diversity of protagonists between supply and demand in terms of qualifications, and the inherent complexity of curricular and question complexes relating to basic regulatory concepts and learning between school and the business enterprise, this
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is an important pre-condition for rationalising the discussion about designing the future of vocational training. For this reason, the call for prospectivity as a general criterion of quality for shaping-oriented vocational ↑ training research represents a major and necessary supplement to traditional planning methods and forecasting methods.
3.1.5. Qualification Research Otfried Mickler 3.1.5.1
The Beginnings of Qualification Research in Industrial Sociology
The development of qualification in ↑ work processes has been a focus of research in industrial sociology for several decades. Early studies examined the relation between technological development, social organisation of work and changes in human work (POPITZ / BAHRDT/JÜRES /K ESTING 1957). In particular, Horst Kern’s and Michael Schumann’s study “industrial work and worker consciousness” (K ERN / SCHUMANN 1970) and their results on qualification stimulated the discussion on ↑ educational policy during the reform-oriented years of the 1970s. The study was conceptualised as an automation study within the framework of a large network project by the committee for rationalisation in German economy (Rationalisierungskomitee der deutschen Wirtschaft). Primarily the study focused on changes of technical forms of industrial labour and on the work- and worker-awareness of industrial workers. Nevertheless Kern and Schumann’s industrial-sociological results had a strong impact on the discussion on vocational education during that time. They found a trend towards polarization, meaning that even in automated plants, manufacturing companies were creating a large number of unqualified work places next to qualified ones. This finding led to a fundamental criticism of a concept that had had a strong influence on educational policy during the 1960s. This so-called ‘upgrading-proposition’ assumed a continuous upgrading of occupational requirements, based on the growing complexity of automated technologies and an increasing supply
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of skilled and highly qualified workers in the ↑ labour market. A political implication of the declared trend towards polarisation was that society could not rely on dynamic technological change to create educational capacities. Instead, it was a political task to support the workers’ demand for better qualification and more education against the current tendency of economic and technical change in industry. Additionally this meant systematically intervening into the structures of technology and division of labour in order to create and maintain challenging fields of work for employees. As the scientific interest of the study “industrial work and worker consciousness” focused on other topics than vocational training, the results concerning qualification were more a by-product of the study. This is especially notable in the study’s categories for describing qualification, having been pragmatically generated out of categories from ↑ ergonomics and sociology. 3.1.5.2
Foundation of Sociological Qualification Research
Inspired by these results and supported by the BIBB (Federal institute for vocational education), the SOFI (Sociological Research Institute Göttingen) started a new study with the name “Production and Qualification” (Mickler/ Mohr/ Kadritzke 1977). Its task was to investigate the tendencies that Kern and Schumann had selectively identified more systematically, to survey several industrial sectors with a high percentage of skilled workers and to develop a new instrument in order to analyse qualification requirements. One purpose of the study “Production and Qualification” was to highlight a shift in qualification requirements due to technological-organisational changes in industrial manufacture. It was particularly important to expand the ↑ empirical ↑ knowledge base on the profile and the occurrence of existing skilled work. Secondly the study was to explore the causes and mechanisms of skill-related job design in companies, so that it would be possible to estimate the skill-related potential of economic-technological change. For the first objective, it was necessary to execute exact sociological qualification analyses of compa-
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ny work places. For the second goal, the researchers conducted company case studies on important technological-organisational innovations in manufacturing, and economic-technological analyses of several industrial sectors. This was based on the theoretical premise that in the long run it would not be external institutions, like the educational system, but the process of production itself and its economic formation that would determine the potential for qualification. Between 1973 and 1975 the authors of the study collected empirical data in the following branches: printing (area of type setting); furniture, precision engineering, construction, machine tools, car maintenance, and steelmaintenance.
The Study’s Concept of Qualification Two different notions of qualification were distinguished: Qualification requirements in companies and qualification as an individual’s knowledge and abilities. Qualification requirements mean the need for specific capabilities resulting from ↑ work tasks and technical-organisational working conditions. More specifically these are the technical, organisational and social skills and abilities of the worker that are essential for accomplishing the operationally-defined ↑ performance. These qualification requirements also determine how the individual qualifications acquired by training and experience come into use in the work-process. Therefore, whether individuals can apply their learned qualifications, working in companies is always a process of learning and unlearning with far-reaching consequences for the workers’ situation at the work-place and for their status in the company and the job market.
The Instrument for the Analysis Following Kern and Schumann’s (1970) industrial sociological categories and Hacker’s psychological ↑ action theory, the researchers developed an instrument for assessing qualification requirements. It consists of two tightly related levels of analysis: the ↑ analysis of ↑ work tasks and the ↑ analysis of qualification requirements. The authors conceptualised the categories for capturing work tasks so that they could be matched to
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the categories of qualification requirements without confusing tasks with qualifications and abilities. The description of the work tasks was concrete and detailed enough so that psychological preconditions for accomplishments could be tapped, frequent but also infrequent and complex tasks could be captured, and crucial differences between different workplaces could be described selectively. Furthermore the researchers developed three mediating variables, the factors subject of work, means of work and work organisation, which allowed the characterized tasks to be related to the changes in industrial manufacturing and to the dynamic in the work-task structures and in the requirements of qualification (MICKLER / MOHR / K ADRITZKE 1977, Vol. II, 30). For the second level of analysis, the authors developed categories for the analysis of qualification requirements inspired by Hacker’s (1973) action-structure-analysis. Accordingly, they distinguished three constitutive types of requirements on work capacity: – Requirements of sensory-motor behaviour, i.e. demands concerning physical movements, especially manual skilfulness. – Requirements of automated perceptive behaviour, i.e. the ability to perceive signs containing information, to process these using learned judgement patterns and to transfer the signs into action (e. g. technical sensitivity) – Cognitive requirements as demands on diagnostic planning behaviour, i.e. the ability to grasp new conditions in the ↑ work process and to accomplish new tasks by methodical problem solving. A last important dimension, requirements on workmotivation, was added to the list, a dimension organised not hierarchically but parallel to the other three dimensions. It means the ability to adhere to established norms during work and to translate them into independent behaviour.
Results of the Study The study “Production and Qualification” has contributed several findings to research on qualification (MICKLER 1981): – The level of qualification in a business cannot be deduced from the status of the manufacturing technology. Economic and social processes in the
Areas of VET Research
operative application of technology and in the division of labour have to be considered as important moderating variables. – In most cases, companies did not connect technological-organisational innovations with an explicit qualification policy, i.e. a decision for or against an assignment of skilled workers. In addition, trade unions and workers’ councils seldom resisted the dequalification of job tasks. In subtle ways complex work areas were disintegrated by standardisation and simplification in the course of time, due to cost-cutting or capacity-expanding productivity goals. – On the whole there was a tendency towards disintegration of complex work in manufacture, regardless of diverging economic conditions and innovative trends in different industrial sectors. Only in a few cases (e. g. in ↑ mechanical engineering) was this trend compensated for by a simultaneous increase of skilled work in setup and maintenance. Only maintenance work, as a form of complicated automation work, and assembly work in mechanical engineering withstood a drastic simplification of its functions. – Comparative qualification analysis drew attention to large differences in levels of ↑ industrial skilled work, which ranged from professionally limited tasks in production work to new and highly-qualified maintenance work. Furthermore it highlighted the sizable heterogeneity of presentday skilled work, varying from traditional mechanic to technical and abstract forms of skilled work in automated production. – With regard to methodology, the authors demonstrated the usefulness of case studies in companies and of technological-economic branch-analyses for the investigation of the dynamic and conditions of technological-organisational ↑ innovation processes. Using the new instrument for the registration of qualification requirements made it possible to specify qualification profiles of industrial skilled work and their changes and to array these along cognitive dimensions. It allowed substitution of the previous common simple listing of several kinds of knowledge and skills, “just to do something”, by systematic insight into the behavioural dimensions of qualification types.
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Criticism However, in retrospect one should mention some conceptual weaknesses of the study “Production and Qualification”. The criticism has been made that the study reduced the notion of qualification to functional requirements of the operational ↑ work process, and thereby ignored potential moderating variables between qualification requests and real qualification requirements, like qualifying and recruitment processes. With hindsight, furthermore, the limitation to manufacturing seems problematic. Even though the study examined work-set-up and maintenance tasks, the growing area of technical and commercial white collar workers was not included. 3.1.5.3
Qualification Research on the Problem of Introducing New Professions
The study “Workforce Structures between Pressure to Change and Inertia” by Ingrid Drexel (DREXEL 1982) addressed some of the shortcomings mentioned above. Bound to the tradition of the Institut für Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung München (ISF) (Institute for Social Scientific Research), the study pursued a theoretical and empirical approach that conceives qualification and personnel policy as moderating variables between issues of companies and society. According to this notion, changes in qualification requirements in production are just one of several factors to which ↑ qualification policies of companies react. Companies also orient their policies by variables such as the employment market, ↑ socially defined qualification types (e. g. skilled worker, semi-skilled worker, technician), typical patterns of occupational careers of different types of workers as well as their existing personnel structures.
Reason and Results of the Study The focus of the investigation was the problems that companies which traditionally employed semi-skilled workers encounter when they implement new ↑ professions of skilled workers (e. g. skilled chemical worker, skilled steel worker). The companies were highly interested in replacing semi-skilled workers by new production pro-
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fessions. The traditional trainee-qualification did not suffice any more due to extensive technological change. However, there were large difficulties with the implementation. There was a scarcity of welleducated young people for the new training possibilities, because production work was regarded as unattractive. Conflicts also arose with traditional worker groups as semi-skilled workers felt their careers threatened by young skilled workers. Ingrid Drexel showed that typical occupational expectations and actual careers differed substantially between skilled and semi-skilled workers with regard to gratification, opportunities for advancement and work content. Over the course of time these tendencies solidified into patterns of occupational careers, so that companies could be characterised as either skilled worker or semi-skilled worker centred. One of Drexel’s conclusions is that higher qualification requirements due to technological change did not, per se, promote the introduction of new production professions, but largely depended on traditional employment structures in the companies. These structures, in turn, did not exist independently from external social developments, like the local employment market and the development of the vocational training system. However, an alternative explanation for the observed difficulties with the introduction of the new production professions might be that the new ↑ work tasks did not correspond to the usual job profile of a skilled worker, i.e. they were less challenging. This hypothesis could not be examined, as the study did not assess qualification requirements of the work places.
Evaluation of the Study Drexel’s investigation expanded sociological approaches of ↑ qualification research to include two crucial dimensions: the companies’ qualification and personnel policy and broader social conditions like the vocational training system. However, this does not imply that industrial sociological qualification analysis of technological-organisational innovations is redundant for the assessment of qualification developments. In fact both sociological studies indicated that an interlinking combination of both ↑ research approaches and methods prom-
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ised to be especially fruitful for future ↑ qualification research. 3.1.5.4
Later Industrial Sociological Research
Two important investigations in the 1980s used a methodology that combined the two approaches described above. These two investigations, “Ende der Arbeitsteilung?” (“End of the Division of Labour?”) (K ERN / SCHUMANN 1984) and “Zukunft der Angestellten” (“The Future of White Collar Workers”) (BAETHGE / OBERBECK 1986), dominated discussion on labour and education policies into the 1990s.
New Concepts of Production and Reprofessionalisation of Work An especially surprising result of the two studies is the trend in the development of qualification. Kern and Schumann found that in highly technical production areas unqualified work had been replaced by automation and the remaining production work had been upgraded. They ascribed this trend to a new strategy of rationalisation of companies, which they labelled “new production concepts”. Fundamentally new forms of rationalisation evolved: Companies sought to increase their flexibility by computer-aided automation, nevertheless the contribution of production workers to ↑ efficiency gained a new appreciation and importance – qualification and professional competence were sought after again. In line with this, Kern and Schumann observed a trend towards an integrated use of the workforce in some central sectors of industry (car industry, ↑ mechanical engineering, chemical industry). Companies shifted the brainpower that was necessary for the production from the technical office back towards the shop-floor. In particular they integrated tasks regarding programming, quality control and maintenance with the production work at the shop-floor. In this way, new types of skilled workers emerged, e. g. system-regulation in the automated plants of the car industry – a process one could characterise as reprofessionalisation of production work (K ERN / SCHUMANN 1984, 97).
Areas of VET Research
Systemic Rationalisation and Task Integration Baethge and Oberbeck report comparable results with regard to intensified application of computers in large service companies (e. g. banks, insurance companies, retailing, public and industrial administration) (BAETHGE / OBERBECK 1986). The authors state that ↑ systemic rationalisation as a new strategy of the companies led to an integrated organisation of work. Companies reduced the previous intense division of labour by centralising all of their business activities with a client on one staff member, an option made possible only by new high ↑ performance computer systems and databases. However, Baethge and Oberbeck also point out that qualification requirements developed differently for groups of employees, depending on whether their tasks were market- or administration-centred. For employees operating close to the market (advising customers, sales department, purchasing department) use of technology and integrated organisation of work led to a complex qualification profile. Although their action and decision making style was now essentially determined by technical forms of information processing, the extended range of tasks and an enhanced realm of decision-responsibility upgraded professional knowledge and challenged conceptional thinking in many cases. As far as the purely administrative employees (e. g. accounting, inventory management) were concerned, companies tended to reduce a strict division of labour. However, at the same time they increasingly delimited administrative tasks from market-related tasks, so that in the long term, administrative employees had to face lower chances for a comprehensive professional profile. In this way they incurred a vocational deadlock from which there was no way out due to the solidified dividing lines to the market-areas (BAETHGE / OBERBECK 1986). In recent time several industrial-sociological investigators incorporated the notion of ‘subjectivation of work’ in their studies and consequentially in their analyses of qualification profiles. These new approaches to ↑ qualification research focus no longer on the impact of technological and organisational conditions on qualification requirements and
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qualification, but on the employees’ qualification development. Particularly in new forms of work and qualified service jobs, subjective potentials of employees matter increasingly. Employees largely have to organise their qualification by themselves (BAETHGE / BAETHGE-K INSKY 2002). Therefore, subjectivity is no longer primarily an interfering factor in the business-calculation, needing to be controlled by the management, but has come to be an important personnel resource, utilized by the company. This implies that employees are requested to participate more strongly in the ↑ work process and to become actors in their companies’ production and ↑ innovation processes (MOLDASCHL / VOSS 2002).
Comparison of Recent with Earlier Sociological Qualification Research Early sociological qualification research paid little attention to qualification deficits and consequential necessities for qualification of several ↑ occupational groups. It focused on problems of dequalification by rationalisation and on enhancing restrictive working conditions by qualification oriented work design. More modern studies, in contrast, report novel qualification requirements in production and administration that can be related to substantial problems in qualifying for some groups of employees and therefore demand an active qualifying policy by companies. These studies further identify a danger of segmentation of large occupational groups due to the potential for a partial broadening of qualification requirements and a selective personnel and qualification policy combining to lead employees to lower status in the company and to occupational deadlocks. Furthermore, recent studies no longer define mechanisms of qualification development via changes in the economic conditions of companies and branches, but elaborate the companies’ decisions for innovation and the management of formation processes more intensively. This requires a consideration of the conflicting interests of different actors in the companies concerning the dispute on alternative formation concepts with a focus on the companies’ options in the formation of qualification.
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3.1.5.5
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Tasks for Future Qualification Research
(1) Because previous studies have limited their scope too closely to certain parts of the company, it was not possible to capture shifts in requirements (e. g. from the production to the technical office) and the connected processes of promotion, that are crucial for the development of qualification. Future studies should broaden their areas of investigation and concentrate more strongly on service areas in and outside of the company. (2) Besides the still important variables “technical means” and “organisation of work”, new investigations should more strongly take into account consequences of product development on changes in qualification. Shifts in qualification requirements, along with corresponding consequences for personnel and qualifying policy, can only be captured adequately by tracing the impact of product-innovation especially in the areas of development, construction and planning. (3) Past research has not succeeded in adapting the instruments developed for the analysis of qualification demands in production to qualified tasks of white-collar workers in administration and technical offices. Instead existing work analyses of white-collar work are confined to describing task contents and to listing knowledge requirements (BAETHGE / OBERBECK 1986, 187). Thus future research should develop a concept of systematic assessment and grading of the qualification-relevant behavioural dimensions of qualified administrative and technical work. Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) research, which deals with the contents and objectives, teaching and learning methods, the organisation and the structures of programmes and systems, requires a differentiation into ↑ occupational fields and ↑ vocational disciplines from a perspective that is historical, national and internationally comparative. The training processes for the various occupations are not only fundamentally different in their contents, but also differ essentially in terms of the forms and methods of vocational teaching and learning. Besides research in ↑ vocational pedagogy, ↑ occupational research and sociological ↑ qualification research, which are all
concerned with the general characteristics and regularities of vocational education and training, ↑ research traditions related to specific occupations and occupational fields have developed. Their ↑ research problems, methods and results essentially shape TVET research. These sub-disciplines and ↑ research fields of TVET research developed relatively late, but their roots date back to the beginning of the past century. The task analyses of Gilbreth (1911) and Taylor (1913) can be regarded as precedents of this kind of research. The emergence of TVET systems and ↑ TVET planning engendered a crucial need for scientific expertise for a ↑ domain specific research into qualifications, curricula, teaching and learning. The necessity of a research diversified according to vocational domains was also established by the adjacent disciplines. For instance, the founders of the “↑ studies of work” (→ 5.2.8) point to the limits of sociological research when the contents of work and education come into play. “The gap in the social science literature on occupations consists of all the missing descriptions of what occupational activities consist of and all the missing analysis of how the practitioners manage the task which, for them, are matters of serious and pressing significance” (HERITAGE 1984, 299).
It was only in the last few years that a genesis of research in the vocational disciplines was presented (HERITAGE 1984; PAHL 2005). This type of research has been established particularly in Germany in virtually all ↑ occupational fields since the foundation of the Federal Institute for TVET Research (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildungsforschung – BBF), the future Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung – BIBB). The genesis shows that the necessity of research in the vocational disciplines was also convincingly demonstrated by ↑ vocational pedagogy (MÜLLGES 1975, 8 ff.; ABEL 1963, 3; STRATMANN 1975b, 341 ff.).
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3.2 Research in the Vocational Disciplines Jörg-Peter Pahl and Felix Rauner 3.2.0.1
Conceptual Clarification
Research in the vocational disciplines is based on work organised along the lines of occupations and on vocational education and training that relates to this organisation. Countries with a well developed TVET system typically have a vocational tradition. Following the model of academic ↑ professions the intermediary level of the employment system in these countries is structured according to occupations, which are in turn grouped into occupational fields or ↑ occupational groups (→ 2.3). There is a distinction between terms that denote professional activities and those that denote training occupations. The ↑ US Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) identifies approximately 1,700 occupations in the sense of work profiles, but only roughly 1,000 of these are recognised as training occupations. In countries with a developed system of apprenticeship training the number of training occupations varies from between 200 and 300 (e. g. in Denmark and Switzerland) to approximately 360 (in Germany) to a maximum of 500 in other industrialised countries. The clustering of occupations into occupational fields is justified by referring to the ↑ professionalisation of TVET teachers, the organisation of ↑ vocational schools and the establishment of a basic training that covers entire occupational fields. It was at the UNESCO-UNEVOC conference in 2004 in ↑ Hangzhou (↑ China) that a recommendation for the establishment of twelve vocational disciplines was adopted for the first time on the international level (Tab. 1). On this basis an international Master’s degree for TVET teachers will be introduced (MACLEAN 2006; RAUNER / DITTRICH 2006). Within research in the ↑ vocational disciplines there are four ↑ research fields, which are worked on with varying emphases. These include, diversified according to occupational domains: (1) Occupation research (2) ↑ Qualification research (3) ↑ Curriculum research
(4) Teaching and learning research including research in vocational pedagogy. The investigation of ↑ domain specific implications for and by research and development methods is another research field, which is, however, predominantly a topic for ↑ interdisciplinary and cross-domain methodological reflection (→ 5.1.1; → 5.1.4). The particular character of research in the vocational disciplines results from the high divergence of national vocational education and training systems and the different patterns of the transition from vocational to higher education. Countries with underdeveloped TVET systems and a high proportion of university students have to a large extent integrated former vocational training programmes into university studies. For instance, clinical nurses in the ↑ United States and in some other countries are educated in special nursing programmes at universities in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon tradition of education (BENNER 1984). Around these study programmes and institutes a university level of research in the relevant vocational discipline has emerged. The same is true of many vocational training programmes that were transferred into the system of higher education (→ 3.2.7). The transformation of school-based into university-based vocational education was normally accompanied by the establishment of a research infrastructure related to the profession in question. This infrastructure in turn serves as the basis for the qualification of future researchers in doctoral and postdoctoral programmes. Therefore in the course of the progressive vocationalisation of higher education the demarcation between vocational and higher education research can be maintained less and less. The extension of research in the vocational disciplines to higher education, to the extent that the latter is directed to qualification for the ↑ labour market, is therefore the result. This tendency is also supported by the expansion of ↑ continuing vocational education and training, as its highest level has in the meantime reached the level of university degrees. The chapters in this section, however, adhere to the tradition of TVET research and concentrate on vo-
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Tab. 1: 12 vocational disciplines (VEAL / DITTRICH / K ÄMÄRÄINEN 2005, 15–16)
cational education outside the academic system in their accounts of research in the vocational disciplines. 3.2.0.2
On the Genesis and Development of Occupational Fields
The development of occupation in a wider sense is the subject of a number of disciplines: – Socio-historical occupation ↑ research approaches occupation development as a specific phenomenon of societal development in a historical perspective. – Sociological occupation research is concerned, for instance, with the problem of ↑ deprofessionalisation as a phenomenon of the changing world of work.
– Labour market research is, among other things, occupied with making forecasts on the development of occupations and occupational fields. – The sociology of ↑ professions investigates e. g. the relevance of professional work. – Historical and systematic vocational pedagogical research is dealing with issues in vocational education related to the development and shaping of professional identities. Research in the vocational disciplines is addressing questions like the following: – How do occupations and occupational fields develop in the course of the change of work and professional area? – What are the constitutive features of a profession?
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– What consequences has professional work for organisational and ↑ innovation processes and structures? – Which identification potential do specific occupations have for trainees and employees? – Which substantial differences exist between prescribed ↑ occupational profiles and the jobs actually exercised? – Is it possible to merge occupations into core occupations, and does it make sense to diversify occupations according to areas of specialisation? – How is it possible to prevent the erosion of occupations, particularly in dynamic economic sectors, by means of an appropriate definition of an occupation and the corresponding profile? – How can historical occupation research, which is underdeveloped so far, be improved? (see HOWE 2005). The topic of ↑ domain-specific occupation research, including ↑ sector analyses (→ 3.1.2), is the investigation of the change of professional tasks, the development of occupations and occupational fields as well as the associated change of qualification requirements. This extensive research area encompasses the analysis of the technological change and the development of the organisation of work in society (→ 3.2.1; → 3.2.2; → 3.2.3; → 3.2.4). In particular the cultural differences that shape the national and regional sectoral spheres of work are important (LASKE 1998). If one compares the occupation-based organisation of work in an international perspective, it becomes quite clear that there are considerable differences in the lateral and vertical bundling of ↑ work tasks in the shape of occupations. This leads to the research mission to establish design criteria for occupations on the basis of sector studies and cross-professional studies. Whereas sociological and socio-historical research tends to hold the view that professional work is increasingly in conflict with the progressive instrumental rationalisation of social issues (GIDDENS 1992; GALL 1995; BECK 1993), TVET research has developed criteria of modern ↑ professionalism (HEIDEGGER /JACOBS / MARTIN ET AL. 1991; HEIDEGGER 1995; LAUR-ERNST / GUTSCHMIDT/LITZAU 1992; R AUNER 2000a, 338 ff.). Four criteria are emphasised in particular.
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(1) The context of work: this term is understood, following the understanding that is common in the craft trades, as a definable field of work that is constituted by comprehensive tasks and that is characterised by a topic which is clearly identifiable in the context of the societal division of labour. (2) The reversal of horizontal specialisation through the introduction of core occupations (H EIDEGGER 1997b). The point of reference for core occupations consists of concrete work contexts, the incorporated ↑ work process knowledge and the potential for the development of ↑ professional identity. (3) ↑ Occupational profiles that are stable over time: the definition of stable ↑ occupational profiles by means of work contexts is an important contribution to the attractiveness and familiarity of occupations. Technology oriented and mechanical occupations, on the other hand, face a loss of relevance unless they are updated. (4) Open and dynamic occupational profiles: the concept of open and dynamic ↑ professionalism continues to presuppose a concrete work context. Nevertheless occupational profiles need to be recognised and adequate qualification processes experienced as exemplary for professional work. Such profiles must also offer the possibility to extend them in the course of the ↑ organisational development of enterprises, and they have to be open for technological change. The European research and development project “Automotive Service Sector: Structural Change, Initial and ↑ Continuing Vocational Education and Training” (→ 4.3) was an exemplary research project that brought about the basis for the crossnational establishment of the “car mechatronic” profile. Within the European FORCE programme a methodology was developed for the ↑ performance of these sector studies. The topic of this kind of studies is the technological and economic change in a clearly delimited sector of the employment system such as automotive service or retail trade. Sector studies also investigate the structural change in the organisation of work and business processes and the corresponding contents and forms of initial and continuing vocational education and training (→ 3.1.2). Two essential requirements have to be met. (1) International projects
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of this kind have to involve researchers from all countries participating in the study. This serves to ensure that the implicit and explicit industrial cultural dimensions that shape the change of technology, work and training are captured in an intercultural ↑ research design. (2) Research of this kind is embedded into a ↑ social dialogue. This means that the social partners of the sector in question take part in the monitoring of the study, particularly with regard to issues that directly or indirectly affect the further development of ↑ lifelong learning and the formulation of the conclusions relevant for ↑ educational policy and planning (HEIDEGGER 1995; RAUNER / SPÖTTL 1995c). 3.2.0.3 Qualification Research in the Vocational Disciplines The idea that context-independent theoretical knowledge, the general capacity to solve problems and intellectual capacity ensure higher professional ↑ mobility of skilled workers and a high ↑ flexibility of ↑ labour markets gave rise to a multitude of research projects. The latter were based on the then fashionable hypothesis that the accelerating technological change would lead to a deskilling of professional knowledge and to a corresponding ↑ deprofessionalisation in the organisation of “skilled” work (K ERN / SABEL 1994; ANDERSON 1996; ZIEGLER 1996). In the meantime this hypothesis has been refuted mainly by expertise research. This discipline has demonstrated the importance of professional knowledge for the development of professional competence, thereby contributing to the establishment of ↑ domain-specific ↑ qualification research. “Postulates like the doctrine of the linkage of intellectual success to formal strategies of thought can no longer be maintained […]. Positions of this kind do not comply with the current state of the art in psychological and pedagogical research” (GERSTENMAIER 1999, 67 [original source in German]).
This is also true under the conditions of the growing discontinuity of careers. Professional competence, according to expertise research, is linked to domain-specific knowledge. Qualification research in the ↑ vocational disciplines is facing mainly three tasks:
Handbook of TVET Research
(1) The criteria for the development of occupations in the ↑ occupational fields have to be identified and justified from a design-oriented perspective. (2) Task analyses have to address the question which professional tasks are the relevant ones for the current and future development of occupations. Task analyses also investigate what ↑ work process knowledge is incorporated in these tasks. (3) ↑ Work process studies in the vocational disciplines have to investigate the knowledge that is necessary for the fulfilment of professional tasks and for a participative ↑ organisational development in the enterprise. For these research activities strategies and principles of processual research are recommended, according to which – the representatives of the professional work practice to be developed can express the experience and interpretation from their own professional practice, – results are condensed into a hypothesis only at the end of an open research process, when the data collected and their interpretation have been presented to and discussed with the practitioners involved in the study, – the hypothesis is finally employed in the development of an ↑ occupational profile and a vocational curriculum. The objective of ↑ work process analyses was and still is to specify the work context that are characteristic for a given occupation. These contexts are specified according to (1) the subject of work, (2) the methods, tools and organisation of professional work, and (3) the expectations with regard to the content and form of professional work. From this type of research one has to distinguish traditional task analyses, which have the objective of sub-dividing the work contexts into single tasks and to assign training contents to these tasks. Two concepts of ↑ domain-specific ↑ qualification research have been taken up in international TVET research. The first of these is the “↑ Designing a Curriculum” (DACUM) method for the identification and analysis of professional ↑ work tasks (GLENDENNING 1995; NORTON 1997). Whilst the DACUM method sets the decontextualised tasks as the starting point of ↑ curriculum development, the method of identifying the characteristic work
Areas of VET Research
situations and structuring the latter according to ↑ developmental logic (in the sense of developmental tasks) is based on theories of professional competence development (RAUNER 2002a, 450 ff.). Becker and Meifort (2004) point out that there is the associated problem of normative orientation. The experts from trade unions and industry involved in the development of occupations represent the interests of their organisations in the TVET dialogue. Therefore the definition of occupational profiles as well as training objectives and training contents is influenced not only by scientific criteria, but also by political and practical bargaining processes (MAAG MERKI 2001). The detection of the interaction between politically induced and defined norms on the one hand and the questions, methods and results of qualification and ↑ curriculum research on the other is regarded as a necessary step towards achieving greater rationality in occupation development. 3.2.0.4
Domain-Specific Curriculum Research and Development
The design of vocational education and training programmes as well as the systematisation of the objectives and contents of initial and ↑ continuing education requires a curriculum research that is concerned with the following issues (→ 3.6.1): – legitimation of training objectives, – identification and formulation of the contents of teaching and learning, – systematisation of teaching contents, – connections between teaching and learning, – evaluation of curricula and – evaluation and assessment of learning results, the targeted professional competence development and the contextual conditions of vocational learning. A particularity of vocational learning is learning in the ↑ work process. Professional work does not only constitute the application, the employment and the exploitation of skills, but is also accompanied by the acquisition of new skills. Work process learning in the sense of vocational education and training follows a curriculum and features a systematic order of learning steps. The subject of curriculum research in this field is the identification of the didactic quality of ↑ work tasks and work sit-
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uations, which are essential for the development of professional competence. In addition curriculum research is concerned with the ↑ decoding of the ↑ work process knowledge (→ 3.5.4) incorporated in the practice of professional work, and with laying the foundations for a systematisation of the work situations that are characteristic for an occupation or a vocational training programme. Curriculum theory distinguishes between several criteria for systematisation. Expertise research and TVET research suggest the employment of the ↑ novice-expert paradigm (BENNER 1984), the developmental theory by Havighurst (HAVIGHURST 1972) and the corresponding concept of ↑ situated learning (LAVE / WENGER 1991) for ↑ curriculum development. These approaches are opposed by curriculum theories that view the systematisation of work situations for work process learning as the synthesising of elementary skills. This presupposes the identification of these skills by means of instruments of ↑ task analysis (FERNER 1972; MCCORMICK 1979). ↑ Curriculum research in the ↑ vocational disciplines has brought about various research and development methods. In the domain of clinical nursing the research group led by Patricia Benner took the 5-level novice-expert paradigm by Dreyfus as the basis for identifying the work situations that were paradigmatic for the training of nurses. The work situations were systematised according to ↑ developmental logic and constitute, in the form of case descriptions, the curriculum for the training of nurses (BENNER 1984; BENNER / TANNER / CHESLA 1996; DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1996). In the domain of education, an evaluation concept for a curriculum for the education of nursery school teachers was developed already in the 1970s on the basis of Havighurst’s theory. This curriculum distinguished between four developmental tasks. What this curriculum approach and Benner’s concept have in common is that they are founded on ↑ developmental logic and allow for a subject-oriented systematisation of learning steps and learning contents. These subject-oriented types of curriculum research and development have been applied also to curricula for technical occupations since the mid-1990s (→ 3.2.1; → 3.2.2). The ↑ DACUM approach, which is popular especially in
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TVET practice, has brought about the expert-worker workshop as a characteristic method (→ 5.2.4). Expert-worker workshops are now firmly established as a part of curriculum ↑ research methodology. The DACUM approach, however, is criticised for lacking a foundation in learning and developmental theory (BREMER / RAUNER / RÖBEN 2001). Across all vocational disciplines the discussion continues about the relationship of the professional knowledge represented by the scientific disciplines and the ↑ work process knowledge that shapes professional work. The answers to the question whether work process knowledge has a relevance of its own in curriculum development are quite different. However, the chapters in this section show that the ↑ decoding of the knowledge incorporated in the practice of work, i.e. work process knowledge, is of crucial importance for curriculum research. 3.2.0.5
Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning Research and Research in Vocational Didactics
In ↑ domain-specific teaching and learning research the research interest is directed mainly to the analysis, design and evaluation of vocational ↑ teaching and learning processes. The dimensions of the didactical field (HEIMANN / OTTO / SCHULZ 1965) are thus taken as a topic for research and development. The target groups of vocational learning processes vary considerably from occupation to occupation. To a much higher extent than in higher education the broad range of occupations allows for a highly flexible access of school graduates to vocational education. These school-leavers have very different competences and intellectual profiles (see GARDNER 2002) as well as different professional interests and inclinations. The interest of research in the ↑ vocational disciplines is therefore to study the performance record and the suitability of students who are interested in a particular vocational training programme. It is the mission of research in ↑ vocational didactics to investigate how the prior understanding and the prior experience that the learners have at the beginning of the training period can be transformed into professional competences and developed further in the training process. Teaching and
learning research builds on different learning and development theories and also on a variety of models of competence development. To this date there are no generally accepted scientific foundations in ↑ domain-specific teaching and learning research (→ 3.7.7). Another focus of domain-specific teaching and learning research is the analysis and development of vocational teaching and learning methods for different occupations. For instance, ↑ experimental learning in laboratories and workshops has a high didactical relevance in the domains of electrical engineering and computer science, metalwork and ↑ chemical engineering (→ 4.1). The method of role-playing and its various derivatives in teaching and training methods, on the other hand, are particularly important for the transfer of intrapersonal and interpersonal competence in the education of nursery school teachers. Research in teaching and training methodology therefore points precisely to the problems of quasi-experimental ↑ research designs, for the justification of a teaching and learning procedure does not follow the immanent criteria of a general TVET methodology, but is rather derived from educational goals and contents. The work on the pedagogical tradition of vocational education and training took shape particularly in the great manufacturing industry in the first half of the 20th century and aimed at first to mitigate the effects of Scientific Management (TAYLOR 1911). Another characteristic of vocational learning is learning to qualify ↑ work processes. While Lave and Wenger, in their study on ↑ situated learning (1991), point to the quasi-natural integration of apprentices into the ↑ community of practice, work pedagogy had started already in the late 19th and early 20th century to develop methods of systematic ↑ practical training. In particular the pedagogic Sjöld – a project of Swedish reform pedagogy of the 19th century – that made an important contribution to this development. This concept of work pedagogy gained worldwide popularity. But the attempt to transfer the forms and contents of work into the sphere of schools on the grounds of reform pedagogical considerations had the side effect that the societal character of work was replaced by practical exercises on the simulation of work and technology (LARSSON 1899; REINCKE 1995). A similar
Areas of VET Research
practice emerged in industrial vocational training at the beginning of the 20th century. Large numbers of training workshops were established for course-based practical learning (PLOGHAUS 2001). It was only with the reduction of Taylorist work structures at the end of the 20th century that the relationship between corporate organisatonal development and vocational education and training was demonstrated by TVET research (DYBOWSKI / PÜTZ / RAUNER 1995b). This was accompanied by the development and testing of process oriented training methods (R EGLIN / SCHÖPF 2005) and ↑ process orientation in vocational education and training (LOEBE / SEVERING 2005). Research in ↑ vocational didactics, being involved in the definition of educational objectives, tends to emphasise the normative and substantial aspects of vocational education. A crucial task is the justification of a paradigm shift in vocational education from adaptation to empowerment. The pedagogical idea of “empowering the trainees to take part in shaping the world of work in social and ecological responsibility” (KMK 1991a; RAUNER 1998b), which has been part of the German ↑ training regulations ever since the 1990s, is based on fundamental work of the ITB (RAUNER 1998b; HEIDEGGER / JACOBS / MARTIN ET AL. 1991; HEIDEGGER 1997b). In a number of ↑ pilot studies this guideline was transformed into didactical action by teachers, the design of ↑ learning environments and ↑ vocational curricula, and into appropriate methods of evaluating professional competence (HOWE / HEERMEYER / HEUERMANN ET AL. 2000; HEIDEGGER /JACOBS / MARTIN ET AL. 1991; GROLLMANN / SPÖTTL / RAUNER 2006). 3.2.0.6
Research Perspectives
It is not only the chapters in this section that show that research in the ↑ v ocational disciplines and in the different ↑ occupational fields is unequally developed. In countries with a well-developed structure of occupational domains and with an established university level education of TVET teachers, who have to study ↑ vocational pedagogy and a vocational discipline, there is also some advanced research in the vocational disciplines. This research is supported by a system of ↑ TVET planning and the associated establishment of state institutes for
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TVET research. In this way the national ↑ research traditions are supported and promoted. Whenever vocational and higher education are combined in specific occupational domains, there is a tendency towards the ↑ internationalisation of research in the vocational disciplines. It can be expected that the establishment of international standards for the education of TVET teachers in internationally defined vocational disciplines will also contribute to this tendency. The authors of the present section are aware of this situation and view the publication of their chapters also as an initiative towards the establishment of international scientific communities. At present the activities in most fields of ↑ domain-specific TVET research are largely influenced by the highly different national TVET structures and the corresponding traditions of the education of teachers and trainers. Nevertheless the ongoing processes of developing international structures for vocational education and training and the establishment of bachelor and master programmes as common standards for higher education increasingly shape the education of TVET professionals. This calls for a strengthening of TVET research in the vocational disciplines.
3.2.1
Business and Administration Antje Barabasch
3.2.1.1
Theoretical Framework and Preliminary Remarks
This chapter provides an international overview of research in vocational education and training that is concerned with economic education in a broader sense. The domain of business and administration comprises research in a wide range of ↑ occupational fields such as production and distribution of goods, ↑ human-centred services to the public and the consumer, banks, administration, insurances, transportation, logistics, and ↑ tourism. Potential workers for the above-mentioned occupational fields are trained and educated in many different ways across different countries. Often business education is relocated to universities where undergraduate degrees provide occupational qualifica-
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tions. Despite this general trend, Germany still offers many occupational qualifications that can be acquired in apprenticeships in the ↑ dual system. Education and training for jobs in business and administration is also provided at many different educational levels and for different age groups. Huisinga and Kell (2005) distinguish the research on commercial activities according to five different perspectives. They differentiate between the perspective of organisation theory, the perspective of functional theory, the historical perspective, the economic perspective, and the perspective concerned with the permeation of information and technology. According to this classification, commercial administrative work can be subcategorised and further classified. The perspective of organisation theory for example comprises the structural and procedural organisation of business activities, which can be distinguished in strategic, dispositive, and operative activities. In the perspective of functional theory, commercial activities can be divided into subtasks such as purchasing, marketing, financing, documentation, personnel management, as well as buying or selling goods, and bookkeeping. The historical perspective is concerned with the changes in business activities over the centuries leading to a time in which new forms of vocational training with a strong service orientation and new knowledge are required. The same accounts for the last perspective, which focuses on technological changes and new forms of socialization. Research on teaching and learning in vocational education in the domain of business and administration comprises studies about teaching and learning arrangements, especially the implementation of ↑ information and communication technology (ICT), skills training, ↑ work process knowledge, skill demands and requirements, the restructuring of occupational descriptions, the establishment of new occupations, or institutional arrangements among the various education and training providers. Additionally, the body of research about students’ and teachers’ perceptions regarding learning outcomes and learning/teaching arrangements is increasing as well as research on race, class, and gender questions in the specific field of economics education. Since a variety of themes addressed in
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this chapter are already discussed in other sections of the book, it will mainly provide an overview about studies that are particularly concerned with the many facets of education and training in business and administration. Due to the large amount of different work fields, required tasks, and training needs it is not possible to offer a comprehensive summary of the research that might be available in those fields. The inquiry for appropriate studies had its limitations because in many countries, occupation related research is done within the framework of externally-funded research projects for public institutions and outlined in reports that are often only available in the national language. In most countries, research in this field falls under the auspices of research on economics education, which is taught in ↑ high schools as well as at colleges and universities. Vocational training in trading is rarely an object of research. Research on practical aspects of the ↑ profession is pursued in the scope of human resource and ↑ organisational development. For the categorization of available research studies, I follow Bannwitz’ and Rauner’s (1993) classification of ↑ research fields in vocational education and training but complement it with a few more rubrics. Huisinga and Kell (2005) outlined the fact that in the early 1970s, curriculum theory formulated developmental models with the following points of reference for the analysis and construction of curricula: (1) Educational norms, e. g. vocational training; (2) Prerequisites and conditions of learning; (3) Qualification requirements of professional work; (4) The structures of the disciplines; (5) Legal and organizational preconditions (institutions); (6) Options for designing vocationally oriented teaching and learning. These criteria among others guide researchers in their inquiries about issues related to economics and business education. In this chapter, various ↑ research approaches and fields of interest are outlined according to their focus on qualification requirements and skill demands, the analysis, structuring, and evaluation of training measures, methods and tools, the learners’ perspective, policy
Areas of VET Research
studies, and ↑ labour market outcomes. Nevertheless, some studies go beyond the developed framework and are comprised by issues related to various sections of this categorisation. In order to determine new training ordinances, a large amount of research and development projects were carried out under the auspices of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) in Germany (→ 4.8). At the end of the chapter, an outlook on further research needs is presented. 3.2.1.2
Analysis of Research Directions and Approaches – an Overview
Qualification Requirements and Skill Demands in Different Fields The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, ↑ CEDEFOP, developed reports about skill and training needs in ↑ banking and financial services (CASTELLI 2004) as well as in ↑ tourism (STRIETSKA-ILINA / TESSARING 2005). The first report is mainly concerned with the needs and job profiles of the banking and financial service industries, with particular reference to ↑ ICT in Italy and ↑ France. It contains information and suggestions from companies, associations, and training institutions that are intended to provide a source for technical institutions to review and adapt relevant courses; and it points out current deficits in ICT training supply within the sector. The report about skill needs in tourism highlights the latest trends in the hotel, catering, and tourism sector from an international perspective. Research and analysis in the individual reports were pursued on different levels: macroeconomic, regional, local, sectoral, occupational, and on an enterprise level. The report comprises contributions from 13 countries that focus on trends and skill needs in tourism, new occupations in barrier-free tourism, tourism wellness services, and revenue management. The third part of the report provides some good practice examples and recommendations for the transfer of research results into policy practice. Many studies have been conducted concerning training needs in the tourism and hospitality industry around the world. Baum (2002) analysed the nature of work in the hospitality industry, outlined the technical versus generic skill de-
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bate in Scotland, and explained the education and training process in the hospitality industry. THETA, the Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Education and Training Authority in South Africa, oversees job ↑ skill development for the ↑ tourism, hospitality and sport economic sector. The organisation has developed a Sector Skills Plan for the period 2000–2005 that includes training goals and objectives based on surveys, interviews, and focus groups undertaken with and among industry stakeholders. The report outlines precisely the number of tourism enterprises and employees in the country. It indicates in which sectors employees are needed and which qualifications are necessary and provides implications for skills policy and skills provision (THETA 2004). Finegold, Wagner and Mason (2000) conducted a ↑ comparative study on national skill-creation systems and career paths for service workers in the hotel industry in Germany, ↑ United States, and the United Kingdom. A study undertaken by the Institute Technology and Education in Bremen under the auspices of Rauner and Bremer (2001) outlines methods of innovating occupational descriptions as well as the optimisation of ↑ work processes in the industrial service sector. The study attempts to provide some impulses for the reorganisation of occupational degrees and training programmes. Many articles in the report are particularly concerned with the development of guidelines for examinations. Programmes for the occupation of industrial clerk (Industriekaufmann) were dealt with in studies by Keck, Weymar and Diepold (1997) as well as Paulini, Krischok and Schwarz (1999). The authors of the first paper researched the learning processes at industrial trade workplaces while the latter examined several occupational descriptions in regards to global and international skill and service demands. In Great Britain, Financial Services Skills Council and Skills Mart Retail (Sector Skills Council for Retail Sector), conducted reports on skill needs in the business and administrative sectors (2005b; 2005a; 2006). For the skill need survey, a large number of public policy reports and ↑ statistics have been analysed. Additionally, five interviews were undertaken with learners and potential learners as well as five interviews with employers.
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The quantitative part of the study comprises standardized telephone interviews with 250 employers and 250 employees. In this way, reliable data are offered that indicate skill gaps and needs within the business and administrative industries. Because of the inquiry skill needs such as ↑ information technology (IT), verbal communication, organising, and planning were recognised. Identified skill gaps include financial understanding/budgets, IT, organising and planning, people management, verbal communication, legislation and regulation knowledge, and information management. The report further outlines perceptions of careers in the sector. Finegold and Wagner (2002) have examined training in the ↑ banking sector in Germany. The authors have researched employer’s expectations and training decisions regarding the apprenticeship of a bank clerk. In connection with the realisation of new skill demands a variety of studies focus on new employment and work fields. Rosenheck (2001) outlines new qualification requirements in commercial occupations. His research is concerned with the question: Will the contemporary occupations still be valid in the future? The results indicate that contextual knowledge will be less important than key areas of ↑competence such as social and methodological competence. In Switzerland the occupational term commercial clerk (Kaufmännischer Angestellter) comprises a wide variety of different activities ranging from secretary work and processing via ↑ human resource development, marketing and distribution to accounting and financing. One of the striking results of the study indicates that social competence is increasingly important, which contradicts societal developments towards entsolidarisation, desocialisation, and individualisation. For further research, Rosenheck refers to the change of work organisation, which directly influences occupational descriptions. Of particular interest should be newly practiced management models. The development of ↑ ICT has a direct impact on occupational ↑ work tasks. Independent of those topics, it is also important to look at societal changes such as values and skills among young adults since they will determine the future provision of qualifications. At the end of his report, Rosenheck underscores the fact that educa-
Handbook of TVET Research
tion for the commercial trades should involve more case studies as well as education for soft skill development. Bredow (2003) studied the education of service competence among bankers in Germany and used ↑ expert interviews to learn more about the issue in various new occupations and its implementation in curricula. Other German studies were concerned with the development of qualifications (BRÖTZ / DORSCH-SCHWEIZER / HAIPETER 2006), or decisionmaking, responsibility, and competence in the ↑ occupational field of banking (BÖHNER / STRAKA 2005; STRAKA 2000a; STRAKA 2000b; STRAKA / LENZ 2005). Meierhöfer and Rosenheck (2000) have also studied new forms of occupations. Many countries have established central authorities that oversee ↑ skill development and skill demands in several industrial or ↑ business sectors. Their reports are regularly updated and function as a foundation for policy decisions. The data are often conducted as commissioned research by independent research institutes who gather data from a large number of industry stakeholders but often also compile some qualitative studies.
Analysis, Structuring, and Evaluation of Training Measures, Qualification- and Socialisation Processes Besides a variety of German studies, a few ↑ comparative studies that are concerned with training programmes in different countries can be found. The most recent study from Fulst-Blei and Ebner (2005) emerged from a research project at the University of Mannheim in Germany. The purpose of the study was to evaluate ↑ performance levels of graduates in the programme of industrial sales representative in Germany and a similar programme in Wales. The objects of the inquiry were the comparison of the state of theoretical knowledge and the ability of graduates to independently plan and pursue different tasks. The results revealed that the German graduates seemed to be better prepared for their jobs. Nevertheless, the authors question common plausibility expectations concerning valuations and categorisations. They argue that the performance of educational systems has to be evaluated in a highly differentiated manner in order to have an objective foundation for policy decisions.
Areas of VET Research
Richter (1996) also compared vocational degrees in different fields in Germany and Great Britain. Other authors have looked at ↑ self-directed learning in the education and training of industrial sales representatives (SPEVACEK / PLASSMEIER / STÖCKL / STRAKA 2000; STRAKA / NENNINGER / SPEVACEK ET AL. 1999). Education measures for vocational teachers and trainers have been researched as well. One point of interest is to what extent teacher education programmes would support the development of motivation-directed learning in the commercial trade sector (STRAKA / NENNINGER / PLASSMEIER ET AL. 2001). Walstad (1994), Whitehead (1994), Myatt and Waddell (1994) have researched economic instruction in the ↑ U.S., United Kingdom, and Canada. Walstad’s assessment is very broad and looks at enrolments, testing, coursework and economic achievement, economic content, teacher education, changes in instructional materials, and the role of economists and organisations in expanding and strengthening economic instruction. Although the study is concerned with too many aspects at the same time and remains superficial in the analysis it nevertheless provides an overview about changes in economic instruction since the establishment of the U.S. National Task Force on Economic Education in 1960. Together with the studies undertaken in the United Kingdom and Canada, it offers a valuable overview of research topics in economics education. Beck and Krumm (1994) conducted a study which compared ↑ high school students at the age of about 17 years in Austria, Germany, and in the United States. They used the ↑ Test of Economic Literacy (TEL) in order to find out to what extent students in participating countries perform according to predetermined standards. The results of the study indicate that German-speaking students fail to reach the objectives formulated in the curricula in the same way as their ↑ U.S. American counterparts. Nevertheless, the Austrian students gained the highest ranks. The authors further conclude that the comprehensive ↑ school system in the United States seems to produce more homogenous results than the divergent branches in Austria and Germany. Kim (1994), who compared Korea and the United States, has conducted a similar study
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using the same instrument. One of his results is that students in Korea struggle with fundamental economic concepts and reveal a relatively low level of economic understanding. Other international studies are concerned with comparative perspectives on learning outcomes such as economic literacy (BECK /K RUMM 1994; K IM 1994). One of the German ↑ comparative studies examined the institutional and political embeddedness of vocational education in business and administration as well as the curricula design in Germany, England, and the Netherlands (FROMMBERGER 2004). The two-level analysis concentrates on structural models of vocational education and their orientations towards supply and demand. On the second level, the author analyses the curricula. A major part of the book addresses the methodological constraints of comparative research as well as theoretical models of curriculum analysis. In many countries ↑ tourism education and training is offered at institutions of higher education. Okumus and Yagci (2005) examined the institutional facilitation of tourism higher education in Turkey and provided recommendations for shaping this sector in the future. Tourism education has been transferred from vocational and high school training to programmes at four-year colleges, and associated with the change, a variety of problems occurred such as wrong choice of locations, lack of qualified teaching staff, insufficient facilities and equipment, outdated curricula, and problems with placing students in the industry as well as keeping them there once they are qualified. The authors suggest revising the curricula on all three educational levels (associate, bachelor, postgraduate), offer programmes for specialised and functional tourism degrees, and advocate more collaboration between different institutions of higher education and between universities, training institutions and the industry. In Germany, several studies have been conducted on ↑ decentralised learning at the workplace (DEHNBOSTEL / HOLZ / NOVAK 1992). They concern new forms of learning as well as ↑ work process knowledge. Only a few studies have been found that address economics education in Eastern European countries. Kovzik and Watts (2001) have studied the
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process of restructuring undergraduate economic instruction at Moscow State University. The issues dealt with are training and retraining of faculty members as well as the conflicts that result from using Western versus locally developed textbooks and Western versus Soviet style ↑ teaching methods and contexts. ↑ Research approaches, interests, and questions vary in different countries depending on the development of educational programmes in the field. Many industrialized countries are interested in program evaluations and comparisons in order to learn more about the competitiveness of their degrees and outcomes. Countries, which are still struggling to establish programmes, are more concerned with research that helps to improve educational arrangements and offers.
Analysis and Structuring of Methods, Tools, Organization, and Expectations. The teaching and learning context The Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism, which has existed since 2002, regularly publishes articles on teaching methods used in tourism and hospitality training programmes (ARMSTRONG 2003; CAPSTICK / FLEMING 2002; CHO 2002; DALE / LANE 2004; FEINSTEIN / PARKS 2002; HALL 2003; LOMINÉ 2002, MCGUGAN / MARGARET 2002; MCGUGAN / PEACOCK 2005; SIGALA 2003). In Germany, much research has been conducted about didactical foundations for the development of learning and teaching arrangements in economics education (ACHTENHAGEN 1998, 2004a, 2004b; BECK 2000a, 2005; BECK /K RUMM 2001; BENDORF 2002; DUBS 1996a; WUTTKE 1999). The authors Stiller, Schopf, Brandenburg et al. (2000) were interested in flexibilization and ↑ quality assurance while similarly establishing integrated comprehensive curricula for ↑ vocational schools and training firms. A study by Dumpert, Euler, Hanka, and Reemstma-Theis (2003) focuses on social competence in customer orientation as a didactical challenge. Of similar importance has been environmental education (NEUSS 1995; K AISER / SIGGEMEIER / BRETTSCHNEIDER 1995). Another ↑ research tradition addresses moral development in business education (BECK / DRANSFELD / MINNAMEIER / WUTTKE 2002; BECK / BIENENGRÄBER / HEINRICHS 1997; PARCHE-K AWIK
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1998). Tuomi (2004) provides an overview of the structure of business education in Finland and explains how new pedagogical strategies are implemented in the Edupoli adult education centre. An often-researched topic is the use of a laboratory firm in business education (ACHTENHAGEN / FÜRSTENAU / GETSCH ET AL. 1999; FRICK 2000; STRAKA / GRAMLINGER / DELICAT / PLASSMEIER 2001). Similarly important are studies about business games in economics education (EGGER 1994). Other inquiries have been concerned with topics such as the networking approach as a tool for measuring and evaluating economic contextual knowledge (WEBER 1995). With the internationalization of education and the globalization of markets, research has increasingly focused on the development of intercultural action competence (WEBER 2000). The online journal bwp@ (www.bwpat.de) issue 10 published many articles about the use of laboratory firms as a tool of action-oriented learning in business education. Another cross-cultural study examined curricula in ↑ banking and finance schoolto-work programmes in Germany and the ↑ United States (CLARK 2002). Clark used a qualitative case design mainly based on observations to describe in detail how curricula in the sector are internationalized. International business and banking concepts taught in the observed programmes were of particular interest. The Journal of Economic Education publishes articles about teaching methods in the field such as student journal and reflection papers (BREWER /JOZEFOWICZ 2006), ↑ experimentation as a teaching tool (DICKIE 2006) or qualitative versus quantitative ways of measuring students’ knowledge (BUCKLES / SIEGFRIED 2006; WALSTAD 2006), and the Journal of Marketing Education focuses on methods used in marketing education on various educational levels (AMATO /AMATO 2005; FORMAN 2006; H AGENBUCH 2006).
Analysis of the Student or Learner Perspective on Teaching Methods and ↑ effectiveness, Training Programmes, Degrees, and Outcomes Many studies focus on an evaluation of the students’ experiences in a specific course or programme (BROOKES 2003; HUANG 2005; K ANG / WU / GOULD 2005; LEUNG 2003) or the perceptions of teachers towards their teaching methods and re-
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lationship to students (TRIBE 2003). ↑ Vocational identity among bankers has been a topic discussed by Smistrup (2001, 2003). He describes the results of a single case study in which structural aspects of the social life in banks were researched. A guiding question was: How do individual bankers on the subjective level produce meaning in an interaction with these structures? A survey among 120 Danish bankers all working in customer related functions was conducted and supplemented by 15 thematic narrative interviews. Smistrup found that several of the young employees in his study expressed a strong identification with their bank. The author concludes that vocational training as well as young adults’ positive perceptions of having successfully made the transition from school to work life must play a foundational role. ↑ Vocational identity is important for an employee in order to cope successfully with stressful or conflicting situations at the workplace. Schwadorf (2003) has modified and extended theories about the decision-making and responsibility process (berufliche Handlungskompetenz) and designed a study that focuses on the individual view of the participants, their perceptions, definitions, attitudes, cognitions etc. For her analysis, she used a large sample of 575 participants from different occupations such as bank clerk, sales person, industrial sales representative, or accountant. The results demonstrate that different components of competence are perceived in a differentiated way among the students. Nevertheless, professional competence appeared to be of central importance. Other studies are concerned with the effects of learning cultures on learning outcomes from a student perspective (EBNER 1996).
Policy Studies, Labour Market Outcomes, and Historical Research One of the policy studies found has been conducted in the Netherlands. The effects of a law about adult education and vocational education have been examined in the case of a medium sized commercial school in Winschoten (JELLEMA /K ERSTENS / WAL 2001). The study was not only concerned with the effects of the implementation of a new policy but also with teachers’ and coordinators’ subjective apprehension of the function of their type of
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school. One of the major findings was that vocational education at the school was mainly viewed as a general qualification while teachers were sceptical about the reorientation of vocational education towards the demands of industry and the ↑ labour market. Some studies have been identified that examined the impact of training measures on ↑ employability. Stadler (2006) researched the question: How do employment prospects of elementary trainees and apprentices differ? She used data that had been generalized during the ↑ longitudinal study on elementary vocational education by the Swiss National Youth Survey TREE (Transition from Education to Employment, 2002–2004). The sample consisted of 200 apprentices/trainees in the retail sales and hotel sector at the end of their elementary vocational training or apprenticeship. A historical study conducted by Reinisch (2001) outlined the development of commercial vocational education from its inception until the second half of the 20th century. Adams (1992) researched the historical context of knowledge and theory development in public administration. Horlebein (1989) outlined the history of vocational education and training in commercial fields from 1818 to 1984 in Germany. Bruchhäuser (2006) published a study about the history of business schools in Prussia in the years between 1787 and 1806. Zabeck (1979b) also examined the history of vocational education and the commercial sector. 3.2.1.3
Need for Further Research
Research on vocational education in the sector of business and administration seems to focus mainly on learning and teaching methods, and the learner and teacher perspective on student outcomes, learning effects, and educational programmes. On a micro-institutional level, research is further concerned with the organisation and facilitation of various educational degree programmes and on a macro-institutional level with the comparison of skill demands, degrees, and educational requirements as well as state-wide structures of vocational education and training. Missing is research that focuses on acquiring and teaching the ↑ practical knowledge of the workplace that needs to be distinguished from academic knowledge (HERITAGE
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1984; DEDERING 1996; FISCHER / BOREHAM / NYHAN 2004; SCHÖN 1982). The actual practical knowledge that should be taught in order to prepare students adequately for their jobs would be a valuable source for the reformation and new design of vocational training programmes. Further, largescale studies analysing learning outcomes need to be conducted in the different nations to provide a foundation for the analysis of program ↑ effectiveness. While a lot of research has been found in the fields of ↑ tourism, ↑ banking, and economics education, there seems to be much less available in other special fields of commercial and business education and training. In terms of the methods used to research the field, qualitative studies clearly seem to be preferred. In order to be able to develop generalizing assumptions about the institutional structure, organization, programmes, and learning outcomes more quantitative data need to be collected and analyzed. Finally, additional national and international comparative research is needed to learn more about the differences and similarities in working, teaching, and learning in the field.
3.2.2
EEE/ ICT in Selected European Countries Klaus Jenewein, Alison Shilela and Len O’Connor
3.2.2.1
Clarifications
Occupations in ↑ electrical-electronic ↑ engineering and information and communication technology (EEE/ICT) belong to the same vocational field in the German ↑ VET system (PETERSEN 2006). Vocational fields are standarised according to the recommendations of the conference of ministers of education (Kultusministerkonferenz – KMK). Scientific communities such as the “Arbeitsgemeinschaft Gewerblich-technische Fachrichtungen und ihre Didaktiken (GTW)” (working group for industrial ↑ vocational disciplines and their didacties) in the “Gesellschaft für Arbeitswissenschaft (GfA)” (Society for Labour Studies) are involved in the development of those academic disciplines
which are the main subjects in the TVET teacher education. 3.2.2.2 EEE/ICT as Themes in Vocational Education Research This chapter considers the influence of ICT on the vocational training and subsequent understanding of roles in electrical and electronic engineering in Germany and Ireland. Interesting comparisons can be made between these two countries as the approach to training in this given discipline is so different in each context. In Germany vocational education and training is based on the ↑ dual system, including significant elements of subject knowledge acquisition normally gained in institutions of higher education whereas the Irish experience relies on a traditional apprenticeship model of training. Given these two different approaches to training it is interesting to compare how sophisticated technologies might be influencing expectations and roles in terms of expertise in the electronic and electrical occupations. In Germany the ↑ EEE/ICT occupations i.e. electrics, have been recognised as related areas within one vocational field since the 1960s (→ 2.3). Training in this field begins with basic generic training which is regulated by the national vocational education act and in national degrees (HOWE 2000, 67). There are 14 designated occupations (Berufe) in Germany, whereas in Ireland 26 are recognised, the largest of which are electrical and carpentry joinery. The national training and employment authority (An Foras Aisenna Saothair – FAS) administers vocational training through the Standards Based Apprenticeship (SBA) system, which are delivered jointly by FAS and the Institutes of Technologies and employers. Apprenticeship has gone through something of a renaissance period in Ireland with the advent of a very buoyant economy, the so-called ‘celtic tiger’, consequently the number of registered apprentices has reached an all time high of circa 29,000. Apprentices enjoy full employee status. Ireland has recently developed a ten level National Framework of Qualifications and apprenticeship has been placed at Level 6, which is sub ordinary degree level. Apprenticeship in Ireland is a post secondary ↑ school
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system of training which has a technically focused curricula and no general educational content. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century the occupations in the field of electrics and electronics were considered to be the two key disciplines in the vocational field of electrical occupations in Germany although more recently the field has expanded to include occupations in ICT and media. In Germany the ↑ vocational discipline is now referred to as ‘↑ electrical-electronic engineering’ and ICT (↑ EEE/ICT) one out of 13 vocational disciplines. (cp. PETERSEN / RAUNER 2000; K NUTZEN / MARTIN 2000). Vocational teachers have to study one of these disciplines as their main subjects in the TVET teacher education at universities. The new curriculum framework (Rahmenstudienordnung) for the vocational discipline EEE/ ICT encompasses the following areas of expertise: production systems, building equipment, ↑ information and communication technology, and media technology (UNESCO 2004a, 3). In contrast to the German context, electronics and ICT are not trades in Ireland and a qualification in these occupations is normally obtained by completing a degree course at a university or institute of technology. Graduates would then be qualified to work at the technician or engineer level. However the curriculum for the trade of electrician includes a substantial element of electronics. Changes in technology and work practices mean that each of the two fields of engineering have a large area of commonality. The introduction of ICT technologies has had a profound effect on the development of curricula for the electrical craft sector. Current developments can be contextualized against a historical backdrop in order to track the rapidly emerging developments in the field. 3.2.2.3 Background of the Electrical and Electronic Occupations In Germany research on skilled work in the electrics and communications industry has always been carried out from a socio-historical perspective, including ↑ practical knowledge requirements and regulatory frameworks. Schmidt’s research documents the development of electronics as a recognised skilled vocational occupation by considering the following aspects: the development, anal-
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ysis and evaluation of vocational education curricula (SCHMIDT 1993; 1995; GRONWALD / SCHMIDT 1996). The emergence of electronic occupation guilds at the beginning of the 20th century and the recognition of the electronic crafts in the 1930s gave rise to relatively stable job descriptions (HOWE 2002, 199) in both Germany and Ireland. In Germany the electrical/electronic industry benefited from the growing institutionalisation of vocational education in the 1920s, finally culminating in a regulatory framework and qualification, developed by the “Deutsche Ausschuss für Technisches Schulwesen DATSCH” and the “Reichsinstitut für Berufsausbildung in Handel und Gewerbe”. More recently the regulatory work of the “Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildungsforschung/Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung” (Federal Institute for Vocational Education) was created under the aegis of the Ministry of Economics and implemented in the Vocational Education Act of 1969 (HOWE 2001b, 2004). When one considers the current organisation and design of skilled occupations in the field of electronics and electrical engineering in Germany and Ireland it can be noted that the expansion of ↑ information technology has not resulted in a significant change in the description of ↑ occupational task. This somewhat surprising result demonstrates relative stability in the field of electrics despite the exponential growth of the ‘knowledge based’ or ↑ ICT driven industry. Although the categorisation of the electrical/electronic occupations has changed quite often in Germany since 1972 (RAUNER 2003a), a relatively stable system of task structures and job descriptions has been maintained. For this reason it seems inappropriate to advocate modernising reforms in vocational educational training, (HOWE 2004). An overview of the alignment between training and qualifications informs this argument for the German context. 3.2.2.4 Qualifications in EEE/ICT A body of research into qualifications for the field of ↑ EEE/ICT has been established in Germany alongside the development of the regulatory instruments governing this ↑ occupational field (→ 3.4.1). The analytical instrument developed by Pfeuffer (1972) refers to:
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– Twenty-two skills and cognitive competences in the field of material processing like filing, sawing, turning and splicing; – Twelve ↑ basic skills and cognitive competences for the realisation of tasks in the field of electrical engineering, eg “working on and preparing of lines and cables for energy transfer” and “production of spools for units in high-frequency engineering”; – Fourteen tasks in the area of assembling, running, and connecting for example “assembly through riveting”, “production of force locked connections”; – Four tasks of measuring and ↑ controlling for example “measuring of electric variables”, “controlling of electric function”; – Four task areas of initiation, maintenance and repairing (PFEUFFER 1972, 12).
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With this analytical instrument, Pfeuffer captures basic skills of material processing as well as mechanical processing of electric units, lines and cables. Use of this research instrument made a significant contribution to the foundation of a basic curriculum across the whole vocational field as well as to the introduction of a staged framework of qualifications in Germany (HEIDEGGER /JACOBS / MARTIN ET AL. 1991, 157) resulting in the initiation of a complex pathway. This development represents a new direction in vocational education in that it reflects a move away from ↑ situated learning (learning in qualifying occupational contexts) and a move towards a staged framework of vocational education, which is considered to be problematic. In a series of extensive studies in the 1980s and 1990s, Heidegger et al. addressed the question of the newly emerging qualification requirements
Tab. 1: Development stages in the German system of electric/electronic and ICT occupations (Howe 2002, 102)
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for this vocational field. Inter alia, an approach for “gestaltungsorientierte Berufsentwicklung” (shaping oriented ↑ curriculum development) was established as the foundation for the modernisation of electronic occupations. The research uses a scenario approach to explore the correlation between technological change, the changes in occupational functions and knowledge, and new forms of work organisation. The research concludes that these changes are non-deterministic. As a consequence of this research four corresponding scenarios were developed to determine central points of the future development in the shaping of technology and its accompanying occupations, as well as the shaping of vocational education and training in industrial production. In the Irish system the curricula for all the trades in the SBA are based on a functional analysis of the industry requirements of the trade. Prior to developing curricula, the National Apprenticeship Advisory Committee (NAAC), which advises FAS on all matters relating to apprenticeship, initiated a functional analysis of the requirements of occupational roles by conducting two surveys among employers to establish the range and standards of skills expected from crafts persons in each trade (O’CONNOR 2004). Most of the curricula are currently being revised to take account of changes in technology, work practices and health and safety but this is not reflected in any changes of occupational titles. The education and training of crafts people is not just the development of appropriate curricula, but also the manner in which the learner develops skills, knowledge and competences. Enyon and Wall (2002, 320) argue that from the academic literature one can see that the definition of competence is complex. Apprenticeship is not simply the acquisition of a series of discreet levels of competence, but the development of cognitive abilities that lead to effective and superior task ↑ performance in the workplace. The content of training is integrated in a manner which ensures the learning of practical skills in the same learning units as the pre-requisite theory, mathematics, science, drawing and personal skills, which underpin application (FAS 1997). Although this approach to the curricula has been the subject of some disagreement, a critical aspect of any apprenticeship
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system is that what is learned in the off-the-job element complements that which is learned in the workplace. Training for electricians in Ireland requires a substantial amount of training in electronics together with cross disciplinary skills such as electro-mechanical and electro-pneumatic skills. In a study conducted by Drescher (1996) two dilemmas are identified characterising the electroservicing in automated processes in the area of networked production. In case of a failure, the service electrician needs to establish the cause of failure through all layers of the systemic technologies, starting from the graphical user interface, computer- and network supported equipment and working systems to the level of IT-processed electronics (aspects of ↑ diagnosis- and maintenance depth), while at the same time keeping in mind the ICTsupported cross linking between the production-, planning- and ↑ controlling process (aspects of diagnosis- and maintenance denoting breadth in subject knowledge). For this reason a comprehensive understanding of the links between the systems in the area of electronic maintenance is challenging. The need for the integration of computer- and network based systems (→ 3.8.2), in training reflects the need for skilled maintenance workers to have the depth of knowledge as well as the breadth in order to carry out diagnosis and maintenance tasks (BREMER /JAGLA 2000; DRESCHER / MÜLLER / PETERSEN 1995; DITTRICH 2001). Research into the change of tasks of skilled workers in the electrical/electronic occupations in the area of automated equipment and processes shows that system controllers and maintainance crafts people have to display a higher level of competence in occupational processes than in less automated processes contrary to the widely held view that automation of autonomous systems and the substitution of humans with ↑ artificial intelligence might reduce the need for high level competences (DRESCHER 2002; EHRLICH 2002; DITTRICH 2001, 2002; RAUNER 2001a). This research has given rise to discourse about the need for further research into ↑ domain specific qualifications in Germany (R AUNER 2002d) although the Irish system of training for electricians suggests that the dilemmas identified by Drescher’s study may not be relevant in Ireland because of the breadth and depth of training required
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in the apprenticeship system. The challenge for trainers and educators in Ireland is to produce apprentices who are equipped to engage in ↑ self-directed learning and to engage in ↑ lifelong learning to ensure that they can cope with the ever changing technology in their trade. One of the occupations currently being examined by the National Apprenticeship Committee on behalf of FAS is Structured Cabling. This occupation is a growing area of significant economic importance. It is concerned with the installation and maintenance of ↑ ICT infrastructure in buildings. While qualified electricians have developed competence in this area, it is indicative of the need for broad and in-depth training of apprentices. Current discussions in Germany similarly emphasise the need to include generic concepts of ↑ education theory, foundations of learning theories and the didactic concepts emanating from these. The inclusion of this normative orientation links the domain specific ↑ qualification research with other development orientated and shaping oriented ↑ research traditions, for example the ‘work and technology research’ (ULICH 1994; JENEWEIN /K NAUTH / RÖBEN / ZÜLCH 2004; → 3.8; → 3.8.1). A further focus of research in the vocational field of ↑ EEE/ICT in Germany has included an evaluation of the realignments of the industrial electrical/ electronic occupations since 1972. In this respect the Federal Institute for Vocational Education in Germany (“Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung” BIBB) has conducted extensive evaluation projects with ↑ participation from external research groups (HEGELHEIMER 1979; DRESCHER / MÜLLER / PETERSEN 1995; BORCH / WEISSMANN 2002; PETERSEN / WEHMEYER 2001). The key findings of the ↑ evaluation study by Drescher et al. (1996) were: (1) More than 15 electrical engineering occupations in the industrial and crafts sectors overlap to such an extent that it is reasonable to merge them into two core occupations: – machine and automatisation electronics technician, – communication electronics technician (op. cit., 418) (2) The school curriculum and the curriculum for ↑ in-company training bear little relation to each
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other in terms of their content and aims. The reason is that school-based learning is based on the contents of electrical physics and electrical engineering whereas in-company training is oriented towards professional ↑ work processes. The proposed solution to this problem is to take ↑ work process knowledge as the common point of reference for an integrated vocational curriculum (op. cit., 418 ff.). This proposal was taken up by ↑ TVET planning in the course of the further development of the electrical engineering occupations. Since the 1990s research into qualifications in the area of electronic trades emerging from Germany has engaged primarily with two levels, namely: the identification of work processes in a customer oriented operational context (cp. HÄGELE 2001, 136 ff.) and the electrical innovations in building systems technology. The latter represents the largest sector in electronic skilled work. The skills of electrical installation workers show a fundamental change in tasks, which has increasing significance for ↑ interdisciplinary co-operation with different occupations (cp. JENEWEIN / PETERSEN 2002). Here, the classical task content still dominates the operational processes of the electrician. Some research (HÄGELE 2001) shows that changes in tasks are manifested rather more slowly in job descriptions than in educational content. In an extensive ↑ task analysis, Hägele identifies ten typical work processes for electricians (Table 2). The configuration, implementation, operation and maintenance of automation facilities assume a holistic view of building automation. “The limited view of the technology” is rather damaging (DITTRICH 2001, 149). Whether the electrical engineering craft enterprises can manage this change of tasks or whether they will lose this (vital) business area to engineering offices and industry remains to be seen (cp. K NUTZEN 1999; 2000; JENEWEIN / PETERSEN 2002; BLOY 2002). Tab. 2: Typical work processes of the electrician (HÄGELE 2001, 137)
Context is an important factor to consider in this vocational field Samurçay and Vidal-Gomel show the importance of context in this vocational field (2002, 148). The authors make distinctions in the investigation of electrical ↑ work processes presenting potential risks. Three phases were differentiated: – ↑ Diagnosis phase,
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3.2.2.5 Education and Qualification Processes
Tab. 2: Typical work processes of the electrician (HÄGELE 2001, 137)
– Making-safe phase – Repair phase (150). The case study describes the management of the working process knowledge and its relevance to the development of competence, which is discussed in the context of Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories of the dialectic development of cognition (154). The following elements are identified as necessary for competent management: – Learning through real working situations, – Understanding the importance of working processes, – Integrating aspects of risk prevention and error diagnosis in technical learning processes. The authors counter the view of Taylorist work organisation, suggesting a preferred model of preventive maintenance which depends in part on ↑ work process knowledge (159).
Between 1971 and 1978 a countrywide ↑ pilot project investigating learning and teaching media, the “Mehr-Medien-System ElektrotechnikElektronik” project (MME) was conducted in Germany. Subjects of this research included fifty eight vocational education schools as well as more than twenty companies in the electronics industry (1971–1978) (→ 2.4). With this MME-project, a new concept of initiating pilot projects combined with vocational education and ↑ training research has formed a new and important way of researching vocational education. The impact of pilot projects, based on quasi-experimental methodology, can be considered to have had a catalysing effect on action research resulting in accelerated changes and new approaches of researching in the field. (GUTSCHMIDT/K REIGENFELD / LAUR ET AL. 1974, 127 ff.) Within the scope of the scheme, facilities for learner centered experimenting emerged for the following ↑ subject areas: electrical engines, AC/DC technology, digital and power electronics as well as electrical protection measures. Another key aspect of the MME-pilot project was the research into the significance of ↑ experimental learning and the scientific orientation in learning processes. A contribution by Adolph (1975) questions the oft held view that scientific oriented learning means learning a “theoretical” formal language, which doesn’t necessarily relate to individual experiences with technological systems and processes and the ensuing skills acquired. He advocates distancing oneself from this view, preferring a rather formal understanding of education, which is based on the idea of subject knowledge acquisition and independent learning processes. This reflects the current position in Ireland where the focus is on autonomous ↑ lifelong learning (O’CONNOR 2006). Experimental learning as a basic form of vocational learning has since been the subject of research and development in the vocational field of ↑ EEE/ ICT (EICKER 1983) in Germany. In a significant number of pilot projects, forms of experimental learning and action learning were developed further. Special importance from a didactical point of view has to be accredited to the pilot project MCA
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(cp. BEHNKE / SIEBALD 1987) because the concept of design-oriented didactics in vocational education was first tried in the vocational field of electronics. The concept was later adopted by the federal states of Germany in the conference of the ministers of education (Kultusministerkonferenz – KMK) for the learning in ↑ vocational schools (KMK 1991a). This development found its sequel in a project for shaping oriented ↑ learning strategies (“Gestaltungsorientiertes Lernen”, cp. HEIDEGGER /JACOBS / MARTIN ET AL. 1991; PETERSEN / RAUNER / STUBER 2001). The development and evaluation of new methodological concepts and learning locations enabled a revised approach to the traditional division of ↑ task allocation between vocational schools and enterprises for the design of vocational learning processes. This aspect was picked up in nation-wide pilot project research in programmes concerned with the cooperation between learning locations. For electrical/electronic occupations pilot projects had particular relevance for ↑ work process oriented ↑ curriculum design (HEERMEYER / HEUERMANN / HOWE 1999) and the pilot project “Lernortkooperation” (JENEWEIN / SCHULTE-GÖCKING 1997; SCHULTE-GÖCKING 1999). The issues of work related education and new methodological concepts for vocational learning locations were closely scrutinised for the trades of electrician (“Elektroinstallateur”), sanitary, heating, air-condition and refrigeration engineering (“Sanitär-, heizungs- und klimatechnischen Handwerke SHK”). The task oriented learning, in turn, has been put into practice for the electronics in one ↑ pilot project concerned with the development of customer orientated learning concepts (NICOLAUS /K ASTEN 1999, 116 f.). This was further enhanced by proposals for the integration of general education in task process oriented contexts (with the methods repertoire business game, scenario method, future shop floor, and ↑ technology assessment – cp. ibid.). In his presentation of forms of learning in simulated contexts – instruction-, product- and project-oriented learning – and in real work environments Hahne (1999, 204) presents an overview of ↑ new didactical approaches in vocational education. A characteristic is learning in authentic contexts with identified learning possibilities, for which Franke/Klein-
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schmitt name six different dimensions: problem complexity, action possibilities, variability, integrality, social support and value for training processes (1987, 47). Proposed instruction types for a work-oriented education as an electrician are primarily concerned with installation (fluorescent lighting, sub-distribution of electric energy, electrical installation of bathrooms) and ↑ development tasks (motor control technologies, Europe Installation Bus EIB) (NICOLAUS /K ASTEN 1999, 116 ff.). The approach to vocational training in this field in Ireland starts from the premise that the totality of learning must be structured to ensure that the total process of learning prepares the learner to cope with ever increasing change. In order to achieve this the learning package must develop within the learner the capability to draw on his/her repertoire of skills knowledge and competence to not only diagnose the source of problems, but also to effect economic solutions to the problem. It is important therefore that there is a clear link between the vocational curriculum and the requirements of industry. Heraty et al. (2001, 179) opined that increasingly throughout Europe, countries are investing heavily in ↑ lifelong learning, and are doing so in the context of an ageing labour force, rapid technological change, increased challenges and competitiveness as a result of the ↑ globalisation of firms. research undertaken by Sneyd (2004) into apprentice learning indicates there is a significant and discernable difference in ↑ performance between apprentices who show evidence of independent learning and those who are achieving better results in examinations. Employers are concerned with training for industry while educationalists take a more holistic approach to the development of curricula (O’CONNOR 2006, 38). The concept of mastery in the medieval guilds essentially meant the crafts person knew everything there was to know about his occupation. In modern times the word’ mastery’ does not have the same meaning as crafts persons have to be life-long learners to keep pace with new and changing technologies. This is especially true in the ↑ EEE/ICT sector where crafts people have to be perpetual apprentices.
Areas of VET Research
3.2.2.6 Latest Developments Latest developments in the field in Germany have been characterised by the introduction of occupations in ICT in 1997 and by the rearrangement of the crafts- and industrial electronics occupations in 2003 (JENEWEIN / PETERSEN 2003). Changes included the abandonment of the differentiation between basic and subject specific education. The differentiation in core and subject specific qualifications is a concept pursued in information and communications technology occupations for the first time. Research in the vocational education sector responds to these developments on two levels. On the one hand, the issue of including information and communications technology in the electronical subject specific work is taken up. Additionally the relevance of information communications technology-specific subject knowledge for the development of work in classic electronics is researched (STUBER 2000). On the other hand, work in the area of re-orientation of the ↑ occupational field of electronic engineering with an emphasis on “vocational informatics” gains in importance (STUBER 2002). Here, the following issue is raised: Which developments are common to both the occupational subject specific work and in the information and communications technology and media sector in the traditional field of ↑ electrical/electronic engineering? Furthermore, which didactical models can one employ to meet the challenges posed by these developments? Cornerstones can be considered to be learning task concepts, developed for the electronics occupations. The importance and links with these methods are discussed using the example of ↑ information technology subject specific work in Stuber 2002, 166. Despite the declining numbers of apprentices in the crafts- and industrial electronics occupations, the quantitative importance of training for occupations in EEE/ICT has not been reduced. On the contrary electronics and ICT are increasingly part of the key technologies of the 21st century for all economic and public areas and can be seen to be developing into a transverse discipline (RAUNER 2003a, 108). Much of the literature on the training of craftspeople refers to the need for training packages to keep
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abreast of developing technology, new work practices and issues of health and safety. Hodkinson (1998, 195) argues that workers need high levels of education in order to continually adapt to new and demanding work opportunities. However, less thought is given to the early identification of obsolete skills and the culling of these training programmes, particularly from the college/school based element of the programme. The challenge for researchers is to undertake research to develop a strategy for early identification of obsolete skills, particularly in the electrical/electronics sector where change is occurring so rapidly in industry. The vocational-scientific research of the 1990s is characterised by the orientation of vocational education on operational ↑ work processes. A whole range of single projects is relevant for this discussion. A structuring proposal for a new macro structure of the syllabus for commercial-technical occupations was already provided in a report by Rauner, which covered basic education in electrical/ electronic engineering (1986, see also 1996a). The previous sequence for vocational education consisting of a scientific-mathematics based education followed by subject-specific education relating to electronic systems no longer forms the framework for the curriculum content in a school of vocational education in Germany. The ↑ novice-expert paradigm (DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1992) and the concept of developmental tasks (HAVIGHURST 1948), four learning areas are constituted, which are arranged in the following sequence: orientation and overview knowledge, context knowledge, detailed knowledge and functional knowledge (RAUNER 1996a, 98). These concepts have been continued by works relating to curricular design of work oriented learning processes in the ↑ occupational field of ↑ EEE/ICT (cp. PETERSEN / RAUNER 1995; PETERSEN 1996b; R AUNER 1996a). The evaluation project relating to the Hessian syllabuses (PETERSEN / RAUNER 1995) resulted in the standardisation of syllabuses for the occupational field of EEE/ICT (RAUNER / SPÖTTL 1995b). The research and development schemes for the development orientated design of education programmes in the occupational field of ↑ EEE/ICT are expressed in an “integrated” vocational curriculum
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in Germany (RAUNER / SCHÖN / GERLACH / REINHOLD 2001). As a consequence the research results discussed were partially put into practice at a curricular level during the course of the rearrangement procedure in 2003 (cp. K ATZENMEYER 2003, 116). 3.2.2.7
Perspectives
Research into teaching-, learning- and qualification frameworks in the occupational field of EEE/ ICT has revealed notable changes over the course of three decades. These changes have given rise to new initiatives for new forms of learning such as action-learning situated and ↑ experimental learning and for the design of ↑ vocational curricula, even going further than the occupational field. However little systematic research has been undertaken in the didactical areas of the acquisition of subjective action orientated subject specific terms and theories. A few attempts can be found in Rauner et al. 1975; Hass 1979; Eicker 1983; Adolph 1984; Horn 1996; Jenewein 1998; 1999; 2000; Rauner 2004b. This is also true for the development of and research into higher education curricula for studies in the commercial-technical science EEE/ ICT. The concept of the teaching-oriented subject science electronics (GRONWALD / MARTIN 1982) proved unsustainable as the teaching methodology for electronics developed in Dresden (ROSE 1982). Consequently neither of these scientific approaches for defining the ↑ vocational discipline EEE/ICT has been further developed. The manner in which apprentices in the electrical/electronic sector are taught is crucial to the future of industry, provided curricula are continuously updated, because what is taught must take precedence over how it is taught, hence the necessity to ensure the relevance of the training programme. Curricula must be reviewed regularly so that change is incremental, both for the inclusion of new technology and the deletion of obsolete technology, which presents a challenge for those associated with industrial training. Therein lays a central challenge for the continuing ↑ professionalisation of the subject-specific degree study of the commercial-technical ↑ subject area of ↑ EEE/ICT. The framework study regulations provided by the GTW (RAHMENSTUDIENORD-
GEWERBLICH-TECHNISCHE WISSENSCHAFTEN 2004b) could provide an important orientation in this respect (see also PFEIFFER 1998; HOWE 1998; MARTIN / PANGALOS / RAUNER 2000).
NUNGEN
3.2.3 Construction Johannes Meyser and Ernst Uhe 3.2.3.1
Introduction
The German building and contracting industry is extremely important as an economic sector, a source of employment, a setting for initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training, and an actor engaged in the creation of living and working spaces. In Germany, the building trade currently employs a workforce of 1.6 million, consisting of two main producer groups, the building construction and building finishing trades. It accounts for over 11 per cent of the gross domestic product. The building and contracting industry is also an important provider of initial vocational training. Despite declining numbers in absolute terms, more young people receive initial vocational training in this industry than in most other sectors. The training rate of 9.4 per cent is also higher than the average for other sectors (cf. BMBF 2005; BMWA 2005). This is explained in good part by the levy-based financing of initial vocational training, which is a long-standing tradition in the building and contracting industry. Based on a voluntary agreement between the social partners, all firms in the industry have, since 1976, contributed a levy towards the costs of initial vocational training. The majority of the funding is then paid out by the Sozialkasse der Bauwirtschaft (SOKA-BAU), the German construction industry’s “leave and wageequalisation fund”, to the firms actually providing initial vocational training. Thus, vocational learning is a major priority in the building and contracting industry. At the same time, it is a permanent factor in competitiveness, because efficient learning about innovations, ↑ mobility, market opportunities, and any potential for initiating and shaping development is crucial for companies and individual employees alike.
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It is by no means easy to classify the German building sector or neatly divide it from other sectors. One immediate indication of this is the proliferation of designations for the industry: Baugewerbe (building trade), Bausektor (building sector), Baubranche (building industry), Bauwirtschaft (building and contracting industry), Bauhauptund Baunebengewerbe (building construction and building finishing trades), and Hoch-, Tief- und Ausbau (construction engineering, civil engineering and structural finishing), to name but a few. It is also a major challenge to identify all the different aspects of the construction industry. In addition to work carried out directly on building sites, workers from many sectors of industry are involved in other ways, and many production, processing and service trades have close links with building work. Some examples are: – Construction material, cement and natural stone manufacturing, – The construction machinery industry, – Steel and light metal construction, – Architecture and engineering practices, – The housing industry and property management, – Facility management, technical building surveillance and cleaning. This brings the total numbers employed in the construction sector to around 10 % of the entire working population in Germany (SYBEN 1999, 15 ff.). A society displays its cultural and economic identity in its buildings, and the construction of buildings is a basic human activity in all cultures and in all eras. Nature is reconstructed and rendered accessible for personal and social enrichment. Building influences the development of cities and regions. Another time-honoured tradition is that building work is organised in line with occupational categories. However, it is striking that vocational research in this field is still at an embryonic stage, and the same phenomenon holds true for nearly all the vocational fields which are thought of as “traditional” and “elementary” (e. g. agriculture, personal care, ↑ nutrition and ↑ home economics). This stands in manifest contrast to the interest in “modern” vocational fields (such as metal technology, electrical technology or chemical technology). In the wake of major technological developments, the
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work associated with recognised occupations in these fields has incorporated wholly new content and new forms of organisation and training; this, in turn, has attracted considerable attention from vocational education and ↑ training research. 3.2.3.2 Recognised Occupations, Vocational Training and Company Structures in Construction Over the long history of the construction industry’s development, a multi-level division of labour has taken place. In order to describe the occupations primarily involved with building, the term Berufsfeld (↑ occupational field) must be understood in a very broad sense, since in this case it spans the planning, design, foundation-laying, construction, furnishing and maintenance, structural finishing and equipping of residential and commercial property as well as the construction and maintenance of roads, transport routes and utility systems. Defined back in 1978, the year in which the Berufsgrundbildungsjahr (one-year prevocational course) was introduced, the category designated Vocational Field IV: “Construction Technology” (designated “Construction and Wood Technology” between 1972–1978) only encompasses a subset of all building occupations. In this vocational field, consisting of 28 recognised occupations requiring formal vocational training, 19 of the occupations are subject to the “↑ training by stages” policy, which was introduced in 1974 and updated in 1999 (BIBB 1999). Almost 90 % of all trainees in the occupational field of “Construction Technology” take up initial vocational training in one of these 19 occupations, particularly the occupations of mason, concreter, road builder, duct builder, carpenter, stucco plasterer and dry construction builder. A common basic training programme spanning the entire vocational field is topped up with a phase of specialised training. The first stage is completed after two years, culminating in qualification as a building construction worker, civil engineering construction worker or construction finishing worker. This is the basis for the second stage, which leads to 16 individual occupational qualifications. Nine further construction occupations, such as sealing operative, façade erector, roofer and ar-
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chitectural draughtsperson are not covered by the training-by-stages programme. Added to these are the occupations not assigned to any vocational field, although construction is certainly their sphere of work (e. g. glazier, construction plant operator, asphalt worker, scaffolder, chimney sweep or surveying technician). Workers from other vocational fields are also employed on construction sites, especially from Vocational Field V: “Wood Technology” (e. g. joiner and wood mechanic – building supply industry) and Vocational Field IX: “Paint Technology and Interior Design” (e. g. painter and varnisher, structural and property coating worker). They are mainly involved in finishing buildings, façade work, the coating and cladding of concrete, steel or masonry sections and the rehabilitation and renovation of built structures. There are also strong affinities with the occupation of plant mechanic for sanitary, heating and air conditioning systems in Vocational Field II: “Metal Technology”. Similarly, the vocational field of “Agriculture” has points of contact with “Construction Technology”. Horticultural and landscape construction involves a diverse range of road and walling work, for example, which would otherwise be assigned to “Construction Technology” occupations. To ensure that basic education and training covers the entire vocational field, in-company initial training in the vocational field of “Construction Technology” (where the ↑ learning venue is a building site) is supplemented with instruction in inter-company ↑ vocational training centres on quite an extensive scale: 16–20 weeks in the fi rst year, ten weeks in the second year and four weeks in the third year. In the vocational fields of “Wood Technology” and “Paint Technology and Interior Design”, inter-company initial vocational training is also carried out, though not on such a major scale. In recognition of the broad scope of construction site work associated with recognised occupations (more than 60 occupations with direct relevance to construction work), the present article covers the occupations classified within the German vocational fields of “Construction Technology”, “Wood Technology” and “Paint Technology and Interior
Handbook of TVET Research
Design”, plus the occupations allied to construction which were mentioned above. This satisfies the demand for an open and dynamic interpretation of Beruflichkeit (the principle of the state-recognised skilled occupation) (PAHL 2001a, 17). Such a classification also coincides with the taxonomy in use within the German discourse on subject-specific didactics (KUHLMEIER 2003). The ↑ work processes and organisational forms in all these occupations exhibit substantial similarities, making it justifiable to ask whether a reduction to core occupations would be worthwhile for the purposes of initial vocational training (UHE 2001). Besides the diversity of occupations, the special structures of the building and contracting industry also influence learning. In Germany in the year 2004, only 27 firms in the building construction trade had more than 500 employees, and only 0.3 % of firms had more than 200. Out of 76,612 firms in total, almost 90 % had fewer than 20 staff members. It is therefore evident that the vast majority of all firms in the building industry are small businesses (cf. STBA 2005).
Tab. 1: Companies in the building construction trade in Germany, by company size (Source: FEDERAL STATISTICAL OFFICE (STBA) 2005)
This fact becomes even clearer when the distribution of workers across firms is taken into account. Around two-thirds of all employees in the building construction trade work in small and mediumsized enterprises (SME) with up to 49 members of staff (cf. STBA 2005). The small size of firms is thus a key feature of the building and contracting industry and trades allied to construction. It influences the processes and forms of organisation of work in recognised occupations, and also determines the nature of learning on construction sites.
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The size of the firm has implications for the technical equipment a company has at its disposal and the kinds of orders it can take on. It influences the skills required from employees, which are determined in any case by their specific branch of construction work.
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Structural conditions in the building and contracting industry are very diverse, and differ considerably from those in other industries. They affect the skills required of the workforce, in terms of technical know-how, knowledge of machinery, tools and materials, the complexity of independent decisionmaking, and variations in working procedures and forms of cooperation. These specific structures also determine the learning content of work, with the result that ↑ continuing education and training needs necessarily vary within the workforce. 3.2.3.3 Research in Vocational Didactics – Developing Learning Concepts and Teaching/Learning Materials
Tab. 2: Employees in the building construction trade in Germany, by company size (Source: FEDERAL STATISTICAL OFFICE (STBA) 2005)
For example, the structural engineering branch is populated almost exclusively by large-sized companies offering highly demanding technical building services in building construction, civil engineering and road (and rail) construction. These characteristically employ significant levels of technology and a correspondingly qualified workforce. In general building construction (predominantly house-building), on the other hand, less sophisticated technologies are used. The sizes of companies here are somewhat smaller. The building sites are not generally such high-volume projects, the number of workers is lower, and the levels of staff expertise are not as high as in structural engineering. Firms working in specialised building and civil engineering offer insulation, demolition and façade construction or duct and pipe system construction works. Only some aspects of the work are technologically sophisticated. For the most part, larger teams of staff with ↑ basic skills are employed. The companies classified as other branches within the building construction trade include roofers, scaffolders, joiners, insulators, hydraulic engineers and many others. The firms active in this area are almost exclusively small companies which only occasionally have to manage technologically demanding tasks, but nevertheless stake their success on highly qualified staff.
Vocational research is commonly associated with analysis of the ↑ vocational didactics of company, inter-company and ↑ vocational school-based initial vocational training, and with the development of corresponding initial training concepts and teaching/learning materials. The interrelationship between the work of the skilled construction worker and the transfer of relevant findings from vocational didactics was an area of study taken up by Bloy in the former German Democratic Republic in the 1970s (BLOY 1973). At about the same time, Stähr and Wehmer at Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden) were developing the concept of Stationsausbildung (initial training at stations) (STÄHR 1970). In cooperation with the vocational education department at the former Institut für Aus- und Weiterbildung im Bauwesen (Institute for initial and continuing vocational training in construction) in Leipzig, a collection of teaching materials was created for the practical elements of basic training for the construction occupations. From the time that it was established in 1970, the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) in the Federal Republic of Germany engaged intensively in developing teaching and learning materials for inter-company initial vocational training in construction. BIBB reworked a series of exercises initially devised by the construction sector itself, a training-course approach modelled on the metal industry’s basic training course. This became known as the Weiße Reihe or “white series”. It described tools, aids and
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materials for individual construction exercises. Explanatory notes were not provided, however. In the mid-1970s, this was developed into the Graue Reihe or “grey series”, which aimed to foster the apprentices’ independent learning skills and therefore contained additional relevant instructions, explanations and guidelines. BIBB also supported the ↑ pilot project which ran from 1977–1982 named Kooperation im Blocksystem – Stufenausbildung in der Bauwirtschaft (Cooperation in the Block System – ↑ Training by Stages in the Construction Sector). With the ↑ participation of the inter-company vocational training facility in Simmerath/Eifel, companies were surveyed to analyse the ↑ effectiveness and acceptability of training by stages, block training and integrated ↑ inter-company training phases, and to examine whether initial vocational training reflected company ↑ work processes (SCHWIEDRZIK 1986). Likewise, in the 1980s and 1990s BIBB supported studies on the initial vocational training and employment situation on construction sites (CLAUSS 1993). Data was gathered on typical occupational activities, job requirements, and the physical and psychological pressures of the workplace. Up to that point, the particular working conditions on construction sites – and hence key aspects of vocational research in this area – had not been taken into account sufficiently in the design of learning processes. Instead, both in the German Democratic Republic and in the Federal Republic of Germany, initial training concepts and methods tended to be modelled largely on the industrial occupations. The Federal Republic of Germany’s earliest university-based research on vocational didactics in the field of Construction Technology began in 1980 when a professorship was established at the University of Hamburg. Among other work, process evaluation was provided for the development of the new training occupation of waste technician introduced in 1984 (UHE 1992), and the question of the transfer of key skills in Construction and Wood Technology was taken up (SAGCOB / UHE 1991). At the Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin), a ↑ subject area named Fachdidaktik Bau- und Gestaltungstechnik (Subject-related didactics of construction and design technology) was only established in 1993. Vocational research surveys were
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conducted here, for instance in association with the development of instructional materials on environmentally sound vocational training for the occupations of joiner, dry construction fitter, and painter and varnisher (HASPER / HOFFMANN / SCHULTZ ET AL. 1996). Additionally, a learning-by-doing concept was developed for inter-company initial vocational training in the construction sector, which also contains practical and learning assignments (MEYSER / UHE 2006). Meanwhile, research-supported instructional materials have been developed for inter-company initial training in all occupations involving ↑ training by stages. These make the learning relevant to aspects of workplace practice, an approach which is also becoming more highly regarded on the international scene. For example, using the learning-by-doing system to teach the inter-company initial vocational training curriculum is the core of cooperation with Dutch vocational education experts in the construction sector. The FAINLAB projects, promoting the acceptance and integration of web-based and multimedia learning in construction sector training, adhere to this same principle. Vocational and ↑ vocational didactics research at universities is in need of further expansion, however. To date, there are only three university professorships in vocational didactics for occupations in the construction sector (at TU Berlin, TU Dresden and the University of Hamburg). Vocational research in all these establishments concentrates on the application of vocational didactics in school-based, workplace and inter-company contexts (UHE 1996). By 1999, the restructuring of construction sector occupations and the introduction of the concept of the Lernfeld (topic area) meant that findings from vocational research were being integrated systematically, and more thoroughly than in the past, into the conception of ↑ teaching and learning processes and the development of instructional materials. The stipulation of the practice-based learning approach in regulatory policy gave rise to a fullscale didactic reappraisal, part of which was to make training clearly relevant to the work processes and forms of work organisation on construction sites. Since then, vocational didactics has irrefutably been informed by vocational research.
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Research on teaching is another area which increasingly explores such issues. Thus, for example, Springer investigates curricular, methodological and instructional strategies for improving the “design competence” of painters and varnishers at part-time ↑ vocational school (SPRINGER 2004). Here, the practical importance of occupational competence is brought out particularly through the aspect of combining learning with working. The ↑ effectiveness of practical teaching concepts is also investigated in a study by Wülker (2004). In the context of initial vocational training for joiners, he analyses the relationship between subject-matterstructured and activity-structured learning ↑environments, looking at knowledge acquisition and motivation in both high-achieving and low-achieving learners. His empirical study is a tenacious inquiry into the accumulation of declarative and procedural knowledge necessary for the mastery of practical ↑ vocational tasks. Equally consistent efforts have been made, in the pilot schemes and projects carried out since that time (e. g. DOMAZI, IntergrA, NeWeBa, LoK), to develop practical tasks and learning assignments which take into account the special features of ↑ work processes on construction sites. These can be specified as follows (MEYSER 2003): – mainly one-off building production (no mass production), – varied locations and site conditions (little workshop production), – extensive work operations on the whole product (little explicit sequencing of sub-operations) – involvement of many trades, – the skilled worker exercising independent quality control over ↑ work processes and outcomes, – work in gangs (teamwork as the norm), – considerable contact with customers (especially when working on existing buildings), – hazardous environment requiring various health and safety at work measures. For an analysis of the typical work processes, therefore, it is necessary for researchers and vocational training practitioners to work in collaboration. Another important factor is that curriculum leaders from universities, schools, business and ↑ inter-company training facilities and vocational ↑ educational planning participate in the Fachta-
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gung Bau/ Holz/Farbe (↑ Conference of the construction/wood/paint trades), held regularly as part of the Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung (higher education conference on vocational education). The conference volumes (BLOY/ HAHNE / UHE 1995, 2000; BLOY/ HAHNE / STRUVE 2000, 2002; BAABEMEIJER / MEYSER / STRUVE 2004, 2006) represent a rich source of vocational research papers. Further concentration and intensification of this work has been facilitated since 1999 by the founding of the registered association Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft für Berufsbildung in den Fachrichtungen Bautechnik, Holztechnik sowie Farbtechnik und Raumgestaltung e. V. (the German national Working Group for Vocational Education in Construction Technology, Wood Technology, Paint Technology and Interior Design, shortened to BAG Bau/ Holz/Farbe; chaired from 1999–2002 by Bloy, Dresden; 2002–2006 by Struve, Hamburg and from 2006 by Meyser, Berlin). Since 2003 a cooperation venture has existed with the working group gtw – Gewerblich-technische Wissenschaften und ihre Didaktiken (Industrial-technical sciences and their didactics), set up by the ergonomic research body Gesellschaft für Arbeitswissenschaft e. V. (GfA) in order to advance research into industrial-technical work processes with a view to developing forward-looking vocational training concepts, designing training processes and professionalising the training of educators in the relevant vocational fields (MITTEILUNGSBLATT BAG 02/2003 2003, 13). Joint development of degree course regulations has taken place (for construction technology, wood technology, and paint technology and interior design), with a particular emphasis on integrating ergonomic, economic and ecological issues across the curriculum. Thus, the analysis and design of work in recognised occupations, technical work processes and ↑ learning environments have been incorporated into the content of academic training for vocational educators (R AHMENSTUDIENORDNUNGEN GEWERBLICH-TECHNISCHE WISSENSCHAFTEN 2004a). 3.2.3.4 Vocational Research and Studies on Construction Work As yet, systematic and empirical studies on working practices and processes of organisation have
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been rather limited in scope, due to the special structural characteristics of the building and contracting industry. Moreover, ↑ research methods originally tried and tested under the working conditions found in industrial workshops in large companies (RÖBEN 2000b) cannot be adopted wholesale for the analysis of work in the construction sector. The following special features have to be borne in mind: – the small-firm structure of the building industry, – the high hazard potential on building sites, – the many firms involved in a construction project, – highly complex work which is not strictly occupation-specific, – tasks consisting of multiple sub-operations, – frequent movement between different work areas within a firm, – little possibility for long-term planning of the tasks that arise during the ↑ work process, – frequent moves from firm to firm for skilled workers, – in some cases, high numbers of casual migrant workers. In the meantime, however, studies in ↑ vocational pedagogy and vocational research have adapted the methods pioneered, for example, in the metal technology sector (e. g. in-process observations, expert surveys, ↑ problem-centred interviews, etc.) in order to study work processes and conditions in the construction sector. For instance, Yan analysed the extent to which “Experimental Statics” is an appropriate strategy for acquiring ↑ practical knowledge (MINGZHONG 2003). This research investigated the importance of having knowledge gained from firsthand experience when using and applying building statics software; the shift of expertise in structural statics away from skilled construction workers towards the higher-level structural engineers; and the consequences of this kind of “deskilling” of construction workers. In a Chinese-German empirical ↑ comparative study, Zhang carried out work on the importance of vocational training measures to ensure the production quality of construction work (ZHANG 2003). In a comparative European study, Bünning analysed the consequences of a transfor-
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mation of occupation-based work for the training of skilled construction workers, and produced a case study on conditions in Great Britain and Germany (BÜNNING 2000). Leidner analysed the conditions and implications of initial vocational training in the building trade, where training is often provided by journeymen, more or less as a sideline to their formal occupations (LEIDNER 2001). Vocational ↑ research approaches and analyses can also be identified in research carried out in various sector-related disciplines. For example, at the Hamburg University of Technology (TU HamburgHarburg), research was carried out in the Institute of Applied Building Technology into the consequences of an energy-optimised style of building on initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training (HOLLE 2004), and into the impacts of CAD/CAM use on work in small and medium-sized enterprises in the carpentry trade (HERCHENHAHN 2004). At the University of Hannover, research was carried out at the IBW (Institut für Berufswissenschaften im Bauwesen – Institute for vocational research in construction; Ehrmann) into changing working procedures on building sites, and forward-looking design of workstations for manual work in carpentry firms (FIEBIG / LANGE 2000). Other significant studies from a vocational research perspective have been carried out in the field of sociology of work, although for a long time the construction industry was a “blind spot” for sociological research (SYBEN 1992, 9). Only a few studies addressed the working conditions of building workers (JANSSEN / RICHTER 1983) or took account of current developments in construction technology. This was to change in 1989, when Bauwirtschaft (Construction) was designated a research priority by the then Federal Ministry for Research and Technology. Subsequently, studies were conducted on the work situation of foremen (MARWEDEL /KÖLSCH 2000) and existing processes of cooperation between foremen and skilled workers (MARWEDEL / RICHTER 1996). Other studies examined the ↑ labour market and conditions of employment in the building sector (BOSCH / ZÜHLKE-ROBINET 2000), and the impacts of structural change on skills (HOCHSTADT 2002).
Areas of VET Research
Syben gathered data on concrete working conditions and the impacts of the growing use of information and communications technology on workers’ working practices (SYBEN 1992), as well as the consequences of decentralisation, just-in-time production and more flexible working on the skills profiles required in training workers (SYBEN 1999). A recent study examines future needs for skilled workers and workforce skills, and sets out the debate within the industry on the skills profile necessary for skilled work (SYBEN 2002). Addressing the area of ↑ continuing education and training, BIBB recently carried out a study, commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which should pave the way for new structures for systematic continuing education and training in the construction sector (IGBAU 2003). The empirical data was obtained partly by means of a multi-level analysis and was used, with continuing education and training needs in the construction sector in mind, to document current ↑ work processes on building sites and forecast future requirements (SYBEN / GROSS /KUHLMEIER ET AL. 2005). 3.2.3.5 Perspectives Although a range of recent studies take up vocational research issues, it remains the case that research into work on construction sites is still in need of substantial expansion. Many of the analyses came about in connection with the development of new learning concepts and instructional materials. Certainly since the introduction of the “topic area” (Lernfeld) concept, such studies have been clearly related to issues raised by vocational research. The objective of enhancing practical occupational competence led directly to a critical examination of work processes in construction occupations. In step with this didactic reappraisal, the learning concepts modelled on metal technology training were replaced, and the special features of work on construction sites were given greater emphasis. Future work in ↑ vocational didactics will need to intensify such links with vocational research. To this end, the content and forms of work in recognised occupations on construction sites, the objects, methods, tools and forms of organisation,
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must be more systematically analysed than in the past, not least in order to identify the potential for work processes which are conducive to learning. In terms of content, research should focus particularly on building site logistics, new technologies and construction materials, the significance of utilising semi-prefabricated and prefabricated components, and the influence of communications technologies on building work and building site management. A crucial area is the study of interface problems in building production, particularly in relation to work spanning many different trades. Moreover, research is needed into how the awarding of contracts to subcontractors and the use of migrant casual workers are influencing the processes and forms of organisation of building work and creating unusual conditions. Likewise, ↑ continuing education and training in the construction sector is increasingly becoming a subject of vocational research. Here, the methods of vocational research must be matched to the special features of building work. To ensure that they are appropriate for studying work processes in the construction sector, familiar methods must be re-examined and continuously developed.
3.2.4
Agriculture Martin Mulder
3.2.4.1
Introduction
The world population is currently 6 billion people, and it is estimated that in the year 2020 there will be 8 billion people. This creates an enormous pressure on secure food production, food safety, and the environment. Not only population growth puts this pressure on human and natural resources, but the fight against poverty and under- and mal-nutrition also does the same. ↑ Agricultural education prepares the future generation of leaders, researchers, professionals, technicians and last but not least, innovative farmers, who can collectively meet the global challenges of sufficient food and food security.
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Agriculture is international by nature. It is also the largest policy domain of the European Union. European Agricultural Policy making is comprised in the CAP, the Common Agricultural Policy. “The Common Agricultural Policy has been the biggest, the most contentious and the one with the largest budget of all the Union’s policy areas. The EU has more power in agricultural policy than it has in any other policy area and it has passed more legislation on agriculture than in any other single policy area. The future prosperity of the EU’s agricultural sector depends on its ability to profit from the domestic and international opportunities that have emerged in recent years. The CAP has already gone a long way and has now the great potential to become a truly European model of agriculture for the 21st century” (http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/ l04000.htm, access 30.03.2006).
The figures relating to the agricultural sector in Europe are colossal. The imports into the European Union of agricutural and food products amounts to US $69 billion. The exports from the European Union of these products amounts to US $51 billion. There are 14.5 million persons working full time or part time on agricultural holdings in the EU. And there are 30,000 agricultural cooperatives in Europe which are employing another 700,000 persons (Source: http://www.copa-cogeca.be/en/copa_objectifs.asp, access 30.03.2006). ↑ Agricultural education is strongly related to the food sector. “The food and drink industry is one of the most important industrial sectors, a major employer and exporter in the EU. This sector is characterised by the diversity in its types of activities and in the end products manufactured. The products covered can vary from bakery, pastry, chocolate, confectionary products to modified starches or different food preparations. The European Commission is seeking to ensure the competitiveness of the European food industries in the context of the Common Agricultural policy (CAP) and the EU’s obligations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO)” (http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/food/, access 30.03.2006).
The food sector in Europe counts over 26,000 companies, employing about 2.7 million people. The food industry is the 3rd largest industrial employer in the EU, with an annual turnover of 600 billion Euro (http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/food/ intro.htm, access 30.03.2006). More than 70 % of the agricultural goods produced in the EU are transformed into food industry products, many of them Non-Annex I-goods
Handbook of TVET Research
(NA I goods). The main product-groups of the NA I sector are processed dairy products, frozen fruit and vegetables change into confectionery industry products, various prepared foods and sauces including pasta, ice-creams, soups, etc., non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages and spirit drinks, tobacco-products and processed starch products. At the European level the agriculture and food sectors are supported by the respective sectoral ↑ social dialogue committees. The framework for European social dialogue is laid down in Articles 138 and 139 of the Treaty establishing the European Community. Cross-sectoral participants in the social dialogue at European level are ETUC (http:// www.etuc.org/EN/, access 30.03.2006), the European Trade Union Confederation representing employees, UNICE (http://www.unice.org/Content/Default.asp?, access 30.03.2006), the Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe representing 36 employers’ organisations in 22 member states, UEAPME (http://www. ueapme.com/EN/index.shtml, access 30.03.2006), the employer’s organisation representing the interests, at European level, of crafts, trades and SMEs throughout Europe, and CEEP (http://www.ceep. org/, access 30.03.2006), the European Centre of Enterprises with Public ↑ Participation and of Enterprises of General Economic Interest, which is an international association of enterprises and organisations with public participation or carrying out activities of general interest, whatever their legal or ownership status. The European social dialogue consists of three modes: consultation (which is done for instance by the ACVT, the Advisory Committee on Vocational Training), bipartite dialogue (which takes place in the Social Dialogue Committee and the Sectoral Committees) and tripartite concertation (for instance within the Tripartite Social Summit for Growth and employment, which is called ‘the troika’). In the field of agriculture the European social partners who are part of the social dialogue are the EFFAT (www.effat. org, access 30.03.2006) from the employees side, and Geopa-Copa (www.copaprocesses for electricians (Table 2).ogeca.be, access 30.03.2006), from the employers side. These social partners in the field of agriculture have come to several opin-
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ions and agreements on vocational training and employment in agriculture, such as the European Agreement on Vocational Training in Agriculture (on 05.12.2003), the Joint Declaration by EFA/CES-GEOPA/COPA on employment in agriculture (on 30.03.1995), the Opinion concerning training in agriculture (on 18.11.1993), the Opinion with regard to training for agricultural workers (on 26.11.1982), and the Opinion concerning the vocational training of and cessation of farming by agricultural workers in the context of the sociostructural measures proposed by the Commission (on 23.05.1979). In 2004 GEOPA held a conference in which the implementation of the European Agreement on Vocational Training in Agriculture was reviewed. What is interesting for ↑ agricultural education is the new attention for sectoral vocational education policy (WARMERDAM 1999) and sectoral qualifications (http://communities.trainingvillage.gr/, access 30.03.2006). In this contribution, the strong links between agricultural research, education and extension are described. It is stated that agricultural education and extension are strongly based on agricultural research. Next it is stated that agriculture needs to be conceived of as a broad field, in which all sectors of the economy come together. It is also shown that there has been a lot of innovation, which resulted in broadening agricultural education towards fields like environmental studies, sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, food and ↑ nutrition and public health. Subsequently, because of the fact that food is a basic need for all human beings, it is stated that agricultural education is also strongly related to issues like poverty reduction and international development (→ 2.7). Next, the distinction is made between initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training. It is shown that informal and non-formal learning are important for skills development of present farmers, and that formal agricultural education is essential for fundamentally raising the knowledge level of future entrepreneurs and employees in the agri-food complex. Finally, the world of ↑ agricultural education research is described.
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3.2.4.2 Agricultural Education, Research and Extension Agricultural education has, for a long time, been closely related to agricultural research. Together with extension, they were the key ingredients of the knowledge system for the development of agriculture. Agricultural research produced new knowledge, that had to be disseminated to farmers by agricultural extension services, and agricultural education had to digest the relevant research results to integrate those in the curricula for future farmers and farm workers. Agricultural extension services are provisions to support rural development, farming practices, and other ↑ human resource development processes. Agricultural research is supported by many institutions such as the CGIAR (http://www.cgiar.org/) (The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), at the ↑ World Bank in Washington, D.C. This institution supports ↑ research programmes in product groups like Cereals (Rice, Wheat, Maize, Barley, Sorghum, Millet), Roots, Tubers, Banana and Plantain (Cassava, Potato, Sweet Potato, Yam, Banana and Plantain), Food Legumes (Chickpea, Cowpea, Beans, Lentil, Pigeonpea, Soybean), Oil Crops (Coconut, Groundnut), Livestock, Forestry and Agroforestry, Fisheries and Water Management. Other relevant organisations are IFPRI (ifpri@ cgiar.org), the International Food Policy Research Institute at CGIAR, and ISNAR (http://www.ifpri.org/divs/isnar.htm, access 30.01.2006) (the International Service for National Agricultural Research). The program of ISNAR comprises three major areas: institutional change, organization and management and science policy. Agricultural extension (BAN / HAWKINS 1996) is being privatized in many countries, especially in the West, but also in non-Western countries (RIVEIRA / ALEX 2004). This means that farmers have to pay for the service, whereas in many countries it has been free of charge, since educating farmers to produce food in an efficient and effective way has a high societal priority. This high priority was a consequence of the need to produce sufficient, safe and cheap food for the population. The numbers of extension professionals indicate the importance of the service. For instance, in India there are about
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100,000 extension workers. They teach farmers in all kinds of fields, such as animal diseases, plant diseases, integrated pest management, sustainable production, marketing, financial management and technological innovation. 3.2.4.3 Diversity of Agricultural Education Agricultural education differs significantly worldwide (MOORE 2004; TAJIMA 2004; MULDER in press). From a vocational education systems perspective, at the secondary level there are comprehensive ↑ high schools that teach agricultural subjects as elective courses or tracks, specific schools for vocational-agricultural education, and dual trajectories with a school component and a component of working and learning. This working and learning component can be distinguished by two modes: the internship mode and the apprenticeship mode. Interns normally do not have a labour contract, apprentices normally have a learning-working contract with an employer. From a curriculum content perspective, animal and plant sciences are the traditional fields of study, and the majority of students were enrolled in programmes within these fields. However, especially in industrial and post-industrial societies, ↑ agricultural education has diversified considerably, in some cases to such an extent that the institutions of agricultural education have problems with maintaining the phrase agriculture or agricultural in their name. Currently, only a small proportion of the students in agricultural education are enrolled in programmes that are directly aimed at jobs and ↑ professions in the primary sector. Many more are enrolled in environmental, food and ↑ nutrition (→ 3.2.7), biotechnology, geo-informatics, consumer, farm management, business management, economics, sociology, health and communication programmes to name a few. At the secondary level gardening, pet care, and equine studies are quite popular. So it can be observed that agricultural education has broadened considerably, and this process is still going on. The diversification of agricultural education is strongly related to the composition of the so-called agri-food complex, the set of organisations and institutions that are collectively working for the production and distribution of sufficient food that is
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safe and of good quality. The agri-food complex consists of organisations and institutions in the primary sector, trade (wholesale, business-to-business and retail), industry (feed, machinery, biotechnology), and services (logistics, auction, financing, insurance, regulation and quality control, risk assessment, chain control, consultancy). Because of the fact that agriculture is directly aimed at an existential need of human beings, there is also wide concern about malnutrition (including obesity), hunger, poverty reduction (SACHS 2005) and the HIV/Aids pandemic (BRINKMAN / WESTENDORP / WALS / MULDER 2007). There are many international programmes to fight against these major problem areas, and in agricultural education there are also programmes that prepare professionals for this field. Apart from that, there is a distinction between initial and post-initial education and formal and ↑ informal learning. Since this is a general characteristic of all vocational education, this topic will not be elaborated upon here, but it will be addressed in the section on agricultural research. 3.2.4.4 Agricultural Education Research ↑ Agricultural education research is a small although interesting sector-specialisation of ↑ educational research. It gets its legitimacy from the very nature of agricultural education. Lots of discussions have been held about the uniqueness of agricultural education research. Whilst much research that could be done in the field is mere educational research applied to the field, the content-related research is more specific, that means, research that is related to the innovation of the agri-food complex. Research in the field of agricultural education is reported in different journals: the Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension (JAEE, http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/1389224X, asp, access 28.08.2007), the Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education (JIAEE; http://www.aiaee.org/journal.html, access 30.03.2006), the Journal of Agricultural Education Online (JAE; http://pubs.aged.tamu.edu/ jae/, access 30.03.2006), and the Journal of Extension Systems (http://www.jesonline.org/index. htm, access 30.03.2006). But of course every now and then agricultural education research appears in
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one of the journals in the field of education, training, and ↑ human resource development. There are several national and regional associations of agricultural educators, such as the National Association of Agricultural Educators (NAEE) in the ↑ USA, the Asia Pacific Association of Educators in Agriculture and Environment (APEAEN), and the Agricultural Education Division of the Association for ↑ Career and Technical Education (ACTE). At the annual National Agricultural Education Research Conference, the latest research is presented. The Association of International Agricultural and Extension Education (AIAEE) is an active association that has regular conferences. The European Seminar on Agricultural Extension and Education (ESEE) is a bi-annual conference of researchers in this field, although the extension part clearly dominates, which is sometimes reflected in the variations of the title of the Seminar, being on Agricultural Extension and Education or just on Agricultural Extension Education. The Netherlands is a country in which ↑ agricultural education research has a strong tradition. The chair group, Education and ↑ Competence Studies, conducts a research program in the field of ↑ agricultural education. In 2003 a five year program was finished. Part of it was on computer-supported collaborative learning and work in agricultural education. Lutgens et al. (2002), Verburgh et al. (2002), Oene et al. (2003), and Veldhuis-Diermanse (2006) reported difficulties in the implementation of computer-supported collaborative learning and cooperation amongst teachers. This implementation seemed to depend on contextual factors to a large extent. Only if the e-communication platforms were introduced in a setting in which asynchronous computer-based communication was natural, did students and teachers perceive added value. Only in these situations does computer-supported cooperative learning have potential. This for instance was the case during internships; the e-communication platform enables efficient communication between students and students and teachers. When this way of learning and working was tested in situations in which face-toface contact was also possible, the added value appeared to be limited. Similar results were found by Stephenson et al. (2005). During the course of
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the program, the focus was changed towards content-related competence development (→ 3.4.2), which led to publications on competence-based ↑ human resource development in green education (MULDER / WESSELINK /BIEMANS ET AL. 2003), competence-based green education (WESSELINK / LANS 2003), and learning questions, opportunities and motives for workers in the agri-food (LANS / WESSELINK / MULDER /BIEMANS 2003). Competence needs to be understood in a wide sense here, unlike the narrow meaning attributed to the concept as described by Edwards/ Nicoll (2006). Mulder (2004) formulated generic principles for competence-based vocational education that are founded on a holistic education philosophy. Wesselink et al. (2007) have elaborated these principles based on a Dephi-study under a group of educational experts, and came to a matrix of principles by levels of implementation. With this matrix program teams of teachers can position the program in this matrix, and decide upon further improvement of the program. Apart from that a lot of effort is invested in studying the opportunity of developing longer-lasting educational trajectories for graduates from senior-secondary agricultural education (LANS / WESSELINK / MULDER /BIEMANS 2003; LANS / WESSELINK /BIEMANS / MULDER 2004), which led to initiatives to create alumni learning networks at secondary agricultural education level. This is a phenomenon with a long history in certain countries, but it is certainly not commonplace in the Netherlands. Now the emphasis is on competence development and green education, related to change in the agrifood complex (MULDER 2002; MULDER / WESSELINK / BIEMANS ET AL. 2003) and sustainable development (BIEMANS / MULDER / WESSELINK ET AL. 2003). Three projects are running, on the (1) experiential, (2) inspirational, and (3) assessment aspects of competence-based green education. The project on experiences with competence-based education is aimed at revealing discrepancies between the intentions of developers of competence-based education and students. The project on inspiration and competence-based green education is aimed at implementing interesting learning arrangements in educational institutions for green education which are based on metaphors developed in research on
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the learning of entrepreneurs. The intention is to try to integrate more authentic learning approaches in initial education. The project on the ↑ assessment of competence-based green education seeks to point out major problems such as the quality of the assessors, the limited context and content ↑ validity of the object of assessment (such as role playing and simulated tasks), and time needed for good assessment. Biemans et al. (2004) demonstrated the pitfalls of competence-based education, and ways to overcome them. Weigel et al. (2006) analyzed the way in which the concept of competence is used in the development of vocational education and training in England, ↑ France, Germany and the Netherlands. In Europe, ↑ agricultural education comes sometimes under the Ministry of Agriculture, and sometimes under the Ministry of Education (or ministries with comparable names). The monographs on vocational education and training in the members states from the EU (e. g. Christopher 1999; Circé 2000; Twining 2000) are not explicit on the place of agricultural education within the structure of education in the respective countries. The question of which department in the government is responsible for agricultural education is not a simple question either, since the structure of governments in EU member states varies considerably. In many cases, it is the concern of the Ministries of Agriculture to have the relevant agricultural research results implemented in the programmes of agricultural education, but also in other parts of the educational system. For instance, lifestyle is one such concern, and the Ministry of Agriculture in the Netherlands promotes healthy behaviour. It supports programmes in elementary education to stimulate the eating of healthy food, with program materials called ‘Taste Lessons’. There are many more comparable initiatives. It is the deliberate intention of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture to put emphasis on such content-related issues when it comes to financing ↑ agricultural education research. The context in which this research is financed may change due to the re-arrangement of the funds to stimulate innovation of agricultural education. Therefore, projects that are being implemented at the moment, all have a strong contextual perspective, such as improving sustainable de-
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velopment, corporate social responsibility, entrepreneurship and intercultural competence. In France, the Ministry of Agriculture (Ministère de l’Agriculture, de l’Alimentation, de la Pêche et des Affaires Rurales) is responsible for agricultural education since the start of agricultural education in 1848 (CIRCÉ 2000). There have been efforts to harmonise agricultural education with the educational sector that falls under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. In the field of agriculture, there are 858 secondary schools all over the national territory (overseas territories included) that teach agriculture. In higher education there are 25 schools (engineering schools, four veterinary schools, one institute for teacher education and one school specialized in teaching landscape). In higher education, the Ministry of Education is also in charge of three schools of engineers in Toulouse, Dijon and Nancy. In Germany the situation is more complex than in France because of the composition of the nation in Länder. That makes that the responsibilities for vocational education and training are at different levels, the state (Bund), and the Länder. Food safety, public health and agriculture in general are part of the responsibilities of the Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture. This ministry is also responsible for some initial and further vocational ↑ training regulations as for farmers or dairy masters. Responsible for occupation regulations in the field of food-production is the Federal Minister of Economics and Labour. And the Ministries of Culture (Kultusministerium) in the Länder are responsible for the school-based and company-based agricultural education. In the United Kingdom the situation is complex too. Structures in education and educational administration differ for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each has devolved responsibility for setting their own policy in these areas. However, the issues regarding education are the same throughout the UK. England will be taken as an example. In England, education in all areas up to 16 are the responsibility of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). Beyond 16, the responsibility for funding and appraising of the quality of provision for publicly funded providers of agricultural education is again the responsibil-
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ity of DfES, but a number of other bodies are involved in defining employers’ needs and setting detailed curricula. Setting the detail of the curriculum is the responsibility of the learning providers themselves and various public bodies with responsibility for setting standards for the quality of provision, of which the key one is the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (the QCA). The agricultural and land-based colleges collectively have an umbrella organisation – NAPAEO. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) also has some input in terms of influencing what information and skills need to be learned, particularly by land-managers and farmers, as indeed does the UKs Food Standards Agency in the area of food. Two Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) within the UK also have a role here in setting the skills agenda for specific sectors. These are ‘Lantra’, for land-based businesses including agriculture, horticulture and related areas, and ‘Improve’ for the food and drink industry. In more general terms, the Ministry of Agriculture in the Netherlands also promotes so-called ‘↑ knowledge circulation’. The classical notion of transfer of knowledge by the Research-Development-Dissemination strategy is abandoned, and a new strategy of stimulating multiple-stakeholder cooperation processes is implemented. This is organized in a Green Knowledge Cooperative, a network organization of institutions who provide green education. The emphasis in the Cooperative should be on collective knowledge construction which, at the end of the day, should help the competence development of students and workers. A special line of research which is strongly related to the agricultural sciences in general, and to the environmental sciences in particular, is the research on learning for sustainable development. There are many programmes and projects that are and have been conducted, especially on the question as to how to implement the issue of sustainablity in the curriculum of various parts of education. Corcoran/ Wals (2004) and Wals et al. (2004) collected and presented a wealth of material on this topic. Finally the research on the sectoral approach in skills or competence development can be mentioned (→ 2.1). The sector skills development strat-
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egy is adopted widely in the United Kingdom, and is implemented already for years in various countries with a strong bipartite or tripatite governance of vocational education and training. Research shows that the sectoral approach is promising, but it also has a number of pitfalls (WINTERTON 2006b). Sectoral vocational education policy had strong pluspoints (WARMERDAM 1999), and is appreciated in vocational-agricultural education because of its link with sectoral stakeholders, who can have a powerful influence on the innovation of education. However, in European projects on competence development in the agri-food and environmental sector, no consistent relationships were found between the level of the objectives of these projects and the presence of social partner organisations in the project ↑ partnerships (MULDER 2006). To conclude this contribution, it can be said that ↑ agricultural education builds competence for innovation of the agri-food complex, innovation that is badly needed for food security, food safety and sustainable development, goals that are essential for the world population. ↑ Agricultural education research should support this, and has to be implemented with and for the actors in the system.
3.2.5 Health/Care Ingrid Darmann, Regina Keuchel and Florence Myrick 3.2.5.1
Introduction
The ↑ occupational fields of health and care primarily offer personal services involving one-to-one work, namely both in a face-to-face and in a bodyto-body situation. This fact necessitates a specific and ↑ interdisciplinary orientation of professional science research. Globally, the impetus toward interdisciplinary or interprofessional education has emerged as being an integral component in fostering collaborative health care. In particular there is considerable momentum toward this trend in countries such as Great Britain, Canada and the ↑ United States. As recently as November 2005 an international conference on interprofessional education was held in
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Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Representatives from countries such as ↑ Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Great Britain and the Netherlands, to name a few, met to discuss the importance of inter-professional collaboration and the significance of educating in this context for the health care field. Clearly, much progress is being made in this area as was evidenced in the work presented from the different countries. Of particular note also is the trend toward more authentic collaboration and increased involvement of the recipient of health care services vis-à-vis the individual and family. This was also reflected by the many presentations in which community members and individuals shared stories about being a bona fide member of the health care team and actively sharing in decisions concerning their own care and treatment. It is true that no explicit professional scientific research has been carried out in the ↑ subject areas of health and care. Nevertheless, some work can be related to this area of research and will be summarized in point 3. These studies provide fundamental knowledge concerning the description of skills required in the health and care ↑ professions and form the basis of research-based vocational education and training. 3.2.5.2 Current Developments in the Occupational Fields The developments in the occupational fields health and care are dependent on national scientific and technological progress, above all in medicine and the ↑ related sciences, on the change of health and social situations as well as on basic conditions provided by health policy and the economy (cf. BECKER / MEIFORT 1993, 2002; MEIFORT 1991; G ÖRRES / KOCH -Z ADI / M AANEN / S CHÖLLER-STINDT 1996; K RÜGER / PIECHOTTA / REMMERS 1996; RABEK LEBERG ET AL. 1996; RABE-K LEBERG /K RÜGER / K ARSTEN 1991). Professionalization of the health and care ↑ professions varies considerably, especially in European countries, with regard to rapid developments in job requirements and skills necessary in this sector. Against the background of different education and health systems, in future it will be important to further develop the field of health and care, which varies according to country, within a European framework. Internation-
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ally, the development of this ↑ occupational field should be examined in the context of its being turned into a graduate profession. Actually, considerable differences in development can be observed here. While in the ↑ USA general elementary BA/MA courses and graduate courses leading to the degrees Doctor of Education, Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Nursing Science were already established at the beginning of the 20th century, the European countries followed suit no sooner than 30 years later. Great Britain did pioneering work concerning research and training in nursing sciences, establishing the first course of studies for undergraduate students in Edinburgh in 1956. A considerable upswing in nursing research and training in Europe was brought about by the so-called “Briggs Report” in 1972 with its central message “Nursing should become a researchbased profession”. Along with Great Britain, Scandinavia led the way in the development of nursing science and research. Countries like Czechoslovakia (since 1961), Greece (since 1980) and Spain (since 1982) can already look back over a long period of academic research and training in nursing. What is particularly interesting in this regard is the academicization of teachers in Czechoslovakia at such an early stage compared to other European countries. At the time, it was primarily aimed at developing the nursing occupations by raising the qualitative standards of nursing education and training, and from today’s perspective was generally representative of the academicization of nursing in the former Warsaw Pact countries. The last European countries to turn nursing into a graduate profession were, among others, Germany (1991) and Austria (2000) (EWERS 1998; SEIDL 2005). In Germany, especially, due to the strong focus within nursing science on practical nursing skills, degree courses relating to nursing have mainly been established at polytechnics or universities of applied science, but without it being possible to acquire basic nursing training there. To this day, the academic training available is predominantly in the fields of nursing education and nursing management (BISCHOFF 2002). The relatively low amount of nursing science degrees at universities has led to a situation in which doctoral degrees
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based on nursing research are still being taken in the respective sub-disciplines, as a rule. In retrospect, these differences in development within Europe were a result of an early and littleknown strategy in support of academicization pursued by the World Health Organisation. The process was initially supported in three main linguistic regions – in the English-speaking, Romance and Slavic regions, whereas in other linguistic regions such as the German, academicization of the nursing profession began significantly later (cf. SEIDL 2005, 2). While the nursing profession continues to discuss the need for graduate education, it is interesting to note that other professional disciplines such as physiotherapy and ↑ social work are now moving toward masters’ level preparation as the required entry level into those professions. It is generally agreed today that qualified nursing education requires research-based conceptions and structures. An academic education is essential due to the enlargement and enrichment of the occupational fields of action such as, for example, a rising need for information, advising and coaching, case management, prevention and rehabilitation, assessment and the growing integration of non-medical health care professions in modern care conceptions. It remains to be seen to what extent raising elementary nursing education to a graduate level, particularly in Germany, will be accompanied by an extensive reintroduction of the caring professions. It also remains to be seen to what extent the development in Germany can, on the one hand, catch up with the Anglo-Saxon structure of a very differentiated step-by-step training, which has often been regarded critically by nursing teachers, and which leads to an economically induced deprofessionalization. A very different direction of professional development is manifested by some current trends on the employment market for the nursing and health professions, in which innovative services in the fields of recreation, leisure activities and wellness are in demand. Abicht et al. (2001), for example, note that “wellness”, as a further training subject leading to formal qualifications, is broadening the skill profile of the basic health ↑ professions (e. g. masseurs, physiotherapists) in the field of preven-
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tive health care and counselling, and also exhibits some overlaps with the nursing skills profi le in the field of prevention, rehabilitation and health counselling. However, a critical view should be taken in this context of the fact that such trends could accelerate the current fragmentation of the nursing and especially the health professions. These two ↑ occupational fields already encompass a broad range of specific occupations, involving profiles as diverse as geriatric nursing and dental technology (BALS 1993). Whether such ↑ fragmentation of these professions will remain a common feature, or whether nursing and care as research, educational and occupational fields will converge, will depend to a large extent on the research, policymaking and economic forces operating in this sector. 3.2.5.3 Object of Research and Development in Research This section deals with professional science research and describes, above all, such studies examining the structuring of health and nursing care situations by members of the caring professions. Here the interest of research refers above all to the establishment of explicit and implicit professional knowledge and skills as a basis for appropriate qualifying and ↑ educational processes (cf. R AUNER 2002d). In the occupational fields health and care, research originating from the sociology of work (e. g. the pathbreaking investigation by STRAUSS 1985 “Social Organization of Medical Work”), the sociology of education (concerning the development of personal services as careers for women cf. OSTNER / BECK-GERNSHEIM 1979; OSTNER / K RUTWA-SCHOTT 1981; BISCHOFF 1992) and ↑ occupational science (concerning psychological strain and burnout in nursing cf. ARONSON / PINES /K AFRY 1983; EDELWICH / BRIDSKY 1984) has a far longer tradition than professional science research. Unlike professional science studies, these studies mention questions of training and education or knowledge of ↑ work processes in passing only and do not relate the two subjects. On the whole, due to the considerable fragmentation of the occupational field health, a qualifying research today can at best be proved in the occupational field nursing. Here, priority is given to research into knowledge of work process-
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es or knowledge of relational processes in nursing (WITTNEBEN 2003, 264), which makes the contact and relational skills of the nurses as key skills the focus of the ↑ curriculum development work. Particularly the interpretations of and the judgements about the various situations found by the nurses are of central significance. The work of professional science research presented below clarify the specific skills required in the health care professions and ideally impart the ↑ interdisciplinary paths of knowledge of nursing science. One of the most prominent studies in this field is that of the ↑ US-American nursing researcher Benner (1984; 1994a) who has made the power of ↑ clinical judgement or the “expertise” of the professional nurses the centre of attention (→ 4.2). Benner et al. (2000, 12) understand by power of clinical judgement the various methods which enable the nurses to understand the problems or interests of the clients/patients, to observe important information and to react sensitively and committedly. Following Polanyi (1958), Benner assumes that there is an ↑ implicit knowledge about rules underlying the actions of experienced nurses which cannot or cannot comprehensively be explained by the nurses themselves. Using Dreyfus’s model of gradual ↑ skill acquisition (DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1986; 2000), Benner, having conducted an extensive qualitative investigation, has established seven domains of ↑ nursing practice (among other things helping, advising and caring, ↑ diagnosis and patient monitoring), each consisting of several single components (e. g. the domain helping, consisting of the domains simply being there, consoling and physical contact or supporting the relatives emotionally and by giving information). She illustrates the skills and the development of expertise in these domains with the aid of narratives from professional nurses. Benner’s intention to qualify nursing students for the tasks occurring in nursing practice is discernible. From the point of view of the German debate, which is based on the philosophy of education, this functionalism has its weaknesses (e. g. WITTNEBEN 2003, 261). The German researchers demand a stronger orientation towards the development of personality and identity. Furthermore Benner gives the impression that there are appropriate and “good” ways of resolving nursing sit-
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uations. The frequent impossibility of resolving nursing situations rationally as well as the structural requirement of deciding between contradictory requirements are being overlooked by Benner. In contrast, the nursing scientists carrying out research in the Federal Republic of Germany have been concentrating more on the establishment of nursing situations involving problems or actions of the nurses including the inherent contradictory requirements and the possible as well as the chosen courses of action. By emphasizing not only the incorporated knowledge but particularly the less preferred possibilities of interpretation, they contribute to a broadening of the autonomy of the often restrictive nursing practice (cf. OEVERMANN 1996). Wittneben (2003, 268), too, uses narratives in order to better comprehend the reality of the caring ↑ professions; but unlike Benner, she places more emphasis on deficiency experience and, applying her critical understanding of science, critically questions the claims taken for granted in the data. As the basis for vocational education, the narratives are analysed within a system of nursing science categories following a model of multidimensional patient orientation (WITTNEBEN 1993; 2003, 14 ff.), and within a system of educational categories, following a construct of formal nursing ability (WITTNEBEN 1999; 2003, 234 ff.; K RÜGER / LERSCH 1993). From these analyses, the learning and development requirements of the students can be deduced. Wittneben understands nursing didactics as an integrative science which has to do equal justice to the requirements of nursing science for patient orientation, the requirements of educational science for the development of the students’ personality and the requirements of nursing practice for hands-on learning (WITTNEBEN 2002, 2003). Further relevant studies in Germany such as Darmann (2000), Stemmer (2001) and Kersting (2002) and their results can be classed as professional science research. In particular, the studies by Darmann (2000; 2002) on the development of communicative competence and moral judgement (→ .6.7) as the basis for the nurse-patient relationship can be viewed as examples of nursing research in Germany that focus on the profession itself. Darmann (2000) applies ↑ qualitative ↑ research methods to identify “key professional prob-
Areas of VET Research
lems” at the communication level within the care relationship (cf. K LAFKI 1993), such as the “power of the carer”, or the “patient’s freedom of decision making”. These and other key problems characterize the structure of the negotiation process between the providers and recipients of care with regard to care-related decisions, and highlight the communicative requirements to be met in each unique nursing situation. Darmann then extrapolates the findings from her empirical work (2000) to form a situational and experiential concept for nursing training. As with the other health disciplines, nursing has tended to focus on ↑ empirical knowledge as the only legitimate source of knowledge for the provision of nursing care and indeed for teaching students what and how to provide that care. During these last several decades in particular, different ways of knowing and the knowledge required for that knowing, however, have come to be embraced by scholars in the nursing profession (CARPER 1978; MUNHALL 1993; WHITE 1995). Such recognition emanates from the belief that the human condition cannot be fully understood through one particular way of knowing, or one source of knowledge. Concomitantly, the approach to nursing care cannot be based solely on one approach nor can the education of nurses be provided from only one perspective. Thus, as with the development in the education of nurses in Germany, so too is the education of nurses in other parts of the world recognized as being a complex endeavor requiring a variety of pedagogical approaches that facilitate learning, promote critical thinking and foster competence. Thus strategies such as situated or context-based learning (WILLIAMS / DAY 2006) (→ 3.6.1; → 5.1.2), narratives, self-report, reflective journals and concept mapping have assumed considerable prominence in nursing curricula and have been found to be instrumental in creating an environment of curiosity and achievement (OERMANN 2006; MYRICK 2002). In the curriculum revolution spawned in the ↑ United States (ALLAN 1990; BEVIS / WATSON 1989; BEVIS / MURRAY 1990) a paradigm shift occurred that resulted in a move away from the more traditional or behaviourist model of ↑ curriculum development. The move was thus toward the “caring” curricu-
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lum, one in which students are bona fide or active participants in their own learning (ROMYN 2001). In other words, students are no longer incidental to the teaching-learning process. Unlike the traditional approach which Freire (1997) described as the ↑ banking concept of education in which students are regarded as passive receptacles of knowledge, the emancipatory model, also referred to as the “caring” curriculum in the nursing education lexicon, fostered authentic connection between the teacher and the student. Students thus began to become more visible and vocal in their curricular input. Since the time of the curriculum revolution, then, much progress has been made toward this approach to nursing education. Specifically, the emergence of emancipatory curricula in the United States and Canada that illustrate a marked change from the traditional approach is reflected by the work of Banister/ Schreiber (1999), Diekelmann (2001) and Heinrich et al. (2004). The ↑ emancipatory approach thus promotes student-centred pedagogies, the development of new ↑ partnerships in the ↑ educational process, classroom reformation and attention to innovations in preparing future nurses. The works described above can be seen as a starting point for a knowledge-based development of curricula (→ 3.7.1). Most of the German training curricula for nursing are not based on systematically ascertained data from hands-on experience, thus it is not systematically guaranteed that the relevant problems and structures of action arising in real working life actually leave their marks on vocational training. On the other hand, the empirical analyses must not be understood as a replacement for didactic decisions. The effort to go beyond the utilisation-orientated and, in Germany, very heteronomous training contents and processes towards a critically reflexive development of the personality is discernible in a lot of work concerning nursing didactics (e. g. ERTL-SCHMUCK 2000; OELKE / MENKE 2002; WITTNEBEN 2003; concerning university didactics GREB 2003). 3.2.5.4 Methodical Particularities and Implications In principle, the same applies to professional science research as to research in general: the meth-
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od of research is dependent on its object. So far, mostly qualitative methods have been used (cf. FLICK 1995a; K LEINING 1995b; STRAUSS 1994; LAMNEK 1993). The reason being that the implicit and explicit knowledge of nursing experts has so far hardly ever been researched. Furthermore, the aim is not to establish basic knowledge of nursing rules, but to comprehend differing, if need be even contradictory interpretations of working situations. Below, aspects of data capture and data evaluation will be discussed with regard to the object of research. Questioning of professional nurses plays a key role in the process of data capture in order to record knowledge of ↑ work processes (→ 3.6.4) in the field of nursing. Questioning as a method with which researchers prompt the experimentees with the aid of stimuli to explicate information, above all subjective perceptions, interpretations and judgements, includes individual interviews (BENNER 1994a; DARMANN 2000), questionnaires and ↑ group discussions (BENNER 1994a) or data capture by way of self reports or narratives (BENNER 1994a; WITTNEBEN 2002, 2003). As regards the subject matter, professional science research in the field of action nursing above all focusses so-called “↑ critical incidents”, “critical” meaning “leaving a lasting impression” (cf. WITTNEBEN 2002; CORMACK 1991). Benner (1994a, 201 f.) uses the term more extensively, understanding a “critical incident” to be an incident in the course of which nurses experienced their positive self-efficacy in an exceptional way, an incident in the course of which particular difficulties occurred, but ordinary and normal incidents, too. She gives priority to positive practical experiences. By questioning professional nurses, researchers can comprehend working situations from the nurses’ point of view. However, as nursing situations mostly include verbal and non-verbal interaction with patients, relatives and colleagues and are thus characterized by multiperspectivity, capturing the perspective of the nurses alone does not suffice. Thus, when choosing the sample, different groups of people who are involved in the nursing situation have to be taken into account, at least, at any rate, nurses and patients. If, for example, the pa-
Handbook of TVET Research
tients’ perspective is not included, relevant aspects of nursing activity can possibly be ignored. Besides varying the sample, it is advisable to vary the choice of methods, too. The sympathetic or non-sympathetic observation of nursing situations broadens the subjective view of the persons involved, which was determined through questioning, by showing them processes from an objective standpoint. This is particularly important if ↑ implicit knowledge is to be established which, as is known, is only partially explicable by the persons involved, but can, however, at least be partially deduced by interpreting observation reports and by empathizing with the “skill of the expert” (cf. NEUWEG 1999, 382). The methods of data evaluation are in line with basic methods based on the philosophy of science of ↑ phenomenology and hermeneutics. Phenomenology aims to deduce and describe the phenomenona and the structure of reality. If the possible and understood meanings of nursing situations are to be elucidated, too, a hermeneutical approach is necessary. Nursing situations can be interpreted on the basis of theoretically gained categories. What has so far hardly ever been discovered, with regard to professional science research, is an objective hermeneutics (cf. OEVERMANN 2002; for nursing science cf. K ERSTING 2002). It is, however, quite promising as this allows both the “objective meaning”, i.e. the diverse interpretations and possibilities of action inherent in a situation, and the meaning actually put into practice, to be established. 3.2.5.5 Problems and Development Prospects What all these studies in the ↑ occupational fields health and care have in common is a change of perspective away from a merely specialized qualification for a field of activity which is not very clearcut as regards content towards an ↑ educational process emphasizing multiperspectivity and reflection on the basis of empirical findings concerning the reality of working life. Against the background of the historical development of the system of training and education in the personal services, the organisation of professional learning processes as professional ↑ educational processes is an
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important step towards a more professional caring ↑ profession. Indeed, in nursing it was Bevis/ Watson (1989) who began to recognize that the traditional approach to nursing education may not be sufficient to provide the kind of critical reflection ability required of a nurse in these changing times. And, in the ↑ United States in particular, nursing scholars coined the phrase “curriculum revolution” to reflect a shift away from the traditional mode of teaching to a more emancipatory form of teaching in which the student and teacher become learners together in the pedagogical process. A focus on process and caring thus began to emerge, a process in which students actually assume active and authentic ownership of their learning (ALLAN 1990; BEVIS / WATSON 1989; BEVIS / MURRAY 1990). The summary analysis is that if the health and care professions are to be further developed, it is essential that greater research efforts be made at both national and international level in order to identify new fields of activity, situations requiring professional action, the requirements that need to be met, and the specific knowledge and skills of nursing and care professionals. Structural reforms of national training and further training systems are also being pushed through, and adapted to the dynamic challenges posed for forward-looking development of the professions. Mutual recognition of professional titles and qualifications at European and ultimately at international level, based on a core curriculum, for example, or in the context of a ↑ European Qualification Framework (EQF), will be indispensable in a convergent Europe.
3.2.6
Education/ Social Pedagogy Maria-Eleonora Karsten
3.2.6.1
Implementation, Field of Research and Connections to Adjacent Fields of Research
The field of vocational schooling in ↑ social pedagogy as an off-the-job training has taken a special role both in the system of vocational training and in the teaching ↑ professions at university since
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its implementation in the seventies. This has clearly affected the development of vocational-scientific research. In the context of the education reform from 1960 to 1970 the field of elementary education was structurally and strictly defined as part of the education system. But this vocational field with its various profiles of qualification in social pedagogy was differentiated within the child and juvenile welfare services. The whole field of social and therefore the vocational profiles extended parallel to the development of social pedagogy as a main field of personal social services for children and young people for 27 years, in accordance with the KJHG (child and juvenile welfare services law 1990 east/1991 west). Nowadays there are more than thirty types of nonacademic vocational qualification in social pedagogy below the specialized university level. The establishment of the teaching profession for vocational schooling in social pedagogy only punctually followed this expansion until today. In 1978/79 the first course started at the university in Bamberg; the second started in 1979 in Bochum, and continued in Dortmund in 1982. In 1993 a course of studies began in Chemnitz and moved to Dresden in 2001. In Lüneburg the teaching profession for vocational schooling in social pedagogy started in 1996, parallel to the teaching profession of vocational schooling in economics. One special characteristic of the studies in Lüneburg is the fact that the two professions take courses in vocational and economic sciences together so that contexts of research may be discussed in ↑ interdisciplinary ways. (K ARSTEN / MEYER / HETZER ET AL. 1999b; SCHMIDT 2004). In the same period, beginning with the establishment of the colleges at the university level in 1970 as well as both the build-up and expansion of the diploma in social pedagogy, research, which referred to the vocational fields of social pedagogy as well as to their administrative-organisational differentiation e. g. in youth welfare or in the management of social pedagogy, was implemented. Strictly speaking, these research activities in the fields of social pedagogy and ↑ social work might also be regarded as research in the ↑ vocational dis-
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ciplines. They are not considered in this chapter, however, because they only refer to those ↑ labour market segments that require academic qualifications. Also ↑ educational research with its priority on the upbringing of children is not considered, because it mostly covers the perspective of the addressees and doesn’t pay attention to the actual vocational actions of the jobholders. The main focus of research in the ↑ vocational disciplines is on studies which examine the design and the structure of situations in education and social pedagogy considering the aspects of qualification and education. They discuss the explicitly or implicitly existent know-how in the vocational field (RAUNER 2002c) or bring its absence up for discussion. Therefore research is confined to the working field of educators working with children of the ages 0–10. According to the category of the professional jurisdiction, the field of education (working with children and adolescents) may be divided into interactive, face-to-face processes; into leading, administrative-organisational, advising, educating, further studying processes as well as into subject- or vocational related political functions. Therefore the following groups of female experts work in this vocational field: – (Female) educators (professional school education), childcare-worker, social-assistants (↑ vocational school education) (BEHER /K NAUER / RAUSCHENBACH 1995), – (Female) expert advisers: This vocational field developed its own ways of qualification and certification according to form and content without systematic consultation of the adjacent working fields (K ARSTEN 1996; IRSKENS 1996), – Qualified (female) social pedagogy workers (college at university level): in some federal states in Germany as managers, – (Female) educationalists (diploma in social pedagogy) with focus on pre-school education, who operate in further studying programmes or work for academic institutions or projects (R ABE-K LEBERG 1996), – Teachers, either with or without special teaching ↑ professions for vocational schooling in ↑ social pedagogy (K RÜGER 1991),
Handbook of TVET Research
– Lecturing (female) ↑ social workers with a focus on elementary or juvenile education, – Professors at university with a focus on either diploma or vocational schooling in social pedagogy, – Qualified (female) personnel working in politically-organised institutions or in trade unions, – Qualified (female) personnel operating in either local, supra-regional or national further studying processes for educators, – Qualified (female) personnel working in international institutions, – Qualified (female) personnel working in ↑ day care, foster care or foster homes, – Qualified (female) personnel working in child guidance offices, – Self-employed (female) experts working in various fields of management, – Trainees working in different areas of social pedagogy during their vocational schooling. Generally, all these different kinds of working areas may be occupied by qualified female educators (K ARSTEN / ZIMMERMANN 1999) In job descriptions and memoirs (see e. g. PFV 1994) these fields of job-activity are indeed addressed, but talking about the job of an educator still implies the picture of the specialist only operating in the directly interactively educational work in the group. This is to be attributed to at least two reasons: On the one hand the social-administrative terms of reference only focus on the actual face-to-face activity of upbringing, education and support as well as the corresponding financing forms, like the KJHG which also centres this part of work in this job; while the other working fields, named above, are described separately rather as advanced training, consultation or training in general and therefore is added to other working fields. On the other hand there are also people operating in the working field of expert advising or vocational schooling, who have a university degree or college degree at university level. As a result, the field of education (working with children and adolescents) is seen as only a part of their professional self-conception without a real identification. This differentiation of the vocational fields within the range of education does not appear in the research. That means that research and study possi-
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bilities of the formation of professional knowledge within this field stay clearly behind the expansion of the practical face-to-face work. Activities of research institutes on the federal or national level could not compensate for this, particularly because their scientific aims were rather centered on the direct practice development than on a systematic, structural feedback for studies, training and research connections. This just started in recent times. Rabe-Kleberg characterises the relationship of educational-scientific research and practical face-to-face work in the field of education concerning the elementary education as a “non-relationship” (RABE-K LEBERG 1996, 101). The knowledge that was developed has a rather normative and conceptional character without using empirically analytical research, which is, in relation to the context of the professional organization “already proved as considerable deficit” (ibid., 103). This evaluation only counts for the former Federal Republic of Germany, while in the new federal states – or more correctly: in the elementary facilities during the regime of the GDR – in the educating work itself, the structure of both the vocational training and the counselling were in fact arranged in a constitutive way, that is, the normative orientation was enforced “topdown”(MUSIOL 1998). Historical studies for the development of education as a profession regarding the educational-scientific perspective (AMTHOR 2003), the perspective of reflection of professional formation (BEHER / LIEBIG / RAUSCHENBACH 1998; FRIESE 2000; K ARSTEN / RABEK LEBERG 1979; RABE-K LEBERG 1993) as well as the perspective of woman research according to the determination of the characteristics of educating as a female profession (K RÜGER, H. 1999) have a substantially longer tradition. In these studies, and in the more general social-pedagogical research as well (OTTO / THIERSCH 2001) questions of professional vocational schooling and of education ↑ work processes as well as the necessary knowledge are usually implicitly discussed, without specifying it for the central range of the educator work in daycare centres.
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3.2.6.2 The Subject of the Research and State of Research What follows, relevant vocational-scientifically but nevertheless thematically restricted results of research will be classified. The aim of research is to create professional knowledge which includes vocational-scientific information about vocational work and knowledge. Moreover, it aims to deliver information on work requirements, structure, curricula, ↑ practical training and forms of the learning-teaching arrangements in the vocational schooling of educators, the education of teachers for vocational schooling as well as the corresponding research. In order to achieve these aims it is important to consider the general context of the organization, the planning of the educating work itself, the requirements which are necessary for good quality, the variety of working fields within the field of education as well as the professional training and its social appreciation. Compared to this, empirical research mainly concentrates on single aspects. In a consciously focused and therefore admittedly rough overview of approximately 35 years, the research can be classified as follows. Differentiating vocational field-referred research in both historically chronological and field-referred aspects the accesses can be named as: – Numerically studies dominate the field of research, which analyse the situation of children, their social background and their family condition. These surroundings are considered a challenge to the educational work which demands a general and a specific knowledge and proficiency in the everyday work of educators. Striking the balance for this development of the so called “model project generation” (K ARSTEN / RABE-K LEBERG 1979) there arose in particular the subject “of the university congress discussing the “vocational education” since the beginning of the 80s” (R ABE-K LEBERG / K RÜGER / DERSCHAU 1983). Therefore this topic was declared as relevant vocational-scientific knowledge. – At the same time, likewise realised in a predominantly model-bound way, the first so-called “situation-theoretical” approach matured into a “situation-orientated” concept (ZIMMER 1983) and therefore gained a significant operation-based meaning.
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From now on the ↑ profession of (female) educators and their actual working basis were described as creating and designing arrangements of situations in a child’s life. Vocational knowledge focused on educational actions in current everyday situations. This introduced a variety of modernization into work with children and thus into vocational work, however without integrating these new aspects into the vocational schooling or developing a necessary research for new strategies of operating in the field of ↑ social pedagogy. For the first and only time these aspects were integrated as one topic of research in the project WERA (further development of vocational schooling of educators with special consideration of reforming aspects and professional development in practical work) (K RÜGER, A. 1999). This development and research prove the statement, summarized in an overview by Rabe-Kleberg 1996, that the changing reality, which was based on the initiation of the researchers, was actually the topic of their scientific monitoring and evaluation. – Analyses which had a vocational-scientific character were realised in an exemplary manner within the model-framework of courses of lectures in North-Rhine-Westphalia as a ↑ longitudinal study for the evaluation of “tasks of development and their realisation in the concept of vocational schooling of educators” (GRUSCHKA 1985; GRUSCHKA / MICHELY-WEIRICH / H ESSE-LENZ / SCHOMACHER 1995; K ARSTEN 2003). Two studies and further designs based on these studies, created the didactics of social pedagogy as a substantial element of professional vocational schooling and of the special teaching professions for vocational schooling within social pedagogy at the university level (K RÜGER / DITTRICH 1982; HABEL /K ARSTEN 1986). In both cases the constitutive essentials of the dual theory-practice relation is to be seen as the main focus, it has a constitutive aspect in professional vocational schooling for educators because the pupils learn at school and also in practical social training. Gaining this combination of theoretical and ↑ practical knowledge creates the opportunity to learn how to learn, to educate oneself, to gain experience and to reflect on it. With this combination it is possible to discuss both the theoretical and the practical aspects of profes-
Handbook of TVET Research
sional socialisation and the socialisation within the institutions of socialisation that take part in the latter. The first batch of research was developed in the context of the specification of ↑ profession, where the majority of employees and trainees are women; the second batch of research was developed in the context of reflecting and testing university standards, which can be classified until today as “best practice” for scientific learning (WILDT 2003). – The 90s, likewise in a rough overview, were on the one hand characterised by the continuation of the West German perspectives of research already mentioned, which to a large extent concentrated on studies of professional vocational schooling and the image of educators expanded by the development of quality conceptions and their first implementations (TIETZE / ROSSBACH 1993 and ANDRES / DIPPELHOFER-STIEM 1991; DIPPELHOFERSTIEM /K AHLE 1995; NETZ 1998; CLOOS 2001; MUSIOL 1998; LILL / SAUERBORN 1995). On the other hand the studies continued to analyse the characteristics of vocational fields, where the majority of employees are women and correspondent vocational trainings in the synopsis of educating, social, health, care, and housekeeping professions and resumed their conclusions within concrete conceptions of new courses of studies (R ABE-K LEBERG / K RÜGER /K ARSTEN 1991; K ARSTEN / MEYER / HETZER ET AL. 1999a; K RÜGER, H. 1999; www.globalcare. de 1999). In this context the main focus is on the formation of professional knowledge based upon the shared discussion of educating, health (WALTHER 2002), elderly care ( M EYER 2002) and housekeeping professions. The topics are work and time organization, integrating female managers of ↑ social pedagogy as well (HETZER 2004), vocational-biographic adoption and structuring biographic processes (RIESEN 2004) and communication of vocational teachers of the ↑ vocational school of social pedagogy (MERTEL 2002). This ↑ qualitative research realised within the framework of dissertations, seen from the perspective of the theory of profession, helped to develop specific ways of forming professions and specific knowledge of professions. (K ROHS 2003)
Areas of VET Research
In addition to that, female managers were interviewed about the topic of their vocational field in an explorative federal study. The 90s were also characterized by expertises (RAUSCHENBACH / BEHER /K NAUER 1995), in which vocational field-referred analyses and new conception fields of professional schooling referred directly to one another. These references finally entered into the formulation of the framework guidelines of the KMK (2000c) after a six-year discussion between child and juvenile welfare services and education policy, education-scientific and theory-of-profession research as well as single studies, e. g. on the internal perspective on the work of vocational colleges (ELSENBAST/K RIEG / SCHEILKE 1999). In addition the first studies emerge for the vocational schooling of educators and the training situation in the newly formed German states (RABE-K LEBERG 1997; MUSIOL 1998). – In reference to internationally ↑ comparative studies (FTHENAKIS / OBERHUEMER 2002) the professional schooling status of vocational training for educators was criticized. For ten years the request has been made to upgrade the status from college to university level. Currently it appears that the system of vocational training has been rearranged. – Substantial questions, like the gender-related constitution of (female-) educators within the vocational field of social pedagogy, as well as educating and education work with children, were, however, to a large extent, not considered. The same applies to research and conceptions of quality description processes, e. g. in the KES- R Research (TIETZE / SCHUSTER / GRENNER / ROSSBACH 2001). The gender-related constitution of the female working field of day-care centres (K RÜGER, H. 1999) is not considered, nor is the socialisation and gender-related realisation that girls and boys (not just children) grow up, and have to be educated and cared for. That implies however something different for both sexes even though the same personnel, premises, time and pedagogical arrangements are available (K ARSTEN / BAIER / HETZER ET AL. 2003; K RÜGER 1992; MÜNCHMEIER / OTTO / RABE-K LEBERG 2002). Differences in the education of boys and girls will always produce different opportunities within the institutional framework. The first problematisation and feminisation
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of the ↑ profession of (female) educators and therefore their profession is discussed in the 12th Child and Youth Report of the Federal Government. – Likewise the first workload and stress-studies of working in a ↑ day care facility identify the noise of children as having a strong effect on the practical work of educators. In addition, the constant bending-down due to child-adapted chairs and tables, requires a good physical constitution (BUCH / FRIELING 2001). Although all employers have since 1996 been obliged to write endangerment analyses for all kinds of jobs, there is hardly any appropriate research into the working field of educators. – The discussion about the ↑ professionalism of educators restarted in the 21st century through a broad education-oriented process and appropriate research (MÜNCHMEIER / OTTO / RABE-K LEBERG 2002). Exemplary may be the attempts of the Scandinavian countries to create a professional self-conception of a consistent, integrative education from age 1 to 16 which integrates with an exemplary structure of studying at university for educators in Bozen/Brixen, north Italy. – Currently educational concepts for day-care facilities are formulated on a broad basis in almost all federal states in Germany (KMK 2000c). Therein a specific understanding of education is developed for the child and the juvenile welfare services (Conference of Youth Ministers 13./14.05.2004). In addition to that, the ↑ Bologna processes are integrated in the development of courses of studies to create alongside Bachelors and Masters studies a mutual recognition of qualifications from professional schools and colleges of higher education. In a specific manner either the modules taught at professional schools of education will be checked and thereby made admissible (e. g. ev. FH Hanover, FH OOW East Frisia) or Bachelors studies with emphasis on elementary-pedagogy are created (e. g. Alice Salomon Fachhochschule Berlin , FH New Brandenburg). This will have effects on the development of courses of education and on vocational-scientific research. In August 2004 eleven different attempts at further development of the courses of education were observed. Such new ways of educating also allow a mutual recognition of qualifications between the voca-
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tional-field referred, scientific-oriented study arrangements of vocational schooling at professional schools and the teaching professions for vocational schooling in ↑ social pedagogy. This is due to the different ranks of graduation. 3.2.6.3 Current Position and Prospects Several historical processes are responsible for the special status of vocational scientific research and development within the field of social pedagogy. – Since the beginning of the educational reform there has not been any nation-wide success in establishing practice-related research according to the working field of education up to university standard or that of a college at university level. – The few locations of teaching professions for vocational schooling at a university only recently developed into centres of vocational-scientific research. These centres of vocational-scientific research just retrain their research potentials and implement a research-oriented infrastructure, promote their youngsters to create a new scientific generation and link their research to the general vocational-scientific discourse. – The research institutes in the field of practice, change, evaluation and science need the systematic connection to the basic oriented research networks at universities; and the MA and BA study courses need these links to reconnect the potentials of change and development. Finally the social, vocational and specialised political processes of discussion have to be rearranged in accordance with the new national and international standards. Therefore German vocational education science must be adapted to create ways of comparison with the European standard. A broader analysis of the professional training of (female) trainers and the embedding of research competences in the profiles of courses of studies is necessary. Although vocational training as an educator (female and male) both in vocational and professional schools is the most important kind of vocational training system according to the field of education and social pedagogy, the described “arranged disorder” of the specific courses of education in the different federal states creates a vocational-science research with different emphases.
Handbook of TVET Research
During the last 35 years discussing educational reform, research into the vocational field, the addressees, the formation of the ↑ profession and the description of qualities followed the implementation of new conceptions. They include the corresponding consequences in society, e. g. immigration, unemployment or the development of poverty, German reunification and the adjustment of the entire institutional structure. It can be shown that nowadays all research locations as well as the political professional associations and trade unions share one field of research. This allows for starting a second educational reform of the educational system for under 10-yearold children. Thus the mutual recognition of qualifications and modules of the different rankings in the German vocational and educational training system can be implemented. Forums for this focussed development start to form themselves. But it is today’s challenge as well as the challenge of the future to start vivid and global ↑ curriculum research in the ↑ vocational disciplines, including the required methods of evaluation and further development.
3.2.7
Nutrition Barbara Fegebank
3.2.7.1
Introduction
In Germany “↑ nutrition” is not an official sphere of professions and trades; it is only a part of an area named “nutrition and ↑ home economics”. In teacher training, nutrition in connection with ↑ food science is either a part of home economics or exists as a separate discipline in addition to home economics. If we now focus on “Nutrition” it has to be explained. The term “spheres of professions and trades” already refers to different things and is used in different contexts. On the one hand “sphere of professions and trades” stands for action fields of gainful employment. On the other hand, the term represents the variety of professional apprenticeships which have practical and theoretical features in common with regard to their crosscutting vocational requirements.
Areas of VET Research
In 1995 the Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) adopted the recommendations on the training and examination of ↑ vocational schools in which 16 different ↑ vocational disciplines were identified to correspond with their respective ↑ occupational areas. However, in the “prescription of counting the basic apprenticeship” only 13 occupational areas are declared. An unequivocal classification of the single professions to the occupational areas has not been carried out so far. The German Job Agencies employ the term “occupational areas” as a generic term for different professions. Classifying them into 22 occupational areas the job agencies also consider modern vocational developments, e. g. professions acquired through the ↑ dual system or at schools and professions for which a university degree is required. Lastly, the term “occupational areas” serves within vocational education schools to classify different types of schools, e. g. vocational colleges in general, training colleges for ↑ nutrition, home economics, catering trade/restaurant industry, technical schools for agriculture. Therefore, it is rather difficult to describe vocational education research corresponding to an “occupational area”. If we take the officially declared occupational areas “nutrition and home economics”, “↑ tourism, hotel and restaurant trade” as well as “agriculture, forestry and horticulture”, to which mainly nutritional occupations are assigned, as starting points, we would have to take into account the mono-profession home economics, research in relation to technical professions (see e. g. PAHL / RAUNER 1998) and all working fields – from home economics to agriculture, industry and trade to the service sector. Home economics professions – within which exclusive research exists – often will be studied in connection with social and nursing professions (see e. g. BECKER / MEIFORT 1995, 282). Not all these can be taken into consideration in this article. Thus, while focusing on the occupational area “nutrition” a limit has to be set, which allows us to take into consideration the common crosscutting requirements and particularities of the abovenamed areas and disciplines. The particularities are based on the genesis of the ↑ nutritional pro-
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fessions and the foundation of the corresponding disciplines at universities. Looking at the genesis of nutritional professions, professional skills and the quality of work received their special characters. The corresponding disciplines – especially home economics as well as nutrition and food science – are distinguished by ↑ interdisciplinary research and therefore vocational education research could be contained in these disciplines also, not only in the vocational disciplines. Because there are no independent “research-fields” (see RAUNER 2002d, 448 f.) of vocational education research in the vocational discipline home economics and food science and their corresponding disciplines, the following explanations present a few conclusions from previous research activities rather than future tasks and instructions. In connection with this the focus will be on the historical and ↑ gender dimension. 3.2.7.2
“Nutrition”: the Development of Professions and the Occupational Area
“Nutrition” is one of the most fundamental functions of the individual and of small groups, societies, and mankind. It is the foundation of life. Some of the nutritional functions are food production through the cultivation of land, planting, livestock-breeding and industrial processes, food processing, selling of products as well as the procuring of food through hunting, collecting, fishing, harvesting and making it marketable, processing the food for the end consumer, storage and waste management (see FEGEBANK 2001). In the course of history the fulfilment of the nutritional function has changed a great deal. Civilisation and different cultures have evolved. The demands for refining food, the development of table manners and the establishment of catering services required a ↑ professionalisation of nutrition. Consequently, various new ↑ professions came into being. Nutritional professions have the longest traditions of all professions even though they did not have profiles from the beginning (see FEGEBANK 1997). Carrying out nutritional professions means both complex and situational action and lineal ↑ work processes. All this requires dealing with the biospheres of water and land, with living beings such
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as animals and plants as well as artefacts which support these actions. The reference to the different spheres of environment is one of the essential qualification requirements to those who work in nutritional professions. Vocational education research has to take this into consideration (see FEGEBANK 2002). From the very beginning, activities and areas of responsibility in the area of nutrition have taken up a great amount of the human capacity for work. Fulfilling the nutritional function has been and still is an aspect of domestic activities. The nutritional function plays an important role in agriculture and is a main branch of food trade and the service sector. Most activities related to this area are performed as recognized professions. These developments are not only the result of economic and technical change but also of innovative forces in everyday life situations (see THIELE-WITTIG 1992). Based on the division of labour and specialisation certain professional profiles developed, so that today approx. 30 nutritional professions can be classified as professional apprenticeships. In addition to that, housekeeping professions (rural and urban) as well as cross-cutting jobs such as family server were established. These professions cover the activities inherent to many nutritional professions and show a wide breadth. With this, the problem of dividing and classifying professions arises. Moreover housekeeping tasks and activities are a part of the everyday life of all people, so that they are carried out by non-experts also. Therefore, one of the most apparent ↑ research questions is, What criteria need to be employed to define a ↑ profession. This has been discussed extensively with regard to the demand for recognising “housewife” and “female farmer” as professions. However, this debate has not been based on a scientific foundation. In this context, the term “profession” is a challenging historical dimension. By reducing it to an acquired activity in today’s perception essential connections would be left out. Thus, “profession” as a subjective interpretation and individual understanding of the entirety of tasks and activities related to it moves into the centre of attention. This leads to the conclusion that
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work can be defined as the basic approach to leading ones life. 3.2.7.3
Work and Education: Essential Categories of Vocational Science Research
The term “work” developed in the course of time through specialisation, industrialisation and the division of labour from an activity of ↑ home economic and agricultural work to a sphere of activity that covers many areas. From the very beginning people employed technical artefacts and processes to shape and utilise the environment. In the first place these activities were categorised as home economics and agricultural ones. Only later did trade come into being and, with it, enterprises developed. Looking at it from an institutional perspective, housekeeping is the most original type of work. This work was shaped by the satisfaction of the bare necessities of life, e. g. hunger and thirst. Alongside the economic branch of home economics the agricultural branch developed by domesticating animals, intensive cultivation of land, and finally by the application of industrial business methods: what is called “agribusiness” today. In addition, home economics includes food processing, the making of food and drinks into proper meals and the selling of surplus goods. From a scientific point of view, the modification of working methods, the increase of profits and health issues have been of major interest. Parallel with everyday life work, the professional type of work developed gradually due to growing qualitative demands. The professional work was supposedly of higher value. In order to make the same product, housewives, the trade and manufacturer co-exist. Therefore, vocational education research has to deal with questions about the quality of work outputs as well as about specific vocational developments. Three quarters of the food we consume today comes from the industrial sector. Thus, the traditional, century-old trades (e. g. cook, baker, and butcher) are no longer required but chemists, food-designers and food engineers are. Here, vocational education research has to answer questions with regard to the
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food market, ↑ work processes and vocational ethics. One of the main principles of the labour society is the division of labour. As far as nutritional professions are concerned special attention has to be paid to the gender specific division of labour. Female everyday life competence had been transformed into professional competence by embodying it within the law and institutions. Everyday competences did not become superfluous, but they became less valuable. The majority of women were capable of producing and processing food and carrying out all tasks related to it. However, they had not acquired these techniques on a professional basis and accordingly, they could not work on a professional basis. This was – in most cases – reserved for men. As an example for this development Bühler outlines the gender specific cultural history of cooking (see BÜHLER 1994, 539): tracing back the professional term “cook” we will only find mention of men, at least in the 18th and 19th century. All the different types of cooks (e. g. court cook) were male ↑ professions that required a specific education and training. Women were not allowed to take up those kinds of professions. Searching for women who worked in the kitchen we have to follow a different route. Female activity in the kitchen has been associated with the terms “housemother” and “servant” in the 18th century as well as “maid” in the 19th century and the current term “housewife”. The field of activity also differs between men and women. For male cooks the job description is clear and the work is considered to be carried out on a professional basis and requires a previous education and training, whereas women who work in the kitchen have to fulfil various tasks according to status and wealth. It is not only the preparation of food but also shopping for food on the market beforehand and doing the washing up after the meal. Female work in the kitchen can be categorised somewhere between waged work and unpaid housework. Closely linked to the gender-specific division of labour is the gender specific education and training which has only been considered as part of the history of education in recent times. Hitherto, assertions with regard to the history of education were related to a male history of education whereas a fe-
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male history of education has only gradually developed. First, all-round education and training as well as the vocational education and training were located in the home which was organised by the families. Historically regarded, female education remained institutionally bound to the family much longer than the education of boys and young men. To prepare them for their “natural role” women were taught to carry out all the tasks in the household and acquire additionally a certain degree of general knowledge. In the course of history this had led to a proper ↑ home economics education in the 1930s. ↑ Vocational schools introduced girls’ courses alongside bakers’, butchers’ and cooks’ courses. The term “girls’ courses” seemed sufficient to categorise the educational contents although a home economics education covered many aspects of the male ↑ nutritional professions (e. g. cooking, baking, buying and storing food). Gender-specific education also occurred in the field of ↑ further education up to university level. One distinguished between male teacher and female teacher education as far as the choice of subjects and the access to institutions of higher education were concerned. Admission was granted to women a lot later than to men. Whereas women were in charge of rural and urban home economics, men studied trade and technical subjects. Since “nutritional professions” can be trade and technical ↑ professions as well as service sector and home economics professions, the character of work and the capability to carry out a profession have be reevaluated. Glade and Zierau (1994) started working on the question whether privately produced work (work in the household) can be recognised as a kind of work carried out on a professional basis. Nowadays, the education of teachers is not gender specific as all education is equally accessible to men and women. However, the long tradition of gender specific education suggests that concepts of male and female perspectives and perceptions concerning nutritional professions have to be analysed by vocational education research further in the future.
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3.2.7.4
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Nutritional Professions in the Scientific Research Context
The sciences that correspond to the nutritional professions are ↑ home economics, ↑ nutrition and ↑ food science (see FEGEBANK 2001) as well as agriculture. Having recognised the need to publish research results, home economics, nutrition and food science as scientific university subjects came into being. They are also the basic subjects in teacher training for the area home economics and nutrition. The sciences were first established at the University of Gießen in 1962 as the result of a “history of education”, the history of teaching and learning for housekeeping. Following the Hessian Teacher Education and Training Law on secondary school teaching at vocational schools from 1958 (Hessisches Lehrerbildungsgesetz) “all prospective teachers had to attend classes at university for at least 8 semesters”. The students graduate with two separate examinations – one subject specific and one in educational science in addition to vocational and work pedagogy. With regard to “↑ nutritional professions” the teacher training at Western German Universities focused on subject specific studies. In addition, elements of educational science and vocational and work pedagogy were part of the teacher training. The reference to specific professions was not part of the training and vocational education research did not exist. Nevertheless, the head of the Agricultural Pedagogic Institute (1954–1963) in Gießen, Prof. Hudde, who had been in charge of teacher training before, was appointed director of the newly established Institute for Professional and Economic Pedagogy in 1963. Prof. Hudde and his successor Prof. Bunk continued to publish several studies on vocational education for agricultural and ruralhome economics (see essays in BUNK 1990). Up to the 1990s vocational education research had not been explicitly declared as a science in Western Germany. However, the science of home economics has presented some research results that can be useful for vocational education research. Home economics research also includes educational and historical studies (e. g. RICHARZ 1991), women studies (e. g. TORNIEPORTH 1979) and in-
ternational research (e. g. THIELE-WITTIG / FUNKE 1999). From the mid-1970s onwards several scientific disciplines have dealt with the private household regarding it as a place of work and education. Questions of business administration as well as questions of quality, qualification and ↑ professionalism were the focuses of these research studies. Stübler, the researcher who was head of the Federal Research Institute on Home Economics (1951– 1974), made an effort to introduce the discipline work theory of the household (see e. g. STÜBLER 1979). The central issues to be dealt with in ↑ nutrition are natural-scientific and ecological ones. In agricultural science the dominant ↑ research questions are also subject-related ones. The only science that analyses the correlation between work, profession and education is the science of home economics although the results cannot explicitly be related to vocational education research (see e. g. the essays in OLTERSDORF / PREUSS 1996). In the German Democratic Republic the Institute for ↑ Vocational School Methods, with its department of food technology, was founded at the University of Dresden. Teacher training here aimed at “nutritional professions”. Vocational education research was allocated to the subject related vocational commissions that conducted vocational analysis including the design of qualification profiles as a basis to determine the requirements for various skilled workers’ ↑ professions (see KÖRNER / LUSKY 1993, 23). Taking all this into consideration the question arises as to how vocational education research focussing on nutritional professions can be established and implemented. 3.2.7.5
Fields of Vocational Education Research and Prospective Research Interests
Vocational education research with a focus on the sphere of nutritional professions can only be established in the context of the teacher training at universities. Taking corresponding subjects into consideration, too, can help to achieve a multidisciplinary approach and to cover a wide range of research questions. The key research area in the teacher training ↑ vocational discipline “↑ Food Science, Nutrition and
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↑ Home Economics” is ↑ sphere-orientated didactics (see FEGEBANK 1998; 2004). As a topic of academic education it is a topic for theory and research about the qualifications of teachers in ↑ occupational fields, especially about constructions of lessons in vocational schools. It includes general didactical aspects, educational practice as well as elements of special branches of science. The special didactics therefore play the role of a mediator, which searches for the relationship between the reality of school and apprenticeship, ↑ vocational pedagogy and the special branches of science (e. g. Home Economics and Food Science). Sphere-orientated didactics require sphere-orientated work, which for its part is determined by didactical functions, standard principles of didactic work and given conditions of educational practice (the system of education, of employment, kinds of school etc.). The function “Describing the special branch of science/s by subjects, technical terms, principles and methods by considering their transformation into processes of learning” has to be a matter of priority. One of the main principles therefore is “scientific orientation”. It is the basis of orientation in coping with didactical tasks and of didactical decision making next to the principles “Orientation of living situations and their connected behaviour” and “Orientation of vocational qualifications and of scenes of learning”. Among others the research areas in this sphereorientated didactics are for instance “the realities at school and at work” (including the household), and “vocational qualification”. As this concept was a new one in academic teacher training it was necessary in the 1990s first to conduct basic research with a view to a theoretical framework for teacher training at universities. In the beginning “learning and teaching research” was the central focus. Although there are some “learning and teaching researches” present, their results could not be put into educational practice, e. g. research surveys on the introduction of “study fields” at ↑ vocational schools in the area of ↑ nutrition and home economics (see GRADEL 2003). In contrast to that theoretical approach the test trial DILL as part of the German BLK-Programme to educate home-economists developed co-operations of learning scenes of the dual education
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and improved existing co-operations of full-time school education. The objectives of these measures were better ↑ quality standards of educational programmes, improved professional capability and more flexible assignments on the ↑ labour market (see ABSCHLUSSBERICHT 2003). In connection with this project, study-field related curricula with different modules for a standardised qualification system in home economics were developed (see BRINKMANN 2004). The development of the curricula and the research on qualification include the analysis of the scene and the situation of learning which should be significant to ↑ nutritional professions. In order to find out what the qualification requirements for working in a major household are, working field analysis is essential. Special attention is paid to the customer’s orientation (FEGEBANK / HÄNDEL 1998). The project “Research on Adaptive Qualifications of Home Economics Specialists and Managers” funded by Bavaria and the European Union also centred on qualification. It analysed the discrepancies between the patterns of the capacity for work and the use of the capacity of work from which the additional qualifications derived (see R EGIERUNG VON MITTELFRANKEN 2003). At the European regional conference of the International Federation for Home Economics (IFHE) on “Advancing the Recognition of Home Economics Professions in Society” in May 1998 the status and standard of ↑ home economics vocational training and ↑ professions at school and in research was discussed. Having taken the inventory of vocational education and training in European countries this conference was the catalyst for further co-operation in that field. Pure “nutritional professions” lack such a development although first attempts have been made in studying the learning field concept and to develop the curricula for vocational education in the sphere of home economics and nutrition (see e. g. BLKProgramme and the test trail SELUBA, www.seluba.de, Juni 2006 (BLK 1999–2002)). Qualification and ↑ curriculum research cannot be regarded as independent ↑ research fields. However, some ↑ research questions were applied to “nutritional professions”. Further research questions
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concerning “nutritional professions” turn out to be different in the context of service-sector oriented work in comparison to technical professions as Fegebank and Händel outline to some extent in one of their articles (FEGEBANK / HÄNDEL 2000). – Finally, the area of ↑ nutritional professions has to take up specific research questions that cannot be summarised as “human-machine-interaction” or “industrial culture and technology transfer” (see RAUNER 2002d). Fields of research here are rather “interpersonal communication” as well as “culture of ↑ nutrition”. Special emphasis has to be put on the comparative analysis of the development and
forming of work places and on the customer’s orientation. The effects of such developments on work and life – which are inseparably bound to each other – also have to become the object of research interests in order to adapt the teacher training to it. According to the complexity and variety of research questions a mix of different working methods is advisable: work field analysis and biography research can be employed just as well as qualitative and quantitative social ↑ research methods, empirical and statistical methods. Heuristics, criticism and interpretation can be used when studying historical sources.
3.3 VET Systems Research Thomas Deißinger 3.3.0.1
VET Systems as Historical and Cultural Entities
↑ VET systems cannot be described as “constructions” of a specific reality, mainly triggered by political motivations or economic interests. Instead, in order to understand how they function and how they are “capable” of reacting to external demands, they have to be looked at as “historical entities”. Against this background, it is interesting, e. g., that despite industrialisation as one of the major common features in modern history, differences between the German-speaking world and most other countries in Europe in terms of a specific “apprenticeship culture” (DEISSINGER 2004) or “learning culture” respectively (HARRIS / DEISSINGER 2003) cannot be ignored. Their relevance for the current debate on VET and its modernisation may even be associated with ↑ globalisation and various developments on the European policy level which address national VET systems in a specific way (→ 2.5). These challenges get a national dimension in so far as solutions appear only possible against the background of what may be called the “system reference” of a given VET system. This includes different notions of what countries perceive as “educational” or “pedagogical” with respect to their VET systems (→ 2.2) and also the realisation modes applied to link the idea of training for an occupation or a job to the notion of personality develop-
ment of individuals (WINCH 2006). In this lies the root of the separation of education from training which applies to most national contexts and represents, besides industrialisation and its impact on VET, the probably most relevant force behind the “character” and value given to VET in a specific national context. VET systems have to be understood “in relation to other societal institutions” including the ↑ labour market, the economy, the system of industrial relations and of course the system of government (RAFFE 1998, 391). This also includes the way governments have picked up educational ideas referring to VET (R EICHWEIN 1925/1963). A very good example is the internationally unique positioning of an educational institution at the core of the national VET system, which we find in the case of Germany. Here, the corporatist framework established by legal sanction in the late nineteenth century was gradually submitted to governmental interference during the 1920s and 1930s, although the country did not establish a homogeneous training law until 1969. However, much earlier in the development of what is called the “↑ Dual System” (GREINERT 1994), compulsory attendance at the part-time ↑ vocational school emerged as the second principle underlying formalised vocational training besides the framework of institutionalised apprenticeships that was deliberately laid into the hands of the chambers (DEISSINGER 1994). Fort-
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bildungsschulen (continuation schools) had been made obligatory as early as 1869 when the German trade law provided for compulsion but left it to local communities to pass by-laws for this purpose. The Trade Act of 1897, in contrast, saw it as part of the newly defined duties of the guilds and chambers to found and maintain continuation schools for craft apprentices and it also stipulated that apprentices had to be released from work to attend such a school (SCHÖFER 1981, 176–178). The most important change leading to the modern ↑ VET system was brought about due to the influence of what became known as “Classical German Vocational Educational Theory”, especially through Georg Kerschensteiner, who is historically seen as the “father of the German vocational school” (WINCH 2006; Simons 1966). Simons regards Kerschensteiner’s progressing “to the state of action” and seeing “that his plans were put into force” (SIMONS 1966, 124 f.) as the central momentum in the evolution of the German compulsory vocational ↑ school system which widened the so far more or less company-based training into a “Dual System”. The idea of bridging the gap between the end of the elementary school and the beginning of military service by establishing vocational schools for school-leavers was based on the conviction that “education for the ordinary man and woman must be woven into the practical work of life” (HIGGINSON 1990, 248). The continuation school function was seen in the pedagogical complementation of workshop training and it was above all Kerschensteiner who linked it to the idea of Beruf or ↑ vocation, which in his eyes stood for the major route to Menschenbildung (education of the individual) – an ideal recurring back to the 19th century educational movement and associated with the concept of academic education (BLANKERTZ 1982a, 89 ff.). Kerschensteiner conceived of the individual as essentially a social being, both with respect to his occupation and to his citizenship within the community. This meant a complete break with traditional educational thinking (SIMONS 1966, 28 f.). While the Act of 1897 may be seen as a key event in the history of the Dual System as far as ↑ incompany training is concerned, Kerschensteiner’s Prize Essay delivered to the Erfurt Academy of Sciences in 1901 (K ERSCHENSTEINER 1901b), in
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which he laid down his pedagogical programme for a reform of VET, must be seen to comprise thoughts that were to be of revolutionary significance for the German ↑ school system and the relationship between education and work. Kerschensteiner saw that the necessary steps were taken to establish obligatorische fachliche Fortbildungsschulen (obligatory continuation schools linked to specific occupations) to replace the general continuation school which was disliked by masters and teachers and which apprentices experienced as a nuisance and burden. Kerschensteiner was convinced that the Berufsschule held invaluable advantages against an extension of the school leaving age since it was cheaper and more efficient both in social and educational terms. It is important to understand that Kerschensteiner’s school reform gained momentum because it was an educational scheme which, although it had to be wrested from the masters and employers who saw it as a rival institution interfering with ↑ practical training, complied well with the idea of the Staatsbürger (citizen) whom the country’s political élite wanted and needed (BLANKERTZ 1969, 135–138). In essence, the modern ↑ vocational school in Germany still follows the principles underlying the school reform at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century. However, there is no doubt that the ↑ Dual System certainly has two sides: the one is that it links education and work in a VET related way; the other is that due to institutional and legal borders the two “learning sites” still appear separated and only weakly linked from a didactical point of view (EULER 2004b). This also refers to the links between VET, ↑ pre-vocational education (general education in schools) and higher education (BAETHGE 2007). The historical imprints which determine VET and its social and economic framework, its cultural foundations and its relationships with other educational subsystems are the crucial topic of ↑ comparative VET research (→ 3.3.1; → 3.3.2). One approach to addressing open issues in this area is the concept of “learning cultures” which adopt a specific shape as “apprenticeship cultures” when attributed to the acquisition of vocational skills in workplace ↑ learning environments (HARRIS / DEISSINGER 2003). With this premise in mind, looking at voca-
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tional training in a merely institutional manner by using, e. g., the function of the state as the crucial tertium comparationis (GREINERT 1988), reduces the potential of getting insight into these cultural aspects. This is especially true for Anglophone countries such as the UK or ↑ Australia where apprenticeships have been revitalised or reframed in recent years due to dissatisfaction with both schoolbased skill formation as well as traditional on-thejob training (RYAN 2001; DEISSINGER 2003). This is quite opposed to Germany, where it is an apparent phenomenon that the understanding of a separate vocational pathway as “unique” and valuable in itself is a trait which apparently sets the country apart from most other European societies (with the exception of Austria and Switzerland). This unique positioning, however, has traditionally provoked criticism with respect to the organisation of vocational training and general education “according to separate criteria and systems of assessment” including “limited possibilities for progression between them” (YOUNG 2003, 228; BAETHGE 2007). On the other hand, it may be argued that academic and (non-academic) vocational pathways, in the German case, are well rooted within disjunct but interdependent subsystems and that their mutual interaction obviously contributes to stabilizing the “vocational track” in a stronger way than in other countries. If one talks about “learning cultures” or “apprenticeship cultures” the notion of a number of comparative criteria springs to mind which help anybody trying to understand obvious differences in the organisation, the didactical and curricular steering and the relevance of VET for career and life perspectives of young people to learn more about the visible contrasts which can be observed in reality. They refer to the first level of ↑ comparative VET research, which depicts the “system dimension” without already asking for the “backgrounds”. This analytical approach may be called a “multi-level” approach (SCHRIEWER 1987a). On the “system” level different criteria may be used to pursue a systematic comparison. The concept of “learning cultures” represents such an approach since it offers a methodology composed of five dimensions (HARRIS / DEISSINGER 2003). In the following, these criteria will be materialised by look-
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ing at Germany and ↑ Australia as two countries with different notions and different realisation patterns of VET: (a) Strength of, and respect for, vocational education: This dimension refers to the value given to VET in a specific national context, including ↑ learning in the workplace within or without an apprenticeship. It is obvious that the selection mechanisms of general education and the range of opportunities of young people to proceed to higher education have, besides the above-mentioned cultural aspects, a strong impact on this facet of a ↑ VET system. In the UK and Australia, e. g., vocational tracks have traditionally been regarded much lower in value than school-based alternatives, partly due to the structural weaknesses of work-based learning, but also due to a clear mental separation of education and training. This meant that “education in occupational skills for those whose skills are mainly manual has traditionally been seen as outside the main stream of education” (HERMANN / R ICHARDSON / WOODBURNE 1976, 33).
In the German context, on the other hand, industrial training took up the corporatist framework as well as the occupational orientation of the training process which has remained the pivotal trait of apprenticeship up to the present day opening up respected pathways for the majority of school leavers. Both the extension of full-time ↑ vocational schools and the critical educational movement during the 1960s and 1970s (ZABECK 1975; DEISSINGER 1998, 25 ff.) failed to really put the ↑ Dual System at stake. Against this background, apprenticeships are culturally strong and avail of a longstanding tradition of craft training dating back to the Middle Ages (DEISSINGER 1994) while the genesis of the modern vocational training system has been the result of substantial state activities to revitalise the ancient craft system. (b) Knowledge and understanding of vocational pathways: In Germany the vocational pathway is well established and well known. The Dual System with its “recognised skilled occupations” (→ 2.3) still takes up more than half of all 16–19 year olds. Unlike in most other European countries, with the exception of Austria and Switzerland, apprenticeships in Germany exist in nearly all branches of
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the economy including the ↑ professions and parts of the civil service. Small and medium-sized companies are significant contributors to training opportunities (DEISSINGER 2001b). Apprentices come from different educational backgrounds although most have an intermediate or lower secondary school certificate. In recent years, the number of grammar school leavers taking up apprenticeship training has remained more or less stable at around 15 %, a phenomenon which puts Germany down internationally in terms of the academic drift of young people. In Australia, vocational pathways are, generally, poorly understood, except in those families where there has already been an apprenticeship experience. The introduction of traineeships, introduced to encourage ↑ early school-leavers to enter the workforce and obtain skilled training, and then of New Apprenticeships in the late 1990s (HARRIS 2001), though for the purpose of flexibility, has tended to make understandings of apprenticeship even less clear. In fact, the Australian “training environment had been constantly changing and becoming more and more complicated” which led to a high degree of incomprehension for anybody outside the training community (RAY 2001, 35). (c) ↑ Financing of VET: Obviously, despite growing dissatisfaction with employer ↑ commitment, the training market in Germany still “has the character of a suppliers’ market” (GREINERT 1994, 80). Once a training contract has been signed this means the principal financial responsibility is placed upon companies for the training process. The fact that the “system is financed principally by employers” (NCVER 2001c, 38) reflects the principle of self-government which was reaffirmed by law in the late 19th century. Therefore, companies provide training opportunities on a totally voluntary basis. However, public funding of VET in general is becoming increasingly important due to the critical situation on the labour and training markets (DEISSINGER / HELLWIG 2004). This has emerged in a creeping “pluralisation” of VET alternatives outside the Dual System and certainly shows the latter’s dependency on a functioning economic framework. In ↑ Australia, there has been a strong welfare tradition, initiated as a result of and reinforced by the specific character and
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size of the country. While undoubtedly there is a community role in apprenticeships providing a supply of skilled people to furnish quality goods and services (Ray 2001, 16), it is also the case that employers now can expect government funding for training on a large scale. Here, a clear parallel to the UK becomes apparent (RAY 2001) since the development of “new” forms of apprenticeship training is linked to a strong financial steering function of the state while “traditional” apprenticeships were solely a matter of employers. (d) Prime focus of apprenticeships: The German apprenticeship system – not least when looking to its history – may be described as a “system of training rather than a system of employment” where the wages of apprentices reflect the emphasis on training and apprentices typically are paid wages “that are far lower than adult rates and apprentice rates in Australia” (NCVER 2001c, 39). Training allowances are the result of collective bargaining but keep attached to the purpose of giving young people a basic start into their working lives without putting too much burden on employers. As the apprenticeship system is seen to be neither part of the school or education system nor a normal sphere of work the “system reference” is clearly training and recruitment for skilled work. The consequences of such a clear separation of pathways or subsystems of course implies that lots of expectations rest on the ↑ Dual System and frictions on the training market can hardly be compensated without additional activities on the side of both state and federal governments. In Australia, the historical purpose of apprenticeship has been to train artisans, and it has been the main approach to training for both the traditional crafts and the more contemporary trade occupations. It is only recently that this key role of apprenticeships has been challenged and the ↑ general training role has come more to the fore, as evidenced by the fact that often now the system is administered within government portfolios of education and training rather than industrial relations. (e) ↑ Quality assurance of ↑ in-company training: In Germany apprentices enter a special training contract which is subject to the 1969 ↑ Vocational Training Act (DEISSINGER 1996). The company is obliged to impart the competences laid down in
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the ↑ training regulation or ordinance. The Vocational Training Act (1969/2005) may be viewed as the final stage of a post-war public debate on the degree to which the Dual System as a whole should be submitted to state influence. As a compromise, the Act did not install a new training system including the ↑ vocational school, but mainly “consolidated much previous practice under one Act” (RAGGATT 1988, 175). This public emphasis, extending the scope of the Act to the “organisation of vocational training”, makes it an issue of general interest and social importance. The contribution of the Vocational Training Act to systematising and standardising the course of training can be seen in the indenture, the degree to which skill requirements of trainers have become formalised and to the question of how an apprentice in the Dual System has to be instructed and what knowledge and skills have to be imparted to prepare a young person efficiently for a skilled occupation. In ↑ Australia, the quality of that training has always been at the heart of the VET debate. Critical observers (MITCHELL / ROBERTSON / SHORTEN 1999, 119) contend that, with the advent of training packages in the 1990s, “any quality assurance for program delivery and outcomes which might have been provided by the compulsory use of accredited curriculum has been removed” from the ↑ VET system. There is no doubt that ↑ CBT (competency-based training), which follows a different “philosophy” from the “occupational concept”, is responsible for a training organisation which is much more “industry-led” or “employer-led” than “quality-led” in a pedagogical sense (HARRIS 2001; DEISSINGER / HELLWIG 2005). 3.3.0.2
Subsystems within VET and Their Interrelations as Research Objects
The sphere of VET represents a complex, more or less structured or systematised entity depending on how history and culture have shaped it over the years. Looking at VET as a “system”, however, is a pedagogically narrowed perspective since it leaves aside the didactical problem referring to the definition of specific learning objectives in a given course or programme, the functional and/or intentional character of VET on the learning level and the steering of learning and instruction in the
context of purposeful ↑ learning environments directed towards the acquisition of skills and knowledge needed in a job or occupation. This means that we have to distinguish the meaning of VET in many ways: (a) VET standing for a specific concept or philosophy, a concrete programme or course as opposed to a qualification or a set of qualifications respectively (b) VET structured along levels, entrance requirements, length of courses and qualifications obtained (c) VET linked up with other subsystems of the education system, such as school education, higher education and ↑ continuing education or ↑ lifelong learning respectively (d) VET looked at in its positioning within the social and economic system of a given country, which includes its overall status, its individual appeal, its social and above all its economic acceptance (acceptance in the labour market) which it receives in relation to alternative pathways of learning (e) VET seen as delivery of skills and knowledge in specific institutions, such as schools, colleges, companies, training providers or higher education institutions. (f) VET seen as solely work-based, solely schoolbased (college-based) or based on cooperative/alternating/dual learning arrangements (g) VET defined as a specific job- or occupationrelated programme or purpose respectively or as a more or less general (generic) preparation for the world of work (h) VET as an instrument of social and economic policy Another most relevant perspective is looking at the pathways and working mechanisms which determine the transition from school via VET to the employment sector. A basic description, which once again has to be specified along the lines of various national contexts dealing with the “borders” between the subsystems involved in different ways, may be the model of “thresholds” which helps to understand the complex relationships between the sphere where competences (skills and knowledge) are created (e. g. a school or an apprenticeship) and the sphere of application of these competenc-
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es (e. g. a workplace or an occupation). This model makes a distinction between “threshold one” and “threshold two” which each stand for specific problems of transition and integration respectively (MERTENS / PARMENTIER 1988; JUNGMANN 2004; ZABECK 1979a). While “threshold one” indicates the transition process from pre-vocational school education (e. g. a Realschule in Germany or a comprehensive school in the UK) to VET (e. g. an apprenticeship in the German ↑ Dual System or a course in a ↑ TAFE college in Australia), “threshold two” marks the borderline between VET and employment. The problem for any international comparison arises clearly when the assumption dominates that this model applies to every country in the world. The current “landscape” of traditional and innovative VET pathways alone feeds doubts that we no longer can put our trust in such a general analytical framework applicable to various national and ↑ cultural contexts. The difficulty becomes especially apparent if one tries to understand the complex mechanisms linking up the education system with employment. The first reservation which has to be made refers to the different functioning of ↑ labour markets: While Germany, e. g., is still very strongly characterised by “occupation-structured” labour markets (→ 2.3; → 3.1.1), which in substantial areas (machinery, crafts, commercial services) are interlinked with training occupations in the apprenticeship system (DEISSINGER 1998), the UK or ↑ Australia have more “open” labour markets, which also applies to the ↑ US with its strong tradition of both “internal” and “unstructured” labour markets (DOERINGER / PIORE 1971; SENGENBERGER 1987). This means that transition into employment or career pathways are more or less independent from formal qualifications and therefore rather result from membership to a company or the specific demands of a given workplace. A third perspective is the depiction of the relationship of optional routes within VET including different links with other subsystems, especially prevocational (general) education. Here initial vocational training, e. g. through an apprenticeship, is only one specific realisation of VET although this depends on the given national context (see above). If one looks at comparative methodology (→ 3.3.1), e. g. Greinert’s distinction of three basic models of
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VET (market, school-based, dual), it becomes clear that here the focus is on institutional responsibilities, cooperative structures and the role of the state in shaping a ↑ VET system (GREINERT 1988). This modelling of the “character” of VET systems also looks at initial training in the first place and ignores the complex relationships between different subsystems of VET within a specific national context. Although VET in the UK or England respectively may be closely associated with the “market model”, this by no means implies that VET is only carried out in companies and that it follows a more or less strong determination by purely economic considerations about the ↑ benefits of training measures. Two reservations have to be made: Firstly, the UK’s competence-based approach to VET has led to more state involvement than ever before in the ↑ history of VET in that country through a “very tightly regulated assessment and accreditation system that communicates (…) what is expected of the VET system” (HAYWARD 2005, 78). Secondly, ↑ participation in school-based forms of learning in VET has increased in recent years, partly due to dissatisfaction with both the quality of ↑ in-company training and the marginal role, the volatile quality and the lack of career relevance of apprenticeships in many branches of industry (RYAN 2001; RYAN / GOSPEL / LEWIS 2006). For the German debate, the relationship between school-based VET and training in the ↑ Dual System continues to linger on as a “critical topic”. Traditionally, there has always been an understanding that company-based and school-based training represent different pedagogical logics based on diverging paradigms of learning. Whereas VET in schools (→ 3.3.8.2) is strongly associated with a more or less unambiguous pedagogical ethos and therefore not purely with socialisation and utilitarian principles, training in an enterprise normally occurs within an economic environment where normally a strong bias on non-educational purposes prevails (GREINERT 1994). This difference in character finds its expression in the fact that, in the Dual System, the part-time ↑ vocational schools use syllabuses which accommodate for the core of the occupational curriculum as well as for additional general education. While, historically speaking, VET implicates the notion of post-com-
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pulsory education for the ordinary school leaver it is now more and more linked up with options to qualify for entry into higher education. Nevertheless, the German full-time ↑ VET system is a good example for the multifunctional character VET can take. This means that vocational schools basically serve three functions which may be linked up depending on the course and the institution offering it (K ELL 1996; DEISSINGER / RUF 2006): – ↑ Vocational preparation (mostly one to two years) which means enabling young people to go for an apprenticeship by improving their stakes on the training market – ↑ Further education (mostly two to three years) which means leading young people to achieve a higher school qualification level (including, e. g., the university entrance qualification) – Vocational training (mostly two to three years) which means leading young people to achieve a portable labour-market relevant occupational qualification outside the Dual System It is due to these ambiguities that there is a clear borderline between the apprenticeship system and the full-time vocational schools – although the different types of vocational schools are normally joined together within one branch-specific physical entity, often called “Vocational School Centres”. Research carried out by the Federal Institute for Vocational Training (BIBB) has laid open that VET in schools is often very heterogeneous due to federal state specific programmes, entry requirements and qualifications and that it lacks acceptance with companies (FELLER 2000). Even “practice firms” as specific realistic instructional settings fail to fundamentally solve this problem. Employers believe that only apprenticeships, where they have the say, produce competences and attitudes needed for real working tasks. While big industrial companies mostly refuse the so-called “assistant qualification” obtainable in a vocational college (Berufskolleg) smaller and especially craft firms seem more prepared to accept school-based qualifications, above all when it comes to hiring a young person for a commercial function. On the other hand, a clear majority of firms see, even if they concede that practice firms could be reasonable alternatives to classroom teaching, the “socialisation function” of an apprenticeship (→ 3.6.6)
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as more relevant and valuable for skill formation and job preparation. Also, from a political point of view, one of the “disappointing” results of a recent study (DEISSINGER / RUF 2006) certainly is that students themselves more or less “ignore” the fact that they can go for portable qualifications when attending courses at a vocational college: The strongest motivation for them clearly is (i) to improve chances on the training market when applying for an apprenticeship after the course and (ii) to reach out for a polytechnic entrance qualification (Fachhochschulreife) (DEISSINGER / RUF 2006, 122 ff.). These results underline the significant impact of interrelations between subsystems within national education systems even for the mental representation of structures, pathways as well as training and career opportunities among school leavers (DEISSINGER 2006a; DEISSINGER / SMITH / PICKERSGILL 2006). 3.3.0.3
Globalisation and European Developments as Major Drives for Current VET Systems Research
One of our issues has been the historical character of VET. There is justified certainty that this limits processes of modernisation and re-adaptation of national systems facing similar challenges as well as the change of “mentalities” or “system references”. As a matter of fact, however, VET has entered the public agenda as a central issue of international ↑ educational policy which is also reflected in the growth of “intercontinental” research interest (e. g. MISKO 2006; K EATING / MEDRICH / VOLKOFF / PERRY 2002). Despite the fact that education and training differ from country to country in terms of their structural and didactical features VET reform for various reasons has become an international challenge, a fact that is underlined by the European Union’s ↑ commitment to ↑ Lifelong Learning as a global strategy for all European countries and the proclamation of 1996 as “The European Year of Lifelong Learning” (HAKE 1999). In its White Paper on “Growth, Competitiveness and Employment” published in 1993 (EC 1993) the European Commission pointed out that Lifelong Learning should become “the overall objective to which the national educational communities can make their own contributions”. Two years
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later, in the well-known White Paper on “Teaching and Training – Towards the Learning Society” (EC 1995a) the concept of Lifelong Learning became associated with the idea of a “personal skills card” for every European citizen which is to document new knowledge and skills acquired both in formal and non-formal ↑ learning environments. At the same time, the borders drawn between the various sectors of the educational and/or ↑ VET system, including higher and ↑ further education, are now seen as more and more permeable while the perception of a mismatch of learning outcomes with work requirements is supposed to lead to a fundamental rethinking of traditional courses as well as curriculum patterns. Therefore there is a clear “voice” in VET from the side of the European Union, stressing the importance of VET for the economic and social cohesion of Europe, for social and economic progress and for the competitive standing of the EU countries within the world community. In this respect, the European Council, in the year 2000, put forward the message that Europe should become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world (EUROPÄISCHER RAT 2000). It becomes manifest from this “↑ Lisbon Declaration” and similar statements (COPENHAGEN DECLARATION 2002; MAASTRICHT COMMUNIQUÉ 2004; H ELSINKI COMMUNIQUÉ 2006) that VET is primarily seen as an instrument of social and economic policy although the institutional responsibilities at the European level suggest a distinctive educational focus. Notwithstanding these reservations, European research on descriptive features, structural information or statistical indicators of VET systems has for many years mainly been carried out in two strands: Firstly, by European or worldwide operating agencies (→ 1.7; → 2.5), such as ↑ CEDEFOP, EUROSTAT, ↑ OECD or ↑ UNESCO (e. g. CEDEFOP 1981; Kommission der Europäischen Gemeinschaften/EUROSTAT/ CEDEFOP 1997; OECD 2003b), and, secondly, by dishing out research projects to external researchers, such as universities. The ↑ LEONARDO DA VINCI programme certainly has to be mentioned in this context as its projects focus on VET in its various dimensions, such as apprenticeships or the relationship between formal and ↑ informal learning in VET. A great variety of projects have been
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carried out within the framework of the LEONARDO programme so far. It is supposed to promote ↑ mobility across borders and innovation in the field of VET (EUROPÄISCHE KOMMISSION 2005). While in the area of school education the OECD’s ↑ PISA studies (OECD 2000a) have more or less influenced educational discourses, in VET “competence” (though in different meanings) and the associated topic of “standards” has emerged as the overarching topic of both policy and research worldwide (BILLETT 1999; HELLWIG 2006a; 2006b; PILZ 2006; WEIGEL / MULDER / COLLINS 2007). Both topics are linked to each other by a common “philosophy”: This is the belief that the ↑ efficiency and quality of an educational system, institution or programme has to be measured against its “outcomes”. In the case of the PISA studies student assessment was carried out by looking at specific intellectual ↑ performance indicators in general subjects such as Mathematics or Science. Against this background, it appears that educational systems are looked at from a different perspective in that they become growingly associated with their overall performance in terms of demonstrated competences and learning results submitted to external assessment (ERTL 2006b). In Germany, this has led to a debate on the quality of the “three-tier ↑ school system” and the quality of learning and teaching in German schools in general. One of the discharges of this debate has been the introduction of Bildungsstandards (educational standards) as they were decreed by the German Education Ministers Conference in 2004 (KMK 2005; K LIEME / AVENARIUS / BLUM / DÖBRICH / GRUBER 2003). These educational standards allude to intended individual learning achievements or competences which every student should obtain. Ertl holds that “with the introduction of national standards, the concept of competence has become a dominant issue in the educational discourse” (ERTL 2006b, 628). However, there are more sources for this re-orientation in educational and didactical thinking which traditionally has focussed on learning contents rather than learning objectives. One of the roots certainly may be seen in the way the Anglo-Saxon approach to (vocational) learning (e. g. MISKO 1999) – though highly contested (e. g. CANNING 1998) – was welcomed in other countries trying to reform
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their ↑ VET systems. In this context, competence is thought of as a radical dismissal of traditional learning along “inputs” and therefore differs from the German understanding of “occupational competence” (HELLWIG 2006a). Its most recent relevance may be seen in the debate on the “↑ European Qualifications Framework” (EQF) and the corresponding “National Qualification Frameworks” (NQF) respectively (DEISSINGER 2006b; YOUNG 2003). The EQF debate has to be seen in the wake of the “Lisbon Declaration” stressing, among others, the need for more transparency and comparability of (vocational) qualifications across the community. It is a cornerstone in what may be seen as an ongoing chain of political and research activities meant to open up wide access and to improve performance, quality and attractiveness of VET all over Europe. At the same time, VET, despite its specific social and economic significance, is increasingly looked upon in a similar way as higher education, which means that the socalled “↑ Bologna Process” and the “Lisbon-↑ Copenhagen Process” have to be seen as two sides of one medal as they follow similar principles of harmonisation (within the legal framework of the EU treaty) and as they clearly aim at transparency as well as ease of transition and progression within a permeable and unified education system (WINTERTON 2005; R AFFE / HOWIESON / TINKLIN 2005). This includes the notion of a “European Credit Transfer System” for VET (↑ ECVET). In 2006, as a logical consequence of the “PISA shock” and inspired and pressurised by the growing impact of the dynamics of European ↑ VET policy, the first German VET PISA feasability study (PISA-VET) came out which not only tries to fill the research gap concerning the competence issue and the empirical research deficits in the debate, but also tries to pay tribute to the international and European debate in the context of PISA and EQF (BAETHGE /ACHTENHAGEN /ARENDS ET AL. 2006). The study is a good example of the growing relevance of “micro-level” ↑ research in VET, focussing the didactical and curricular dimension of VET (→ 3.4.1; → 3.7.6; → 3.7.7) and the problem of measurability of competences (→ 3.4.2; → 3.6.1; → 5.2.6). In this study, the specific problems and implications associated with the compe-
Handbook of TVET Research
tence debate are being outlined and it becomes obvious that many unsolved problems still lie ahead which derive from the particular character of VET and its links with ↑ labour markets. The most important aspect here, however – and now we turn back the page to what has been said above – is how the different cultural imprints in VET systems worldwide allow those responsible for reforming and developing the goals, instruments, pathways and the pedagogical foundations of VET to pursue a supranational strategy which has implications for the “system reference” of the VET system including what may be called “didactical culture” (FROMMBERGER 2006b). Although a number of political measures have already been launched, more research is needed focussing on two major issues: (1) Are the reform steps that have to be undertaken in the wake of ↑ CBT and EQF really beneficial to improve the quality and status of VET? (2) What are the “side effects” of VET strategies that more or less ignore its cultural foundations in a given country? These questions are formulated with respect to Europe in particular where “different perspectives and starting points” reflect the respective structural and cultural dimensions of each individual ↑ VET system (GENDRON 2005, 7). The following chapters will focus on VET systems in different ways: First of all, the above-mentioned, though rather implicitly discussed, aspects of comparison and comparability will be taken up in the first two sub-chapters, followed by historical reflections on ↑ VET research in different countries and the various national and international reporting systems on VET. It becomes obvious that all these sub-systems are strongly interlinked with the VET system itself, also the way research on evaluation issues is carried out in a country like Germany with its special VET tradition. Sub-chapters on research issues and results in the areas of ↑ pre-vocational education and ↑ further education as well as college-based VET will conclude this international chapter in the present handbook.
Areas of VET Research
3.3.1
Comparative Research on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) – Methodological Considerations Philipp Grollmann
3.3.1.1
Conditions for Comparative TVET Research
The increase in international co-operation and economic entanglement are major factors for the development of international comparative research in TVET. International economic co-operation in development work (e. g. ↑ GTZ in Germany or the Worldbank on a global level) and the building of supra-national organisations (EU, ↑ UNESCO etc.) have been the major drivers for international cooperation on the topic. Global ↑ mobility of capital and economic co-operation also reinforces the need for information on the quality of “↑ human capital” in potential countries of investment. Besides, new methods of transnational governance, such as the Open Method of Co-ordination in the EU (LENEY 2004) need the support of scientific research in order to produce the data and knowledge necessary for processes of “bench-learning” and political and practical decisions. Not only TVET as such is of interest but also its contributions to the wider societal and economic environment. Major studies on this question have come to the result that different styles of production, economic competitiveness and national labour-market regimes correspond to different ways of securing and producing the skill and ↑ knowledge bases for production (HALL / SOSKICE 2001: MAURICE / SORGE 1990; SOSKICE / HANCKÉ 1996). On the other hand there are also factors which have inhibited the development of comparative TVET research as an internationally accepted disciplinary delineation, with its own questions, methodologies and infrastructure.
Delineating TVET – a Methodological Problem First of all, it has to be stressed that it is not the specific mental operation of “comparing”– possi-
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bly in a scientifically reflective manner – which constitutes this strand of research, but rather a fundamental assumption on the ↑ research object “TVET”, i.e. that learning and its societal institutionalisation are embedded into diverging cultural or national traditions (HÖRNER 1991; 1997), and that these differences in culture and tradition can explain certain variations within the field. This, however, presupposes that there exists a certain societal entity which can be identified as the field of Technical and Vocational Education and Training. In some cultures this term has a well defined meaning and empirical connotations while in other cultures it might be difficult to clearly delineate the field (→ 1); this is because the different functions integrated into TVET systems in some cultures are spread through different societal spheres, such as schooling and universities, ↑ labour markets, ↑ social work, in-company organisation and other places of non-formalised learning. Therefore, it might be appropriate to conceptualise vocational learning in different cultures as the main subject of research. Some scholars have even argued that because of specific methodological and epistemic hindrances any attempt to compare vocational education systems has to fail and eventually produces scientific artefacts (GEORG 1996b, 1997b). The argument is that ↑ labour markets, education and learning and other relevant societal facts are so closely interrelated that it is not possible to isolate the aspect of vocational learning and its institutionalisation from the overall society or culture. The use of “Technical and Vocational Education” is a cultural projection (see below) and TVET is not a valid category for culturally sensitive research. This stands in stark contrast to the rather pragmatic practice of implicitly defining vocational education as the sum of all individual pathways, educational programmes and institutions which lead to occupational positions for which an academic degree is not required (RYAN 1991; STERN / WAGNER 1999). In this chapter the possibility of comparing aspects of societal traditions of TVET is a basic underlying assumption. However, there are certain epistemological problems in conjunction with comparisons in TVET which need to be reflected in comparative research projects.
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Traditions and Types of Comparative Research in TVET A review of the existing literature and the relevant research reveals two main areas of research – partly segregated according to discipline, partly interwoven. These areas involve (1) research which deals explicitly with questions of TVET in connection with the respective cultural, national or societal context and (2) research dealing with issues related to vocational training which stems from the broader sphere of international comparative socio-economic research. Research of the first type includes descriptive accounts of TVET systems (LAUTERBACH / SPÖTTL / FASSHAUER ET AL. 1995–2005) as well as historiographic studies on the development of the TVET function in different educational traditions (GREEN 1990; SCHRIEWER 1986; 1987b; 1993) or empirical or systematic studies more focussed on certain aspects of TVET systems (DEISSINGER 2002; FISCHER / RÖBEN 2001 ; FROMMBERGER 1999; 2004; GROLLMANN 2005b; HARRIS / DEISSINGER 2003). In studies of the second type TVET or the relation between education and the labour market often play the role of one explanatory factor for the object researched. Examples would be studies on the ↑ school-to-work transition, ↑ vocational identities or the relationship between TVET and competitiveness (K EEP / MAYHEW 1998; K IRPAL 2004a; STERN / WAGNER 1999). In addition, another distinction can be made between different epistemic orientations. Studies can seek for the identification of universal characteristics of TVET through comparison – e. g. trends in ↑ curriculum development on a global level. They can also aim at the identification of cultural or national particularities – i.e. the special features of TVET in a certain country or region or culture. Research can be based on the aim of improving practice, or research can be based on the notion of a more analytically driven paradigm, i.e. identifying generalisable causal relationships between different elements and variables within TVET systems (HÖRNER 1991; 1997). See the figure for a summary of the different distinctions. In the following I will pay attention to some of the funda-
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mental problems involved in carrying out comparative research in any of these directions. Particular attention will be given to the problem of typologies, the so-called “↑ nostrification” problem and the significance of dealing in a reflective way with the connection between language and cognition in comparative research. From time to time examples will be introduced from the sphere of ↑ teachers’ professionalisation. 3.3.1.2
Potential Fallacies in Comparative Research
The Construction of Types – Levels of Analysis In German academic TVET literature since the mid-nineties a debate has been going on concerning the question of comparing TVET systems and the possibility of their typological construction (DEISSINGER 2001a; FROMMBERGER / REINISCH 1999; GEORG 1997b; LAUTERBACH 1994; 2003b; SCHÜTTE / DEISSINGER 2000) which also reflects the international academic discussion on the application of the comparative method. The classic example for this has become the ↑ typology of vocational education systems according to Greinert, which he has continued to refine over the years. Greinert first of all distinguishes three systems of VET: the market model, the scholastic model and the mixed model or ↑ dual system model (a similar model can be found in LENEY/ THE LISBON-TO-COPENHAGEN-TO-MAASTRICHT CONSORTIUM PARTNERS 2005). The main criterion here is the “role of the state”. Greinert re-developed his model in the 1990s, which became oriented along the premises of system-theory, and his construction now refers to different types of “governing patterns of system-specific communication”. He distinguishes three such governing patterns: 1. bureaucracy 2. market and 3. tradition. Other authors have pointed out the limitations of this model (FROMMBERGER / REINISCH 1999). One of the crucial criticisms is that this construction of types represents a view of one dimension only. Regardless of whether Greinert is attempting to name real types or ideal types in the Weberian sense (WEBER 1980), the dimension “governing patterns of system-specific communication” would permit quite different materialisations. For example, social wel-
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fare may be seen as a governing pattern, inclusion or social ↑ partnership would be similar concepts. A look at Northern Europe immediately brings these two governing patterns to mind. The examples clearly illustrate just how close Greinert’s typology is to the morphology of the respective configurations of state, i.e. how much they are based in political science and how little they are specifically suitable for vocational learning and teaching. The works by Deißinger (1998) represent a further development towards a multi-dimensional account. With two additional dimensions, on whose basis types are then constructed, Deißinger adds the didactical-curricular focus and the location of the acquisition of qualifications during the process of socialisation to arrive at three different ideal types. This constitutes the first attempt to introduce central dimensions of a vocational pedagogical perspective into the debate. Deißinger calls these types “qualification styles” and distinguishes them as enterprise specific, knowledge oriented and vocationally oriented. Quite obviously, he again has the three dominant European systems of TVET in mind (F, UK, D). It is the comparison of systems which stands at the forefront of the academic debate on comparative TVET. In the German discussion the so-called ↑ dual system is normally taken as a benchmark (FROMMBERGER / REINISCH 1999). The most consistent critic and alerter of such “↑ nostrification” of the structures and function of ↑ labour market, education and qualification in comparative TVET research is Walter Georg, who has made several references to the impermissibility of applying the concept “vocational education system” as tertium comparationis (e. g. GEORG 1997b). In this view, comparative analysis can only give rise to insights if
In industrial sociological ↑ training research, for instance, case study approaches have been applied intensively (HEIDENREICH / SCHMIDT 1991; SCHMIDT 1991). The system, the structure, the tradition – be they specific to either nations or regions – constitute the transparencies on which research results generated by ↑ research questions and approaches focussing the micro-level must be interpreted. For research in TVET it must be taken into account that the ↑ contextualisation cannot emanate from a more-or-less “purely” educationalist viewpoint, but needs to reflect the complex interplay of the “triad” of vocational education, organisation of the labour market and the firm, and innovation. E. g. the British curricular ↑ modularisation which is often seen as a role-model for curricular flexibilisation has to be interpreted in conjunction with a given culture of division of labour or in-company ↑ Human Resources Development respectively. Calls of researchers to include the micro-level when investigating the relation between education and work in international ↑ comparative studies have up to now only scarcely been followed. Comparative studies on teaching, learning and instruction as well as pedagogical ↑ professionalism are still missing (SCHÜTTE / DEISSINGER 2000). Research on industrial cultures has illustrated the important role of vocational training as a dimension contributing to the development of technology. To the same extent, though, technological development also constitutes a dimension of vocational training (RUTH 1995). This becomes evident, for instance, in the different patterns of how trades, occupations or vocational fields overlap or are separated by specific demarcations. Whereas Germany has created occupations in the area of sanitation, heating and air-conditioning, the (part-) equivalent in the ↑ USA would be HVAC, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning as a simplified example.
“(…) one takes into consideration the reconstruction of the respective country-specific cultural and organisational-structural context” (GEORG 1997b).
Types, Levels and Dimensions
On the discernment of this problem, which can surely be assumed for most of the authors in the academic literature on comparative TVET research, it appears that up to now there has been a concentration on the macro-level of vocational education that has moved mainstream.
The controversial construction of types in comparative research serves different purposes and their epistemic value can only be judged against the cognitive interest. One of these purposes is the use of ideal types in the formulation of hypotheses (DEISSINGER 1995). Many of the types, especially those which are constructed solely on a sin-
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gle dimension of the comparison, virtually extend an open invitation to formulate “hypotheses” concerning the reality of vocational education in other contexts. These may sometimes prove to be correct, but with a high degree of probability they may equally well turn out to be false, or even downright misleading. It is for this reason that Uwe Lauterbach refers to the danger of comparative research creating stereotypes (LAUTERBACH / SPÖTTL / FASSHAUER ET AL. 1995–2005). Deißinger emphasises the “heuristic function” of his ideal types, which according to Weber serve the following purpose: “The concept of ideal types will help to develop our skill in attribution in research: it is no hypothesis but it offers guidance to the construction of hypotheses. It is not a description of reality but it aims to give unambiguous means of expression to such a description. For research, the ideal-typical notion is an attempt to train the skill in attribution: it is not a ‘hypothesis’, but it attempts to steer the formulation of hypotheses. It is not a representation of what is real, but it attempts to lend the representation a clear means of expression” (translated from WEBER 1988a, 190).
The purpose of scientific research is not least the reduction of complexity. To achieve that, typologies constitute an important tool of explanation. The difficulty in TVET is the adequate dimensioning of such models of ideas. This can be illustrated by means of the following example taken from a dissertation on the ↑ professionalisation of vocational teachers in ↑ China: “As opposed to the widely held belief in the West (that China) is a socialist society with centralised planning and decision-making processes, in the area of vocational education this couldn’t be farther from the truth: within the complex network comprising government agencies, the Ministry of Education, the Foreign Ministry and other authorities, vocational schools enjoy a high degree of curricular autonomy in the creation of their own vocations (in particular the design of new courses of vocational training), up to and including legal issues, coordination with local government […]. In the case of new courses of vocational training for which no official curriculum exists, the schools make up their own, which are subsequently approved by the education authorities […]. So it is quite logical and not infrequent that different curricula may exist in a town or a region – even within a single school – and thus different syllabuses and materials may be deployed” (ZHAO 2003).
Handbook of TVET Research
Although it is obviously the state which occupies the most important role in China when it comes to the administrative dimension of vocational education, this example shows the importance – especially when the focus is on the every-day business of teaching and learning – of taking the respective level of administrative control into account. This is also clearly illustrated by the analyses of the task profiles within vocational education dealt with in this treatise and underscores the rather weak coupling of micro and macro structures in vocational education and their cultural context. Another example for this problem is the interplay between different actors within vocational education in Germany. In other countries it is generally assumed that the cooperation between employers and the representatives of the education system within the so-called “↑ dual systems” is wellnigh exemplary. Against this background it may come as a surprise to learn that within the vocational education system in Germany the concept of “Lernortkooperation” (co-operation of learning sites) is deemed to be fallible and that its improvement has become an omnipresent topic in the reform discussion surrounding vocational education (see e. g. GROLLMANN / GOTTLIEB /KURZ 2003; GROLLMANN / LEWIS 2003). In summary, it is a necessary pre-condition for any researcher in a comparative research project in the field of TVET to constantly reflect on the relationship between different levels of analysis in conjunction with appropriate ↑ research methods and the general hypothesis of transcultural variation across levels of social practice constituting any comparison.
Externalising and Internalising Nostrification – Epistemological Problems of the Global Discourse in TVET Because of the conceptual problems encountered in comparative research there is often a decoupling of comparative ↑ research designs from the discourse in the respective disciplines, so that the avenues towards research and research results are frequently no longer developed and analysed in congruence with the research topics of other subdisciplines and ↑ research fields. However, an important function of comparative research lies pre-
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sive reform agendas. In his critical analysis of such “hybrid” discourses, the comparative educationalist Thomas Popkewitz illustrates this phenomenon by using the metaphor of the “indigenous foreigner”:
Fig. 1: Traditions and types of comparative TVET research
cisely in continually investigating to what extent the research findings in neighbouring fields fulfil their frequently implicit claim to universality and to what extent ↑ benchmarks which are formulated on the basis of such research are either cultureneutral or specific (FISCHER 2003b). Both the compilation of data on the object of research at the very outset as well as the evaluation of results at the end reveal the ethnographic significance attached to such a strategy. Some of the items on the research agenda can be relatively easily identified as being either national cultural approaches; on the other hand, though, the research agenda also always contains ↑ research approaches which were not formulated immanently culturally, but rather in debate with other traditions of research and practice. ‘Foreign countries’ as an argument (ZYMEK 1975) thus not only assume a significant function in practice and politics, but also in the genesis of scientific approaches within socio-scientific discourses. This can happen explicitly by way of reference to respective “international” traditions of education – e. g. in the discussion surrounding the metamorphosis of ↑ vocational schools in Germany into so-called regional centres of competence (e. g. KURZ 2002); partly, though, it takes place implicitly when certain theoretical traditions and positions enter the national discourse in the absence of reflection on their original context. Typical examples are the treatises on the learning organisation; but also the reception given to Schön’s (1983) contribution to the European discussion on ↑ professionalisation and vocational learning. These discourses now treat Schön, Senge, etc., with virtually ritual respect as “heroes” of progres-
“[…] I deploy the concept of the indigenous foreigner to recognise how the local and the global overlay each other in the production of power. The concept of hybridity rejects both universalism and particularism. The importance of the indigenous foreigner, then, lies not in the individuality of the person who is made the hero or heroine per se, but in the hybridity of the discourses that order the memory about progress and that divides remembering from forgetting” (POPKEWITZ 2000).
With regard to the above-mentioned “↑ nostrification problem”, this indicates that it not only happens when researchers associate their own culturally determined patterns with circumstances they observe in other contexts: for example, when German researchers refer to dual vocational training in the ↑ U.S. by maintaining a “failure of an institution” (K REYSING 2002). It also happens when the concepts observed in other contexts are applied to one’s own culture. One can therefore distinguish between an internalising and an externalising nostrification. Popkewitz applies the metaphor of the indigenous foreigner to the pedagogical professionalisation discourse: “While discourses of professionalization in education embody different historical governing patterns, particular narratives about individuality, action and participation circulate globally. Today’s image of the professional teacher is of one who is expected to collaborate, reflect and “construct knowledge” in a decentralized system of education. The “new” teacher (and the child) is an “empowered”, problem solving individual capable of responding flexibly to problems that have no clear set of boundaries or singular answers. The teacher is assumed to possess a pragmatic individuality that is tied to the contingencies of situations in which problems arise” (POPKEWITZ 2000, 282).
He perceives this conceptualisation of pedagogical ↑ professionalism to be grounded in the further development of the Anglo-Saxon notion of professionalism and distinguishes it from the traditional German approach, in which the hallmark of the “professional” teacher is “Bildung” as an attribute and a professional task. Hence, the underlying problem boils down to the assumption that the respective objects which are to be investigated, as well as the formulation of the ↑ research approach-
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es and the interpretation of the results, are seemingly independent. In international comparative research there is no independence of the researching subject from the objects of research – which applies to social research in general – and likewise no independence exists between the individual objects, as the so-called quasi-experimental school in comparative research in its vulgar form would have us believe. In comparative ↑ statistics this dilemma is referred to as “Galton’s problem” going back to the English statistician Francis Galton. Thus, already at the level of the formulation of research interests, one needs to be aware of the context of their development. Already at this stage in research a pre-definition will be made on the issue which currents assert themselves: the more cultural-specific or the universal. Due to the “↑ nostrification problem” it is one of the greatest challenges for comparative research to formulate questions with an adequate relation of concreteness and abstractness and to carry out the methodological arrangement of investigations in an adequate relation between openness and closeness. This similarly applies to the interpretation of research results. Such problems are additionally aggravated by the language problem that inevitably arises in the course of carrying out ↑ comparative studies.
Language and Culture Comparison In an article in the German weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”, the journalist Martin Spiewak (2001) describes the concept of the private University of Phoenix, Arizona (UOP). Judged as being a highly successful university on the basis of high student numbers as well as other key data, this institution is remarkable for its particularly high degree of flexibility with regard to its adaptation to new technologies, a high presence on the American market for ↑ further education and ongoing foundation of new “subsidiaries”. In his article Spiewak points out that the lecturers at UOP refer to themselves as “instructors” and he attributes a downright emphatic significance in the depiction of the ↑ didactical concept of the institution to this fact. Actually, in American English the term instructor is used as a virtual equivalent of the term lecturer. In vocational education at the Community Colleges and in ↑ High Schools the term is quite common-
Handbook of TVET Research
place (MILLER / MILLER 1998). Albeit drawn from a context of journalism, with regard to the language problem which typically occurs in comparative research, this example serves as a warning against over-interpreting what at first glance may appear to be a relevant language phenomenon. As illustrated by Clement (1999), on the level of language it is inevitable that cultural projections are also transported. That language indeed influences perception to some extent, but not to the point of “linguistic determinism”, has been proven as result of a number of psychological experiments. Interestingly, these research efforts point out that it is especially the understanding and the processing of abstract concepts and domains which are influenced most by language. For example, the perception of time is influenced by language to a greater extent than the perception of colour (BORODITSKY 2001). “Communication problems in the global village” (1999) thus call for strong empirical research orientation. An understanding with regard to understanding on the level of language is necessary. However, if not flanked by empirical research, its full ramifications will lead to infinite regresses and contribute little to cognitive progress. Thus, the “meaning” of vocational education must be reconstructed in interplay between abstract conceptualisation and empirical facticity. As formulated by Max Weber in his essay on the construction of types according to the culture critic and leftist Hegelian, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, a suitable balance has to be found between “substance husbandry” and “meaning husbandry” (translated from WEBER 1988a, 214). 3.3.1.3
Comparative TVET Research a Cumbersome Journey
Thus, according to what has been said above we state that researchers in comparative TVET have to cope with severe epistemological problems. The general hypothesis of transcultural or national variation underpinning comparative TVET research requires the handling of topics such as (1) TVET as a multi-level phenomenon of social practices, that are sometimes only loosely coupled; (2) implicit claims for universal validity of TVET and TVET related research and policy discourses
Areas of VET Research
(e. g. empirical ↑ educational research or transnational policies); (3) the problem of cultural projections (↑ nostrifications) as regards the formation of ↑ research questions as well as the interpretation of data and results (4) a balanced ratio between linguistic and conceptual sensitivity and empirical research. In addition comparative researchers need to clarify whether they want to look out for similarities or differences and whether they hereby follow a more analytical or a more practical approach. The practice of comparative research in TVET therefore needs constant discursive collusion between the various partners involved in the research process. This has been labelled the collaborative ↑ research approach (ATTWELL 1998; SCHMIDT 1991; THURLEY 1991). However, this cannot be a substitute for comparative research but certainly is its social prerequisite. The social practice of ↑ research co-operation often has practical re-percussions within the TVET field. If the cultural comparison remains an academic exercise, merely, following this understanding: “From a quasi experimental testing procedure for hypothetical generalised relations of condition or effect it is reconverted [the comparative method, author] to the empirically bolstered development of a functionally organised equivalence area of alternative possibilities for the effectuation of effects” (translated from SCHRIEWER 2000, 93),
it might remain meaningless to TVET-practitioners who are seeking for inspiration and reflection in order to shape their professional practice through knowledge generated in other cultures or through their comparison.
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3.3.2
Comparative VET Research – Methodological Considerations, Results and Current Questions Hubert Ertl and Dietmar Frommberger
3.3.2.1
Stages of Comparative Interest in Education and Training
The comparison of educational phenomena has a long history and can be traced back to reports on educational practice written by visitors to foreign countries in antiquity. These ‘travellers’ tales’, which can of course still be found today, are characterised by an emphasis on exotic details which contrast strongly with familiar educational structures and practices. The main motive of these reports are general curiosity, and therefore, systematic accounts are rare in this category. From the 19th century onwards, travellers with a specialised interest in education and training appeared, motivated by the development of national systems of education in core European countries and the connected need for ↑ educational policy making at a national level. Therefore, educational politicians and experts visited other countries in order to produce more or less systematic reports on educational ↑ policy and practice as observed in schools and training institutions. These reports often took the form of encyclopaedic descriptions, rarely with explanatory powers. The reports of the English educationist Michael Sadler on education and training in Germany can be regarded as one of the most important examples in this category. Some visits of educational ministers in countries that achieved good results in the ↑ PISA study are reminiscent of examples of 19th century educational borrowing. At the beginning of the 20th century the analysis of historical and societal factors and forces that shape education and training systems in foreign countries became fashionable. This category of comparative research assumed an interdependent relationship between society and education: whereas education was regarded as being shaped by societal structures, powers and preferences, education was seen
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as being able to change society in the medium and long term. Following this assumption, educationists and policy-makers started to see in education and training an instrument to steer society and the economy in a particular direction. With the increasing importance of social science approaches and methods in ↑ educational research in the second half of the 20th century, comparative work in the area of education and training changed. Rather than relying on historical analyses of the factors shaping education and training, empirical methods are used to describe, analyse and assess educational systems and outcomes. Educational administrations began to produce sophisticated statistical reporting systems which comparativists started to investigate using quantitative ↑ research methods, often developed in areas of social sciences other than education (psychology and psychometrics). The use of ↑ research approaches and interests developed in economics became wide spread in describing and comparing inputs and outputs of education and training systems in different countries. Recent large-scale comparisons of student achievement in large numbers of countries can be regarded as a further development in this category of comparative work (for more detailed periodisations of comparative education and training mainly from an Anglo-American perspective see for instance Noah/ Eckstein (1969), Jones (1971), Epstein (1994) and Vos/ Brits (1990)). 3.3.2.2 Different National Research Traditions Education and in particular Comparative Education is a common subject and question in most countries all over the world. VET and in that context also Comparative VET is, traditionally, more a field of research in German speaking countries. Meanwhile VET is increasingly a field of research in more and more European Countries and all over the world. For instance, the ↑ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) collects an increasing variety of comparative ↑ data on vocational education, progression and qualifications on an annual basis (OECD 2005b). Also, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training produces an ever increasing stock of materials comparing ↑ VET systems, structures
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and practice in Europe and elsewhere (CEDEFOP 2006b). Different national ↑ research traditions and contexts seem to adopt different foci for comparing VET internationally. For example, whereas the German ↑ comparative studies are mostly concerned with the structures and practices of VET itself (see for instance the far-reaching debate about ↑ modularisation of training in the 1990s, frequently referring to National Vocational Qualifications in England, Wales and Scotland, see for instance DEISSINGER 1994; PILZ 1999; ERTL 2002), comparative studies in the UK are mostly concerned with the connection between training systems and economic competitiveness. Examples of such studies are the comparisons of German and English vocational training undertaken by Prais (1981) and Prais/ Wagner (1985), the comparisons of English training structures with the country’s main competitors in Europe and Asia (undertaken by 1988, 1990 and 1992, concluding that England was trapped in a ‘low-skills-equilibrium’ as opposed to a ‘high-skills-equilibrium’ in countries such as Germany), and more recent studies concerned with the connection between training systems and ↑ labour market structures (see for instance BROWN / GREEN / LAUDER 2000; HAYWARD /JAMES 2004) or the ↑ school-to-work transition (see for instance EVANS / HEINZ 1994; BIERHOFF / PRAIS 1997; MÜLLER / SHAVIT 1998). The differences in focus of ↑ comparative VET research conducted in the UK and in Germany illustrates that comparative work is often driven by nation- and system-specific agendas; the aim of comparative research is, inter alia, to make these differences accessible and to demonstrate the impact of political agendas on the production and interpretation of results of comparative work in education and training (see ERTL 2006a). These different national research traditions seem to be linked to the status and relative position of comparative education (Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft, Education Comparée, Educación Comparada, etc.) in various English, German, French, Spanish, etc. speaking countries, and to the degrees to which research into matters of comparative VET has developed into a (sub-)discipline or not in different countries. A further issue is to what extent VET is the subject of independent aca-
Areas of VET Research
demic research in different national contexts. The fact that the German Association of ↑ Educational Research (DGfE) has a separate special interest group in the area of vocational education and training, whereas such a group is not in existence in the DGfE’s British equivalent (BERA) is an indication of the different status of research into matters of VET in the two countries. In the German-speaking context, there have been attempts to establish ↑ comparative VET research as a distinctive sub-discipline of comparative education (CZYCHOLL 1971; LAUTERBACH 2003a; 2003b), partly due to the division of Germany after World War II and ongoing comparative research into VET in the ‘other’ part of Germany (CZYCHOLL 1971, 19). Czycholl traced the comparative element in German research in vocational education back to the beginning of the 20th century when scholars such as Georg Kerschensteiner used comparative approaches to improve the understanding of the way in which VET in Germany had developed. He concludes, by pointing out a discrepancy that exists between the need for more comparative work (resulting from development such as the ↑ internationalisation of trade and the European integration process) and the lack of agreed aims, concepts and methods of comparative research into VET (ABRAHAM 1962, 176), that research in this area is still at a ‘pre-scientific stage’; an evaluation that still holds much truth 35 years later. Lauterbach (LAUTERBACH 2003a; 2003b) is particularly concerned with the relationship between comparative education and comparative ↑ research in VET and concludes that the discussion of research areas, of distinctly comparative methods and theories and of the motivation to do comparative research in the area of VET has not been developed progressively and continuously enough to warrant the establishment of an academic (sub-) discipline (for different views on the position of comparative research in VET within academia in different cultureal contexts see the contributions in BUSCH / BUSCH /K RÜGER /K RÜGER-POTRATZ 1974).
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3.3.2.3 Comparing in VET Research: Methodology and Current Results In the historical approach to research, the main focus lies in describing, explaining and understanding the past. But besides that it is also intended to draw conclusions and predict future developments. Comparative research follows a similar line of enquiry and this is particularly true for comparative research in VET: On the one hand we want to know and understand the characteristics and structural models of VET in other countries. For that reason it is important to have an understanding of how these models have evolved. And with comparative VET research current issues may be considered with a view to drawing tentative conclusions and posing recommendations for future developments to ensure continuous improvement in planning and delivery of VET. When adopting a ↑ historical ↑ research methodology, the validity of using historical evidence to explain current issues remains contentious. This is also true when conducting comparative research. Originally ‘comparing’ ↑ VET systems means ↑ benchmarking, but in order to arrive at reasoned conclusions with regard to benchmarking, a sound understanding of the background and development of the different models needs to be appreciated. Such an appreciation enables the development of criteria (‘tertia comparationis’) with which to arrive at relatively objective and international conclusions. So “comparing” in a broader sense not only means to benchmark and to understand the structural differences and similarities in VET in different countries but also to know and understand the development and design of VET in different countries. Strictly speaking it is essential to be able to understand VET before ↑ benchmarking it in different countries or cultures. Only on the basis of understanding VET is it viable to define valid criteria for comparing according to the objective of benchmarking. Thus in order to explain differences and similarities and to benchmark, a theory or thesis which can be applied to more than one national context needs to be developed. To date the literature shows that such a model has yet to be developed. The ta-
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ble below shows the main areas in ↑ comparative VET research: These different questions raised in comparative VET research are closely connected with the three main traditions in comparative education as identified by Broadfoot (1999, 24): The empiricist approach produces detailed documentations of educational phenomena and the ways national systems have developed for providing the organisation and delivery of education and training processes. The positivist approach attempts to apply ‘scientific’ ↑ research methods to education and training phenomena in order to generate generalisable findings. The holistic approach focuses on the cultural factors and forces that underlie education and training systems in order to explain and eventually compare educational phenomena. It also needs to be recognised that ‘VET’ is a very general term with diverse meanings in different countries. With comparative VET research it is intended to define and understand these meanings regarding one or more ↑ subject areas on the basis of different ↑ research designs. But it is also intended to learn from each other and to find answers about better or worse solutions concerning the ↑ performance of the system. In the following we present some results in comparative VET research according to specific questions (Tab. 1).
Results of Research Aimed at Describing VET in Different National or Cultural Contexts – Several country studies, according to the VET system or parts of the VET system (see for instance LAUTERBACH / SPÖTTL / FASSHAUER ET AL. 1995–2005; ROTHE 1995; KOCH 1998; ANDERSSON 2000; WESTERHUIS 2001; ATKINSON 1999).
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Results of Research Aimed at Understanding and Explaining VET in Different Countries – Historical ↑ VET Research (see for instance K IRSCH / BERTRAND 1991; LANE 1996; SCHRIEWER 1995; GOUDSWAARD 1981; CHARLOT / FIGEAT 1985; PELPEL / TROGER 1993; GREGSON 1995).
Results of research aimed at comparing VET with a view to knowing and understanding differences and similarities – Developing typologies to compare VET systems very broadly (see for instance GREINERT 1988; GREINERT 1995a; DEISSINGER 1995; CLEMENT 1996; FROMMBERGER / REINISCH 1999; BROWN / GREEN / LAUDER 2000). – Historical-comparative research (see for instance K RAAYVANGER / ONNA / STRAUSS 1988; DEISSINGER 1992; GREINERT 1999; FROMMBERGER 1999; H ARNEY/ SCHRIEWER 2000; FROMMBERGER / REINISCH 2004). – Research on finding new ways of defining and solving problems (see for instance FINLAY/ NIVEN / YOUNG 1998; DEISSINGER 1998; PILZ 1999; GONON 1998; NIJHOF / STREUMER 1998; WIERINGEN /ATTWELL 1999) The COST initiative (European Co-operation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research) can be regarded as a large-scale attempt to institutionalise collaborative comparative research on a number of current problems common to VET across Europe (see for instance MULDER / SLOANE 2004 and NIJHOF / HEIKKINEN / NIEUWENHUIS 2002).
Tab. 1: Questions and subject areas of Comparative VET Research
Areas of VET Research
Results or Research Aimed at Comparing VET by Referring to the Outcomes of Training Processes or the Performance of Trainees To date there are no significant empirical results regarding and comparing the performance of VET in different countries. Results for VET, similar to the Programmes of International Student Assessment (↑ PISA) in ↑ compulsory education conducted by ↑ OECD, do not exist. Nonetheless within the European context and EU ↑ VET policy benchmarking is more and more a common way to compare VET in different countries (see → 4). However, there are small-scale studies comparing the outcomes of training processes. For instance, Schmidt (1997) reports on an Irish-German co-operation project in which Irish electricians and motor mechanics sat the corresponding German initial training examinations. As they achieved similar or even slightly better results than their German counterparts it might be concluded that the training standards of both countries in these fields are comparable. In terms of its characteristics, comparative ↑ research in VET can be located between the ↑ humanities and the empirical sciences. While comparative research employs the methods and techniques of the social sciences for explaining the societal and individual conditions and consequences of VET, for answering questions regarding the reasons for status quo in training and regarding ↑ societal effects and aims of training, comparative research also uses historical and philosophical approaches (ANWEILER 1974). For an overview of methodological issues, approaches and challenges in comparative research in education, see the typology developed by Keeves/Adams (1994); for a comprehensive list of the functions comparative work can assume in education and training practice, see Phillips (1999).
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sia of educational conferences (see for instance, ACHTENHAGEN /K ELL 1994). Reports on these symposia often discuss national developments in VET in the framework of wider European policies and make implicit reference to developments in other countries. Sometimes, fairly vague themes are formulated (such as ‘new developments in VET’, ‘modernisation of VET’) which allow contributors to present national ↑ policies and practice to an international audience. Explicit comparison is in these cases often undertaken by the convenors of the symposia or by the editors of resulting publications (cf. for instance ERTL / GRAMLINGER / HAYWARD 2004). Policy-making at the EU level is characterised by the tension between two aspects: the historical developments of national ↑ VET systems and their interrelation in the particular socio-economic contexts of different countries, and the joint efforts of European countries to come to terms with the challenges of modernisation of VET (GEORG 1999). At the end of the 1990s, the EU project in the areas of education and vocational training was dominated by the restrictions posed by ↑ subsidiarity, the principle of non-harmonization and what has been termed the ‘programme approach’ criticized for ineffective administration and disproportionate bureaucracy (cf. ERTL 2002). The current EU agenda on education and training is initiating comparative ↑ research in VET at various levels and poses a number of challenges for this kind of research. The EU education and training agenda is dominated by the strategic aim for the European Union ‘[…] to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’ which was formulated in
3.3.2.4 Comparative Aspects of VET in the European Context: Discussion of EU VET Policy
March 2000 by the European Council of Heads of State or Government (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2000, 3). The so-called Lisbon Conclusions set out new aims for policy areas such as education and training and a new style of policy formation was developed, the so-called ↑ open method of coordination ‘[…] as the means of spreading best practice
From the 1990s onwards, the impact of EU legislation (Art. 127 Maastricht Treaty) on vocational education in European countries was widely discussed and was the topic of a number of sympo-
cooperation allows the Union to set guidelines for policies in the Member States and to set timetables
and achieving greater convergence towards the main EU goals’ (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2000, 18; cf. in detail Frommberger 2006a). This open method of
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for implementing policies. Also, the new method allows the use of indicators and ↑ benchmarks for the comparison of the ↑ performance of Member States with worldwide competitors, evaluating the progress of Member States through periodic monitoring and peer review, which constitute inherently comparative exercises. The Lisbon Conclusions prescribe three main objectives for Europe’s education and training systems: ‘the development of local learning centres, the promotion of new ↑ basic skills, in particular in the ↑ information technologies, and increased transparency of qualifications’ (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2000, 12 ff.). The Lisbon Conclusions also define a number of specific targets relevant for education and training, including increasing investment, halving the number of young people with only lower secondary education, defining ↑ basic skills for the ↑ lifelong learning agenda, creating more transparency in the recognition of qualifications and periods of study and training, and developing a common format for CVs (cf. COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2000, 13 f.). In VET, the EU Commission and Council have further detailed the overarching objectives defined in the Copenhagen Declaration, applying a policy process that is very similar to the one adopted in the area of education. This process has included the developing of indicators and the setting of ↑ benchmarks for the comparison of achievement in VET in European countries (cf. e. g., COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2004c). These targets are conceptualised as measurable outcomes of education and training systems which only make sense if the EU member countries’ progress towards the targets is measured regularly and compared with each other. Between April and October 2004, a Consortium of research institutions conducted a study on behalf of the EU on the progress of European countries on selected performance indicators in VET. The Consortium reviewed key European and international publications (mainly from European bodies such as the Commission and ↑ Cedefop, but also from the ↑ OECD), reports from senior Directors General of the Commission from all EU Member States and six other European countries and specially conducted country reports on specific themes ‘[…] to identify progress of the national
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↑ VET systems towards the Lisbon objectives and priority benchmarks’ (MAASTRICHT 2004, 9). The Consortium looked at issues such as the quality of initial VET, ↑ participation in ↑ continuing VET, VET and social inclusion, expenditure on and returns of VET, innovation in teaching and learning, and ways of building competences for a European ↑ labour market. The study concludes that the Nordic countries are furthest advanced in achieving the goals set out in the Copenhagen Declaration, providing learners with good basic skills and achieving the highest levels of participation in continuing VET. On the other hand, the socalled ‘core European and Mediterranean Member States’ (MAASTRICHT 2004, 3) have made little progress in improving their ↑ performance. The evolving Lisbon agenda is complex because the Lisbon agreement seems to have triggered a host of activities, some of which intensify projects started in the 1980s or 1990s, and some of which set out to tackle genuinely new areas of cooperation. The Lisbon agenda can also be described as multi-layered as it attempts to influence developments at all levels of training and education. For instance, the aim to establish a ↑ European Framework of Qualifications for Lifelong Learning (EQF) (COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 2005b) targets – at least in the first instance – the macro-level of training, i.e. political regulations regarding the definition of qualifications in different Member States. The introduction of a common format for European CVs (COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 2002) is aimed at the microlevel of education and training that is to say at the certification of the learning experiences of individual learners. Both initiatives must be seen in connection with earlier, not fully successful EU policy aims. For instance, ↑ EQF can be regarded as a re-launch of the ideas behind the SEDOC register, which introduced five Community-wide levels of vocational qualifications and certificates in the 1980s (EC DECISION 85/386 of June 1985). These levels constitute the framework for mutual recognition and transparency of qualifications in the member states (ZIMMERMANN 1993, 338; WIEGAND 1996, 262 ff.). In order to make the system operable, CEDEFOP initiated a comparability exercise which resulted in SEDOC (Register of Occupations and
Areas of VET Research
↑ Professions in International Exchange) of more than 200 comparable occupational activities. SEDOC was developed in co-operation with experts from all member states. The register contained descriptions of ↑ occupational profiles and the basic requirements of occupations for the allocation of diplomas, certificates and other evidence of qualifications recognised by the respective member states (SELLIN 1996, 21 ff.). In 1993, 209 occupational profiles were unanimously agreed upon by the EU member states in co-operation with the associations of the social partners at European level. Descriptions of the occupational profiles and comparative tables outlining training paths and qualifications have been published in the Official Journal of the EU (see PIEHL / SELLIN 1995, 213). SEDOC was further developed in the EC Programme Comparability of Vocational Training Qualifications (SELLIN 1992). For the reasons for the limited success of the SEDOC Register in the member states and later developments in the question of recognition and comparability, see Scheerer 1998, Bjørnåvold/ Sellin 1998 and Blitz 1999; also Frommberger 2006a. European credit transfer systems (ECTS in higher education, ↑ ECVET in vocational training), as set out in the Bologna and Copenhagen Declarations, extend the EU activities aimed at the long-standing ambition of facilitating the ↑ mobility of learners in Europe. Mobility of vocational learners has been facilitated by the framework programme for vocational education and training ↑ Leonardo da Vinci and by a host of predecessor programmes such as PETRA (vocational training of young people and their preparation for adult and working life), EUROTECNET (European technology network for training) and IRIS (training programmes for women) for some decades now (cf. ERTL 2002). In conclusion, the post-Lisbon EU policy agenda in education and particularly in VET can be regarded as Europe’s reaction to the challenges posed by ‘[…] a quantum shift resulting from globalization and the challenges of a new knowledge-driven economy’ (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2000, 1). The evolv-
ing raft of EU policies based on the Lisbon Conclusions was described as a ‘turning point’ of educational policies in Europe (NÓVOA /DE JONG-LAMBERT 2003, 55). The emphasis of the policies on comparative indicators and common ↑ bench-
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marks, despite their limited impact on the ground so far, will shape not only the cooperation of European countries in VET but will also provide an on-going stimulation for comparative research in this area. 3.3.2.5 Some Questions In the following we outline some open questions and some ↑ fields of research in which more work is needed in order to illuminate the practice and theory of VET in different countries in a comparative perspective: – ↑ Comparative VET research concerning contents and outcomes of training processes: Which kind of knowledge, skills and competences do apprentices and students in VET acquire in different countries and cultures? What are the ways in which knowledge, skills and competences are combined to further qualifications in different countries? What are the values of qualification for (international) ↑ labour markets? – Comparative VET research concerning learning and teaching in training processes: How do apprentices and students in VET learn? How are school and work-based learning processes conducted in different countries? What is the relationship between school and work-based learning? What is the role of teachers/trainers/instructors in vocational learning processes? – Comparative VET research concerning the structures and systems in which training processes take place: What are the reasons for differences and similarities of ↑ VET systems in different countries and cultures? What are the reasons for the dominance of instruction in school-based learning contexts in some countries? Why does school-based-VET dominate in ↑ France? What are the reasons for the competence-based approach in VET in ↑ Australia? What different concepts of ↑ vocational competence influence ↑ VET systems in different countries (see ERTL / SLOANE 2005). In general, systematic comparative VET research seems to be at its beginnings rather than constituting an established (sub-)discipline within educational studies in its own right. Nevertheless recent developments in ↑ VET policy, for instance at the EU level, demonstrates that there is a political
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agenda to benchmark national VET systems and their outcomes against each other or against supranational ↑ performance indicators. For this exercise, comparative ↑ research in VET seems essential in order to lay the foundations of in-depth knowledge about the rationales and processes of different national training systems and practices.
For instance, the interpretation of ↑ benchmarking results has to be based on results of VET comparative research. It needs to be seen whether the short time-frames of ↑ educational policy-making (see for instance the ambitious schedule of the Lisbon agenda) will leave sufficient time for conducting the necessary comparative work in VET.
3.3.3 Historical VET Research. Case Studies 3.3.3.1 Research on Vocational Education History in China Qiding Yu and Zhen He As an independent branch of research, ↑ education history itself has a history of over one hundred year. However, the research on ↑ vocational education history is comparatively lagging behind. In addition, most of the researches in this area are scattered and only on same special topics. This might be due to the lower position of vocational education in the whole educational system. Until the end of 1980’s, with the implementation of the opening-up policy in ↑ China, adjustment of educational structure and development of vocational education, the vocational education became an important part of the whole educational system and received more attention. At the same time, the research on vocational education history developed from information collection to systematical research. 3.3.3.1.1 Important Research Achievements Important research achievements can be found from monographs. In addition, researches on history of some specific subjects, for example, the technical history also touched upon the vocational education occasionally.
Works on Vocational Education History and Thinking “China Vocational Education Development History”, written in the 1980s by Zhou Tanhui, an expert from Taiwan, is the first work in China about China’s vocational education history. Zhou categorised the period before the enactment of the edu-
cation system in 1862 by the Qing Dynasty as the embryonic stage of the vocational education. He also divided the development of the vocational education since 1862 (in Taiwan till after 1949) into eight stages. From the perspective of background, purpose, rule and management, course design, teachers, funding and equipment and teaching methodology, the work gave clear statement on the establishment and development of the vocational education system in ↑ China. It also pondered over the history and current development of the vocational education (ZHOU 1982). “↑ China Vocational Education History”, written by Wu Yuqi, summarised the emergence, development and reform of vocational education from ancient time to modern time in China based on the historical materials collected and combined historical development with research on specific subjects. Using the activities of the National Association of Vocational Education of China (NAVEC) as the main clue, he discussed the vocational education structure and system interlinked between vocational education schools, vocational continuation schools, vocational education given in normal schools, rural improvement and ↑ career guide, which was gradually established by the NAVEC (WU 1991). The “History of China’s Vocational and Technical Education” compiled by Li Lingtian and Wang Ping is a collection of valuable documents. It systematically summarized the policies, school regulations, courses, teachers, students and administration of vocational education from Qing Dynasty in 1862 to People’s Republic of China in 1988 with full and accurate historical records. However, there is no deep discussion on ↑ vocational ed-
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ucation thinking and representative figures (LI / WANG 1994). Liu Guilin divided the contemporary vocational education thinking to three parts in his dissertation “Research on the Thinking of Contemporary China’s Vocational Education”. By analysing the development of contemporary vocational education thinking, he tried to find out the connection between the thinking and practice of vocational education. He also raised a new concept that ‘the evolution of contemporary vocational education thinking is the process of exploring how to adapt vocational education to Chinese situation (LIU 1997). All the above-mentioned achievements, especially the researches on vocational education history after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, played an important role in summarizing the development process of vocational education. However, generally speaking, these achievements put more emphasis on the statement of historical facts with a clear tendency of pragmatism. All researches were from the educational perspective and none of them from a wider angle e. g. sociology, economy and philosophy to comprehensively study the history on vocational education (VOCATIONAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF MOE/CIVTE 1995).
Works on Special Topics of Vocational Education The researches on China’s vocational education can be found in some chapters of vocational education books as well as spotted in some textbooks of China’s ↑ education history, for example, a “Brief Summary of China’s Education History” by Mao Lirui (MAO 1984), “Comparative Vocational Education” by Hao Xinsheng (HAO / YUAN / QIAN 1987) and “Vocational Education Conspectus” by Gao Qi (GAO 1984). The researches relating to ↑ vocational education history is mainly brief statement of historical facts. There is a big limitation to their depth and range of content. In recent years, many works on vocational education history examined the current situation of vocational education and pondered over problems with it. Trying to look at the history and reality of the vocational education through taking historical
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experience for reference, some works are no longer purely a collection of historical records but include philosophical thinking based on previous research achievements (WANG 2005; WU 1999; HU 1998). Besides, specific studies on vocational education history developed as well, including the research on the historical evolution of certain vocational education institution (NING / LI 2002), research on the history of imparted ancient vocational skills (ZHU 1997) and research on the vocational education regulations and systems (SUN 2003; ZHANG 2005). All of them included historical reviews and critics of varying extents. This has reflected the common rule in the development of research in Chinese education history, that is “general and extensive first and then devided and detailed”. 3.3.3.1.2 Two Important Questions
Research on the Thinking of Important Figures in the History of Vocational Education The most conspicuous research of such is the research on the thinking of Huang Yanpei. Almost all books on contemporary vocational education have given systematic and in-depth analysis of the life of Huang Yanpei and his thinking on vocational education, just like all the above-mentioned works on the history of vocational education. In addition, when researches on ↑ China’s education history and history of educational ideology touched upon vocational education, they talked about Huang Yanpei and his thinking on vocational education, for example, “Comprehensive History of China’s Educational Ideology” by Wang Bingzhao (Six Volume) (WANG / YAN 1994) and “History of China’s Educational Ideology” by Sun Peiqing (SUN 1995). There are 160 papers in national journals relating to research on Huang Yanpei from 1994–2000. The key content included: (1) the purpose of vocational education which is to ‘help jobless persons getting jobs and persons with job enjoying themselves more’; (2) the ‘panvocational education concept’ of having socialized and scientific vocational education; (3) the teaching and learning principle of ‘using both brain and hands’ and ‘combining doing and learning’; (4) the professional ethical education of ‘loving the career and serving the people’ (WANG / YAN 1994). The
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NAVEC established by Huang Yanpei played a crucial role in promoting modern and contemporary vocational education in China. Therefore, the research on NAVEC is comparatively more systematic (WU 1991; HUANG 1987). Till now, al though there are researches on other educators of vocational education like Zhang Qian and Cai Yuanpei, the researches are relatively few and sporadic. There are only 11 papers relating to Zhang Qian from 1997–2004. Papers relating to others are even less. What is worth mentioning is that Zhang Lanxin did relatively systematic and in-depth research on the thinking of Zhang Qian (ZHANG 1995).
Two Disputed Issues in the History of Vocational Education The first issue relates with the two views on the origin of the vocational education in China. The majority of experts believed that there was vocational education in ancient China already. ‘It embedded in social and family education’, … ‘The vocational education in ancient China was just not an independent part of education system as it is in modern time’ (WANG 2005); Others believed that only in modern industrial period, did China start to have real vocational education. The ancient mathematics and musical education are rather special education and can not be considered as vocational education (LIU 1997). The arguments stem from the different understanding of criteria, content and characteristic of vocational education. The second argument is about the first representative figure and institute in the history of vocational education. Wu Yuqi held the view that children from families engaged in governing, farming, industry and commerce in the period ruled by Qi Henggong (?–643BC) and Guan Zhong (–645BC) were required to learn skills from their fathers and younger brothers from their elder brothers, which indicates the emergence of vocational education characterized by inheriting skills from fathers in China (WU / YAN 1997); Li Lantian believed that Lu Ban, Bian Que and Muo Zi in the period of Chunqiu Warring Period (770BC–221BC) were the first representative figures of the vocational education in China. People specialized in certain tech-
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nique like farming, warring strategy of Nongjia, Bingjia and Fangjijia of that period also paid great attention to the applied education such as production and labour (LI / WANG 1994); Many experts believed that Muo Zi (about 468BC–376BC) was an earlier representative figure of the vocational education in ancient China. Because his skills were of great attainments and he conducted training activities of passing on his skills to others. However, there are still not enough historical materials to support view (WANG 2005). Of the earliest vocational education institute, Mao Lirui held the view that apart from the Imperial Learning which is of the nature of University in the educational system of Han Dynasty (206BC– 220BC), School of Hongdumen, a school specialized in epistolary art and paintings should be considered as the earliest school of culture and art in China or even in the world (MAO 1984). Recently, Zibo Vocational College pointed out that Guan Zhong should be considered as the founder of the China vocational education as he carried out a policy of ‘dividing people into four levels according to their professions and having them to live with those of the same ↑ profession’ in the process of establishing his empire. He divided people in country Qi into four levels, namely government officials, farmers, industry workers and businessmen. This directly facilitated the emergence of the ancient school of thought on vocational education. During a period of 150 years of Qi, students of thousands learned skills in fixed places, which could be considered as vocational training venue (ZIBO VOCATIONAL COLLEGE 2005). Some other experts, however, believed that there was no real vocational education institute in ancient ↑ China. 3.3.3.1.3 Research Methodology on Vocational Education History Of the current researches on historical figures and thinking, many researchers gave importance to the research on famous representative figures. The researches on Huang Yanpei, Zhang Qian and Cai Yuanpei are already very deep and comprehensive. This would certainly help to grasp the main thinking and development threads of vocational education. However, the attention paid to common masses who have been participating and promoting vo-
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cational education is very limited, and this has to some extents lost the practical basis for researches and made the researches less convincing. While studying the thinking of famous representatives of vocational education, many researches started from the point of view of philosophy and politics. Few researches did it from the point of view of social background and psychology from which the ↑ vocational education thinking was developed (MA / CHANG 2005). Besides, the unilateralism of official materials restricted the understanding of historical events and persons. What is lacking the most is field study in the nature of evidence research that is to collect fresh evidences from real life and focus on the contribution of the common masses (HUANG, L. 2004). 3.3.3.1.4 Questions and Prospects The range of research on the history of people and thinking should be extended. Many education practitioners and socialists like Lu Ban, Bian Que, Muo Zi and Guan Zhong in ancient time and Zhang Zhidong, Yan Fu, Chen Duxiu, Zou Taofen, Tao Xingzhi and Yang Xianjiang of contemporary time contributed to certain extent to the thinking and development of the China’s vocational education. Besides, normal people played positive role in the historical development. It is only when the history of the vocational activities and roles are candidly analysed and verified that we will be able to present a true historical picture. Researches on special topics in the vocational education need to be strengthened. Researches on special topics in the vocational education are rather weak such as on vocational education ↑ school system, administration, management, course, textbooks, teacher, integration with industry, ↑ vocational guidance and vocational training (apprenticeship) need to be more in-depth and systematic, as well as the development history of each specialty and industry in vocational education, although some books have touched upon on these aspects. ↑ Comparative studies of vocational ↑ education history in China and other countries need to be carried out. Education in ancient China was not a closed system. There were many exchange activities with other countries. The Chinese education thinking and system affected other countries
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and learned from other countries. The comparative studies on vocational education by country and region including the system and special topics are very important. Currently, only “Comparative Outline of Education History in China and Overseas” by Wu Shiying and Yang Guohua (1997) touched upon the topic of ‘comparative study of the development of modern middle-level vocational and technical education in China and overseas’. This is far from enough in view of content, range and depth of research. Research on the interaction between vocational education and social-economic, political and cultural development is required. Compared to general education, vocational education has a closer and more direct link with political, economic and cultural development. For example, it’s worth studying the vocational education in the farming culture, the contemporary industrial process and evaluation of vocational education, the impact from the advancement of technical skills on vocational education, development of social psychology and subculture and ↑ vocational education thinking. In future, the research on ↑ vocational education history should jump out of the limitation of pure and narrow pedagogy study so as to unveil the development rule of the vocational education and to make more contribution to the development of ↑ vocational education theories and practice.
3.3.3.2 Vocational Educational Theory s Historical Research on Vocational Education and Training (VET) Günter Pätzold and Manfred Wahle 3.3.3.2.1 Conceptual Clarification The concept of ↑ historical research on vocational education and training (VET) refers to the value of historical memory and critical reflection. The quest for an educational-political and vocationalpedagogical orientation in the present as well as for the future has to be based on the ↑ history of VET as being the sum of relevant experiences of
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different social groups during the development process of a labor culture. If history serves as a master teacher or in better words, if historical incidents are used for better understanding and interpretation of current problems, the following premise is suitable: at all times social, economic, political and cultural as well as vocational training phenomena have also been historical phenomena. Today’s society, its composition, its structures and institutions, its potentials and opportunities as well as its problems and challenges are being handed down by history. Existing social structures certainly do not originate out of themselves. They are influenced by the specific historical interests of particular economic groups within the changing terms of contemporary history. They can also be altered by and through these same interests. This connection between the past and the present also applies for research on vocational education and training. Just as other tasks of society, it is affected by history. Its function and its current condition as well as its prospects depend on the one hand on social-economic conditions, and on the other hand on configurations concerning economics, interests, power and ↑ training policy, which have been developed through the historical process of constant changes. Vocational educational theory can not be seen as separated from history; it is rather deeply rooted in it. Because of this, research on vocational education and training has a deeply historical character which means a non-historical perception is excluded. Today’s theory and practice of vocational education and training adapt historical inputs which refer in particular to individual qualifications. In other words, they refer to the notion of occupation and work as constitutive elements of human existence as well as to the notion of an adequate organization of vocational training (see STRATMANN / KÜMMEL / PÄTZOLD 1982; PÄTZOLD / WAHLE 2000; STRATMANN 1999; WAHLE 1999). This complex matter is dealt with by historical research on vocational education and training, which dates back to the late 19th century (see DFG 1990, 89). Since that time historical research on VET as an aspect of pedagogical science has been developed and differentiated into a specialized field of research on economic job training and pedagogy.
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In particular since the early 1970s historical research on VET has more and more been developed within the vocational educational theory into an academic discipline with a broad methodological, theoretical and thematic horizon. Modern historical research on VET with all its variations and different approaches focuses on: – the relationships between social organization and legitimation of work-as-vocation which are embedded in the historical process as well as the transformation of these relationships, – the history of institutionalization, formalization and modernization of on-the-job training as well as school-based vocational training, – the development of vocational-training-oriented and vocational-pedagogical theories, including the different facets of their ideological characters, – the construction of vocational educational theory as an academic discipline, respectively as a part of pedagogical sciences. The leading interest in the treatment of these matters and the connected ↑ research questions are by no means antiquarian and concerned with the construction of some kind of vocational education and training museum full of dusty facts. Quite the opposite: ↑ historical research on vocational education and training aims at providing an orientation for current and future questions which refer to vocational education and training. Accordingly, the history of vocational education and training, in its double function as representation and object of research, is in a key position in respect of the permanent dealing with traditionally formative conditions and persistent metamorphic tendencies of vocational training. This programmatic approach has a great significance for the imprint of historicalvocational training and can be summed up by the following expression of the famous German poet Erich Kästner (1899–1974): historical research on vocational education and training continually unearths a kind of “News from Yesterday”, which in turn has to be integrated into current relevant debates. 3.3.3.2.2 Differentiation between Research Fields and Traditions Historical research on VET is, as emphasized, a part of the discipline of pedagogical science. Ac-
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cordingly its focus lies on pedagogically relevant circumstances, or to be more exact: on the question of how educational and pedagogical processes in the domains of work, ↑ vocation and occupation have been formed in different epochs. This leads to a central problem, not only for historical research on vocational education and training. Namely, it has to be clarified what it means if vocational training appears as a central aim of pedagogy, in other words, if the term “vocation” is linked to the terms of education and training. For this historical analysis it is quite important to get additional information, but research is in no way limited on historical research on vocational education and training. As always the complex relationship between the individual and the world of work is affected, there is way for analytical problems, aiming at the respective problems of particular disciplines: These are, among others, the disciplines of history, sociology, in particular work and occupational sociology or industrial and organizational sociology, as well as (governmental) job market and ↑ occupational research. There are also further academic disciplines as well as areas of research and practical work, in which the complicated matter of “humans, work and occupation” is likewise very important. These are, for example, occupational and work laws, occupational medicine and psychology, job counselling or the politics of the job market. In terms of semantic and/or concept-historical questions within this subject the disciplines of philosophy and literary history are concerned. Therefore, there are countless ↑ research fields which are examined in respect of special research interests of different disciplines. However, regarding the content there are intersections between the different research and praxis areas, which means that there is no strict line in definition between them. Even more, each discipline benefits of the proceeds of the others, so in no way they lose their respective independence, but rather keep it. In this sense, historical research on vocational education and training is of high utility value for other academic and practical fields, so it is difficult to separate all corresponding areas strictly from one another, if it is not even unnecessary. This can be illustrated by an example: in current sociological discussion, among others, the subject of the end of
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“occupation” as itself as the result of deeply reaching changes in the world of work is a controversial subject. With a similar tendency this problem also arose during the industrial revolution. By this time it aroused a debate about the displacement of the traditional, corporatist concept of vocation by the allegedly lifeless form of gainful employment in the factory. This was related, as today, to a process of changes in work and occupational structures, with regard to the erosion of an ideologically intensified and strengthened concept of occupation, as well as to the respectively connected social and educational-political consequences. Indeed, current sociological discussions on this subject do not explicitly refer to occupational-therapeuticalhistorical cognizances, but historical research on vocational training can absolutely offer interesting clues (see BAETHGE 2000; ECKERT 2003a; PÄTZOLD / WAHLE 2000; PÄTZOLD / WAHLE 2003; SCHLÜTER / STRATMANN 1985). This shows that it is at least problematic to distinguish clearly between historical research on vocational education and training and other areas of research and disciplines. Nevertheless, within the modern division of labor in the academic establishment certain topics can be differentiated: for example, studies of ↑ historical research on youth focus on extracurricular activities rather than on vocational duties of young people; socialization processes, which have been imparted by general-education schools, are seen as areas of interest for historical school pedagogy; and questions which are related to occupation are dealt with as being a central and primordial sphere for vocational and economic pedagogy. Thus these different disciplines within the educational science only conditionally refer to each other and accordingly they use and develop their own basic theoretical approaches. At the same time it is of importance that original vocational and economical-pedagogical questions are very seldom, if at all, in the center of these disciplines. Meanwhile, the possibility of ↑ interdisciplinary collaboration is not necessarily prevented; admittedly the still existing restraints are to be overcome. In contrast, the differentiation between current research programs and the conscience of ↑ research traditions is less complicated.
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Regarding content and emphases, the basic methodological approaches and the programmatic orientation differ enormously between older and contemporary historical research on vocational education and training. In this context the 1920s can be seen as a turning point, because at that time vocational educational theory had been established as an academic subject. All through this it has, with respect to its objects of research, been affected by the following self-conception: the focus laid on the part-time ↑ vocational school, closely related to the construction of academically-based training for teachers of part-time vocational schools, which was introduced at that time (see LISOP / GREINERT / STRATMANN 1990; STRATMANN 1989, 177). This constrained point of view has also been used in historical ↑ VET research. It was farther constricted by the fact that only those educational questions were discussed which regarded male youth, although gradually training opportunities for girls opened up in handicrafts, industry and trade. Because ↑ vocation has not been seen as a valid life prospect for girls, rather as a transition stage between leaving school and marriage or motherhood, girls were a neglected factor (see BÜCHTER 2001; LANGE 1996; MAYER 1992; MAYER 1998; SCHLÜTER 1987). To the same degree older historical research on VET forewent the analysis not only of the changes of work and social milieus that were embedded in the industrial process but also of the connected political consequences for vocational training. Even though this problem has been recognized by the Organization for Social Politics (Verein für Sozialpolitik), historical research on vocational education and training did not deal with it exhaustively. This was due to the narrowed perspective of the discipline as well as to its methodical orientation. It based on a particular social-scientific access and empirical-analytical as well as historical social-scientific contextualisations were systematically suppressed. Instead, it concentrated in particular on laying out a history of the idea of vocation itself. This was aggravated by the fact that the concept of vocation in pedagogy had been used more likely as a normative term than as a heuristic one. Thus, Georg Kerschensteiner (1854– 1932), one of the most famous representatives of
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on VETclassical theories on VET, created a specific pedagogical idea for the concept of vocation at the beginning of the 20th century, in which a recourse to the corporate principle of “Vocatio”, connected with an exemplary work ethic, created an alliance with the modern image of the citizen (see K ERSCHENSTEINER 1966/68; STRATMANN 1999, 631 ff.). This value-laden notion of vocation outlived not only the era of national socialist dictatorship-although it was superceded by the so-called “peoples’ (Volk) community” – but existed only slightly modified from the first decades of the 20th century up to the end of World War II (see BAUMGARDT 1979, 161; K IPP / MILLER-K IPP 1995, 539 ff.; SEUBERT 1977). Not until the middle of the 1970s did critical voices begin to arise against such normatively in-line usage of the term vocation and pleaded for a demythologisation (see STRATMANN 1975a). This very limited orientation of vocational educational theory had far-ranging consequences for historical research on vocational training. Thus one ↑ research field was exhausted in the tendency towards a rather affirming and less critical reconstruction of the traditional comprehension of ↑ vocation. In addition to this history of ideas a history of institutions raised that was mostly characterised by an abstinence of meta-theories (see HEID / LEMPERT / ZABECK 1980). Moreover, up to the 1970s the field of ↑ historical research on VET was furthermore restricted. It concentrated almost exclusively on training in the ↑ Dual System of VET, primarily on commercial-technical vocations – and thus implicitly on masculine trainees – and in this predominantly focused on the ↑ vocational school as the place of learning, less often on the company. This changed only recently, namely in the beginning of the 1970s. Since then historical research on vocational education and training operates with relatively consistent ↑ research strategies and continuous activities. Last but not least because of this the earlier narrowness of historical vocational-pedagogical research could have been overcome and furthermore a change of perspective could have been initiated. In this context, two aspects are of particular interest. Firstly, since that time the pedagogical disciplines are oriented more strongly to-
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wards the social sciences, and related to this, vocational educational theory in a historical perspective has a clear social-historical focus. Secondly, since the end of the 1970s countless incentives have emanated from the so-called “new women’s movement”. Thus female youth get more and more addressed by vocational education and training. After this renunciation from existing ↑ research traditions the non-historical reception of vocational-pedagogical theories as well as institutionallyfixated perspectives were modified. Older findings were, at least partially, corrected by modern research contributions, which strive for the reconstruction of a social ↑ history of VET and its modernization. This demonstrates to what extent modern historical research on vocational education and training compared to the relevant research traditions is limited and how it can be seen today. Historical research both in the field of vocational educational theory and vocational education and training sets itself on a new and (self)-critical contact with history. Last but not least, the current condition and the standards of historical research on VET are wide. 3.3.3.2.3 On the Themes, Concerns and Methodological Orientations of Modern Historical Research on VET Over centuries work and occupation have been in the focus of human thinking. In the perspective of historical research on VET the following aspects might be seen as in need of explanation: the changing relationship between vocational and training systems in different eras, the traditions and changes in on-the-job and school-based training as well as the theories of how (vocational) training’s patterns of legitimatization, in particular the transformation processes, impacted the self-conception of those groups and institutions, which are relevant in and for vocationally-respective training entities. For this reason a quite extensive ↑ research field opens up which offers wide research tasks. The prosperity of those researches can be demonstrated not only by countless journals, detailed inquiries and special studies, but also by the fact, that 77 individual contributions had been published in the context of the vocational-pedagogical historical congress, which took place every two years
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between 1987 and 1995. At the same time these essays reflect the thematical emphases which the current historical research on vocational education and training is processing urgently, as well as the methodological orientations which are relevant in the process. So, to summarize, in current vocational-pedagogical historical research the following thematic aspects are favored: the reconstruction of ↑ theories of vocational education and training and the problem of their political instrumentalization, the connection between VET and industrial requirements (see WAHLE 2007a), the relationship between VET and social change, as well as the question of modernization of vocational education and training. The most emphasized historical epochs are the 19th century, in particular the Kaiserreich, somewhat less the National Socialist dictatorship (see, for example, HERKNER 2003) and the so-called “Restoration Phase” at the end of World War II. Relatively few treatises concentrate on the Middle Ages or the earliest aspects of industrialization. Within methodological access to single points of focus there are mainly empirical, historical and theoretical processes. If the methodological access uses data analysis and interpretation (see, for example, POELKE 1987; STRATMANN 1992, 399 ff.) or if written, pictorial (paintings, photographs) or filmed sources are systematically historically examined and interpreted with the help of hermeneutical practices (see, for example, K IPP 2003; WAHLE 2007b; WEISE 2001) or if an experimental subject is explained by the help of specific theories (for example sociological, see BAETHGE 1970, or modernization theories as in STRATMANN / PÄTZOLD / WAHLE 2003). In short: within all of the different methodological backgrounds and their groupings of ↑ historical research on VET, research cannot be characterized as either illustration or validation research, regardless of the circumstances depicted. That means that it doesn’t matter if theoretical points of reference for the respective work are grounded in, for example, a social, economic, cultural or modernization-theoretical background. Such theories can be considered as heuristic points of reference, which provide specific directions for enquiry. Therefore, the heterogeneity of these
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qualitative and quantitative source materials can be seen as a big advantage. This heterogeneity implicates, that historical case studies of ↑ VET research really deserve their good reputation for being factually multidimensional and for showing complex facts of historical interrelations. In this sense the following research program for modern historical research on vocational education and training is constitutive: in demand are concepts to which the analysis and interpretation of the history of vocational education and training and its theories can be applied, as part of a social history of work, of patterns of organization, of change in its basic parameters as well as of ideological legitimation of all of the above. According to this, the various fields of analysis, methods and directions of interpretation all merge into a single goal: to explain the historical-social realities of work, ↑ vocation, occupation as well as the qualification and socialization processes which are based on them. 3.3.3.2.4 Problems and Perspectives of Development The current status of modern research on the history of vocational education and training is, despite its productivity and its incontrovertible success, quite dissatisfying. Recently its usefulness is more and more doubted, its work results are not extensively discussed and the representatives of historical research on VET are on the defensive (see, among others, K IPP 2000; SEUBERT 2000; K LUSMEYER 2000). This currently marginal existence of historical research on VET is pointed out in referring to the contents of the 1995 “Handbook of Vocational Training”. Among the 40 contributions there is only one article about the history of German vocational education and training (GREINERT 1995a), and only seldom do the other texts refer to the relevance of the reconstruction of historical circumstances of vocational education and training in terms of the handling of contemporary and future challenges for VET. Consequently, the history of vocational education and training does not seem to fit very well into the fields of current vocational educational theory. Corresponding projects and results are seldom well-received outside of the small circle of historically-interested people. In
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fact, while historical research has not yet been declared as obsolete, its contributions are very often seen as unimportant to the discipline. In addition to these problems, historical research on vocational education and training is also coping with two further questions. The first question is, with regard to its position and standards, how it can successfully be positioned within the academic establishment (compare REINISCH 2000, 35 ff.).The second question deals with the discussion of a new methodological concept and a reflective historical base of research on vocational education and training (see HASFELD 1996, 1 ff.; GONON 2001; ZABECK 2000). In this context the newly strengthened critique of such approaches to research are quite important which allegedly promote vocational-pedagogical historical descriptions which are literalized and show a ↑ distance from empiricism. This critique warns of the danger of following a naive, vocational-pedagogical historicism, of a selective access to the problems and sources in the interests of an engaged historical writing and of the danger of eventually using research results unreflectedly as argumentative support of the instrumentalization of training-political demands (compare STRATMANN / PÄTZOLD / WAHLE 2003, 344 ff.) Although these critical objections are quite motivating and worth of discussion, the richness of such a vocational-pedagogical historical ↑ experimentation concept is indisputable, which does not limit its experimental power on vocational education and training in the narrower sense but rather promotes much broader social, political or cultural results and discourse for ↑ historical research. Historical research on vocational education and training contributes to a deepened knowledge about continuity and change in ↑ VET research and practice, but this is only possible with adequate material resources for scholarship. This is a serious problem that has still not been satisfactorily solved. The more clearly this last question can be solved, the better the chances are that historical research on VET can rely on the connections it has to earlier developments in pedagogical history which were outlined in the 1970s as well as progress in respect to future developments. However, there are still fundamental ↑ research questions that remain unsolved. In reference to that, there are at least four
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problem areas and fields of action – first of all the status of vocational education and training of girls and women as well as the changes they have experienced within different historical processes, secondly the analysis of pictures and films of significant histories of vocational education and training, thirdly the relevant social groups (such as social partners, administrators) and fourthly research on ↑ further education occurring on the job which exceeds existing approaches (FAULSTICH / ZEUNER 2001). That means that studies need to be acquired which are critical of the present leaderships and ideologies and furthermore which continue to further enrich scientific holdings in a socio-historically accented way. It is important to note that historical research on VET is necessary and should continue to be promoted, precisely because it is a crucial foundation for VET as a whole – the results of this research allow to come to informed decisions in the present and in the future with regards to vocational education and training. Furthermore, the direct practical value of historical research on VET is pointed out by the EnquêteCommission’s “Future Educational Politics – Education 2000” – the German Parliament’s survey on the ↑ Dual System of vocational education and training – which is published in the third edition.
3.3.3.3 Historical Study on the Western School Model of TVET in Japan Tatsuo Horiuchi In the latter half of the nineteenth century, ↑ Japan actively pursued the transfer of modern technology to fill the gap in the technological levels between Japan and Europe. Japan invited many foreign technical experts to key positions for the government-operated industries which were fundamental in increasing national wealth and military power, as well as in promoting industries. Japan also dispatched human resources overseas in order to bring in the latest sciences. It is a well-known fact that these foreign technical experts in government employ and the Japanese who had studied overseas have made a considerable contribution to Japan’s
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industrial modernisation and organisation of Western-model education (OGATA 1961). Whenever the formation of modern TVET in Japan was considered from the viewpoint of the transfer of the Western ↑ school model, Yokosuka Kousya organised by the French, the Kogakuryo managed by the British, and Sapporo Agricultural College run by the Americans have so far been the main objects of study. This article describes the history of the formation of modern TVET in Japan (NATIONAL I NSTITUTE FOR EDUCATIONAL R ESEARCH 1974; MIYOSHI 1979; 1999) with a focus on the field of industrial technology that played the central role in the promotion of industries, and with the addition of another school to the object of discussion, namely, ↑ Tokyo School of Mechanics, which was founded by the Japanese based on the Western model. 3.3.3.3.1 Training of Engineers and Master Mechanics at Yokosuka Kousya Under the military pressure from the countries of Europe and America, ↑ Japan’s feudal government decided to open up the country. The naval forces were launched to strengthen the nation’s defenses, and a plan was made to construct a naval arsenal in Edo Bay. This plan took a definite form by the agency of the French envoy. The decision was made to build a naval arsenal for the purposes of repairing and building marine vessels, as well as the teaching and learning the industry. For this project, L. Verny, a naval engineer who was on assignment in the Empire of ↑ China (Qing) at the time, was invited. He established a concept of the in-company “school” for teaching and learning of the industry. This was the beginning of what was later reestablished with the name “Kousya”, known as Yokosuka Kousya. It is one of the examples of the earliest introduction of the Western model of education to Japan. The original proposal of establishment for Yokosuka Ironworks (which later became Yokosuka Dockyard) conferred and agreed upon between the French envoy and Japan’s feudal government in January 1865 concisely states the objective of “Kousya” education as follows: “The Japanese government, toward the goal of enabling the nationals to take over the French in the operation of shipbuilding in due course, will establish a school within the dockyard in order to train up human resources as
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engineers and technicians … its curriculum is to follow the school regulations of the French naval forces in its entirety”(YOKOSUKA NAVAL ARSENAL 1915).
The above contents are supplemented by a document from the French Foreign Ministry from the same time period (February 1865). “The Japanese government will select young men with education and intelligence from the samurai class for the purpose of training engineering students (Elèves Ingénieurs). These students will work at their main job with the chief interpreter in the mornings, and will engage in the lessons of the Naval Academy of Noncommissioned Officers (école de maistrance) in the evenings. They will receive as much supplementary lessons as their work would allow from the engineers. Similarly, young mechanics will be selected by European master mechanics to be trained as master mechanic students (elèves contre maîtres). The mechanics will work at the factory in the mornings. In the evenings, they will take technical drawing and science classes based on the training program used at the Naval Academy of Noncommissioned Officers at French arsenals”(Correspondance Politique Japon 1865).
As is clear from this document, the ↑ school model for “Kousha” which took on the alternating pattern of a half-day of work and a half-day of school is the Naval Academy of Noncommissioned Officers (école de maistrance). In addition, apart from training engineers, “Kousha” was also attempting to train human resources who would not end up as “technicians” but “master mechanics” by using the curriculum of the Naval Academy of Noncommissioned Officers. However, Verny, who headed the project team, again set forth the proposed plan for training engineers and master mechanics at separate schools. According to the organisational plan for the shipbuilding school (Ecole des constructions) from February 1867, the shipbuilding school to be founded in Yokosuka would provide a threeyear course to the students who have passed examinations in basic French language and entry-level sciences. The subjects taught are described as “including all branches of sciences associated with shipbuilding, however, from what is taught at the schools belonging to the Ecole polytechnique, metallurgy, fortification, and gunnery will be excluded, and from what is taught at l’Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, metallurgy and applied subjects that are purely industrial, textile science for example, will be excluded”(TANAKA 1983, 200–201). In other words, the main sub-
jects were “all branches of sciences associated
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with shipbuilding”. However, some courses (metallurgy, fortification, gunnery, textile science, etc.) were left out. Furthermore, in another document written by Verny (March 1867), the school of master mechanics (l’Ecole des contre-maîtres), which trains leading mechanics by teaching technical drawing, mechanics, and geometry three hours per day, was provided with the shipbuilding school. Out of these two schools, the model for the shipbuilding school was the Applied School of Naval Engineering (Ecole d’application du génie maritime), which is one of the “schools belonging to the Ecole polytechnique” Verny himself once attended. However, by teaching a broad range of sciences by using some of the subjects offered by l’Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures which teaches a broad range of applied sciences associated with industries, Verny aimed to train leading engineers equipped with cyclopedic knowledge, not engineers simply specialised in shipbuilding. In essence, the school that Verny considered was not a transfer of a simple school model, but the school which was geared for ↑ Japan’s industrial and educational conditions at the time. 3.3.3.3.2 Training of Engineers at the Kogakuryo The Kogakuryo was set up under the Ministry of Public Works for training the human resources required for the promotion of industries such as mining, railroad, and communications. In contrast to Yokosuka Kousya, all the members of the staff initially invited were British. Dr. W.J.M. Rankine from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, who was a pioneering presence in engineering, took on an instrumental role in this matter. In “The Kogakuryo Curriculum and Statutes” laid down in February 1874 after the arrival of the British teachers, the original model of engineer training was set forth as follows: “the students are to board at the school and study for six years. For the first four years, the students are to stay at the school and study for six months of every year, and they are to spend the remaining six months on-site, each student learning the engineering skills of his choosing. The students are to spend the remaining two years entirely on-site, working. In this manner, academic study at school and practical work on-site are alternated. Consequently, each student is able to gain on-site experience
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in the second half year for the skills learned at school in the first half year” (KYU-KOUBU DAIGAKKOU SHIRYO HENSAN K AI 1978, 195).
Stating the curriculum that consists of two years’ preparatory course, two years’ professional course, and two years’ on-site work, the above statutes show a ↑ sandwich-style training model, alternating fieldwork and schooling. The most distinctive characteristic born by this school founded to train the “industry officers” who would enter the service of the Ministry of Public Works is that all the teaching posts were taken up by the British (initially nine of them, joined, in 1881, by J. Conder who taught “architecture”), including H. Dyer, who assumed the role of Principal. In other words, specialist engineer training was aimed at dividing the engineering skills into civil engineering, ↑ mechanical engineering, communications, architecture, field chemistry, mining engineering, and steel casting from the beginning of the curriculum, as the statutes state, “each student is to pursue a course of his choosing”. H. Dyer, who drew up the curriculum, was originally a mechanic in a suburb of Glasgow. He has a unique history of attending evening classes at Anderson College during his apprenticeship, then, ardent for further learning, entering the University of Glasgow (winter school and summer ↑ practical training), and receiving the tutelage of the engineer Rankine.(MIYOSHI 1989a, 62–64) There are two theories about the Kogakuryo’s ↑ school model. One theory is that the Kogakuryo was modeled after the University of Glasgow where H. Dyer once attended (K ITA 1981). The other theory is that the Kogakuryo was modeled after the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in which H. Dyer was showing a keen interest prior to his arrival in Japan (NAKAYAMA 1974, 211). However, the result of the investigations such as the international comparison of the above curricula led to a persuasive theory that these curricula offered by the above technical colleges with the objective of training leading engineers in government service were arranged according to the British-style experientialism for the Kogakuryo (MIYOSHI 1979, 290).
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3.3.3.3.3 Training of Master Mechanics at Tokyo School of Mechanics In 1872, the “Education Code” was issued to put the modern ↑ school system into place. However, in the early Meiji period, leading-edge vocational education was mostly outside the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, and thus beyond the scope of the “Education Code”. In this regard, the ↑ Tokyo School of Mechanics which was established in accordance with the 1880 Education Order was the first full-scale vocational education institution under the direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. It was the first step toward the measures to place all institutions offering vocational education in agriculture, commerce, and other disciplines under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education. In the midst of an impasse in the promotion of industries and a financial crisis, the reasons for founding Tokyo School of Mechanics were multiple as follows: (1) to counter poverty in the general public, (2) to remedy the existing apprentice system, (3) to teach the principles of industrial management, (4) to restore the industries, (5) to create a model for other schools for mechanics, and (6) to train teachers. The concept for this school is thought to have been established by Ryuichi Kuki, Arata Hamao, and Seiichi Tejima, who were administrative officers for education at the time, based on the investigations and information concerning industrial schools particularly in the United Kingdom, Germany, and ↑ France (Industrial school, Gewerbeschule, and Ecole d’Arts et Métiers). According to the “Statutes of Tokyo School of Mechanics” established in 1882, a level of training higher than the training of general mechanics was aimed at, as it is written, “this school is a place for teaching a wide range of technical arts essential for the purpose of training those who will in due course become teachers at schools for mechanics, or alternatively become master mechanics, or production managers” (Article 1).
The curriculum consists of one year’s preparatory course and three years’ regular course (chemical technology course and machine technology course). The professional theory and ↑ experimentation were taught at the respective regular courses (TOKYO KOGYO DAIGAKU 1940, 94–98). Further-
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more, in addition to the workshop practice on campus, off-campus field practice was also conducted. The principal and the ten teachers were all Japanese at the time of the school opening (1882). In 1890, the school was renamed as “Tokyo School of Technology”, and Seiichi Tejima, who was fully conversant with vocational education, became its second Principal. He clarified the school’s purpose as “chiefly training those who will in due course become master mechanics or industrial teachers”, and reorganised the curriculum. The course term for the regular course remained as three years, but the decision to assign one year’s field practice after graduation was made. These reforms were designed to enable organic cooperation between the school and industrial circles in order to train human resources required for the cultivation of private industry, as well as to develop the graduates’ competence as master mechanics (TOKYO KOGYO DAIGAKU 1985, 133–134). 3.3.3.3.4 Conclusion The formation of modern TVET in ↑ Japan considered from the viewpoint of the transfer of the Western ↑ school model can be summarised as follows: In the countries of Europe and America in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the trend to focus on TVET using the school format grew as an important part of the industrialization policy. Japan also welcomed that trend, although her approach in following the trend was different from some countries such as the United Kingdom, who relied on on-the-job training, and relegated vocational education to specialist bodies in the private sector, and Germany, who organised vocational education from a low level depending on the provinces and the demand for the industry. Japan, who started the high-level vocational education to train the nation’s elites, closely resembles the French model. The advanced-level in-company school set up under the guidance of the French in Yokosuka Dockyard which played a central role in increasing national wealth and military power as well as promoting industries, was its very first instance. In addition, the Kogakuryo which was established by the British a little later was an engineer training system that integrated the ↑ theory-
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centered training in the countries of the European continent and the ↑ experience-oriented training in the United Kingdom. However, it developed into a school more similar to a polytechnic in the continental nations that focus on government engineering training, and was taken over by the Imperial College of Engineering at a later stage. On the other hand, “Kousha” at Yokosuka dockyard, as an in-company school, organised the education stratified in line with the places of work, such as engineers and master mechanics. All levels of education adopted the system which had academic and practical work in equal proportion, with an emphasis on practice. Although the Kousha had the system which was based on the French Naval Academy of Noncommissioned Officers (école de maistrance), its engineer training was restructured as a course of study which combined the Applied School of Naval Engineering (Ecole d’application du génie maritime) and l’Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures. Lastly, the ↑ Tokyo School of Mechanics was organized by the Japanese themselves based on their detailed investigations and experience concerning both domestic and international vocational education. Although its school model is difficult to determine, the Tokyo School of Mechanics was similar to the industrial schools in the United Kingdom, Germany, and ↑ France in particular, in order to train the leading mechanics or master mechanics in private industry. Therefore, it can be concluded it was a compound model. In summarising the above, none of the ↑ Western school models that were transferred at the formation of modern TVET in ↑ Japan was an easilycategorized or simple model, but all of them can be described as ↑ compound school models which were geared to the national policy of increasing national wealth and military power as well as promoting industry.
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3.3.3.4 Historical Research in Vocational Education: A Case Study of the United States Cecilia Maldonado and Sterling Saddler 3.3.3.4.1 Introduction and Historical Background The growth and interest in ↑ educational research was the result of the introduction of statistical methods in educational research by Edward L. Thorndike in his 1904 textbook (LAGEMANN 1997) which ultimately led to the acceptance of educational research as a viable field of study in 1917 (LAGEMANN 1997). However, the interest in research in vocational education did not take root until more than 50 years later (CVERD 1976) with funding from various legislative acts. Although the ↑ Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 (PL 64 347) and the George Barden Act of 1946 (PL 79-586), had designated funding for supporting “studies and reports designed to improve the administration and management of vocational education programs” (CVERD 1976, 17, neither act provided fund-
ing specifically for research and development in vocational education. Such funding occurred after the ↑ Vocational Education Act of 1963 (PL 88210) was passed. This Act had “explicitly provided substantial funding” (CVERD 1976, 17) for vocational education research from 1965 through 1969 as specified in Section 4(c). Funds appropriated by the 1968 Amendments of the Vocational Education Act parts C, D, and I supported vocational education research beginning in 1970. Part C supported research, demonstration, and ↑ curriculum development and superceded Section 4(c) of the 1963 Act; funds from Part D were used to demonstrate innovative vocational education or ↑ career education programmes in school settings; and, funds from Part I were used to support curriculum development and dissemination (U.S. LEGISLATION 1968). Research in vocational education prior to the establishment of The American Vocational Education Research Association (↑ AVERA) in 1966, now called Association for ↑ Career and Techni-
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cal Education Research (ACTER), “was very discipline specific” (BURGENER cited in MCCRACKEN / PAUGH / SHANK 1994, 10), but leaders in vocational research felt that “the barriers and restrictions within and between disciplines needed to be broken down” (Burgener cited in McCracken/ Paugh/ Shank 1994, 10). These leaders felt that little research other than the establishment of services was supported by Section 4(c) of the Vocational Education Act of 1963 and they advocated for “vocational research to be its own entity as a powerful and growing ancillary force to move those services into the occupational realities of the future” (BURGENER cited in MCCRACKEN / PAUGH / SHANK 1994, 10).
Although the 1968 Amendments of the Vocational Education Act supported the funding of research in vocational education, the reality of that funding was something of a challenge. The American Vocational Education Research Association (AVERA) made ↑ commitments to improve the funding for research in vocational education by authorizing Dr. Arthur Lee, in 1970 to prepare a policy statement proposing the need for stabilizing federal vocational education research funds and to discuss such actions with leaders in the field (MCCRACKEN / PAUGH / SHANK 1994). Over the next several years, this organization continued to advocate in Washington, D.C. the need to allocate 10 % of the funds appropriated in Part C of the 1968 Amendment for research; however the President vetoed those appropriations. Dr. Lee identified two problems with respect to funding research: some states objected to a percentage of allocated funds for programmes used for research (MCCRACKEN / PAUGH / SHANK 1994); and, Congress opposed appropriating a flat percentage for research (MCCRACKEN / PAUGH / SHANK 1994). “Between 1965 and 1974, the U.S. Office of Education spent close to $250 million to support 5,000 vocational education research and development projects” (CVERD 1976, 19).
Some of the types of projects under Section 4(c) and Part C state projects included: applied or fundamental research (32 % of Section 4(c) funds); and, 37 % supported experimental, developmental, or ↑ pilot projects (CVERD 1976). Part C funds were also used to support experimental, developmental, or pilot projects. Funding went from 68 % in 1971 to 100 % in 1972 and 1973. In 1974 how-
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ever, only 31 % of Part C supported such research. The other 68 % supported research (loosely used to describe projects classified as demonstrations, evaluations, dissemination, or research coordinating unit activities) (CVERD 1976). In 1974, a committee on vocational education research was organized specifically to perform two major tasks for the U.S. Office of Education: “… to review and assess the research and development activities sponsored by the Office of Education under the authority of the Vocational Education Act of 1963 as amended in 1968; and to recommend changes in research and development (R&D) policies and programs for the coming decade” (CVERD 1976, v).
At that time, millions of dollars had been spent on thousands of projects yet, “…the last ten years had not had documented, widespread impact” (CVERD 1976, 1) . The committee found deficiencies in the
system and concluded that those deficiencies were the result of “… a lack of coherent policy, administration, and leadership in vocational education R&D program” (CVERD 1976, 2). Some of the descriptions of
the research we include in this chapter will come directly from the results of this committee’s work which was published in 1976. Describing research in vocational education is a complex task simply because of the broad nature of the field. ↑ Research methods and results of projects before 1974 were not, according to the committee, well documented (CVERD 1976). Projects, deemed research at that time, were classified by this committee by title only; making it difficult to determine exactly the methodologies utilized. Studies were primarily descriptive rather than experimental and often focused on program evaluation or development of new programmes (CVERD 1976). Additionally, there has not been another committee to assess research in ↑ career and technical education since that report was published in 1976. There were, however, several articles published which describe research practices in the field. For example, Rojewski (1997) reported the findings of an analysis conducted of the research published in the Journal of Vocational Education Research (JVER) between 1987 and 1996 and Zhang 1993 and Gordon 2003 looked at the use of statistical significance in research in vocational education. This chapter will describe how research influenced policy in the 1900s; and re-
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port the findings of the committee charged with assessing research in the field as well as the findings reported by Zhang, Rojewski and Gordon in their studies.
Objectives of Vocational Education Part of the problem of describing research in vocational education has been the changing focus of vocational education, now called career and technical education. When the ↑ Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 was passed, the primary objective of vocational education was “to prepare students for jobs in order to meet the labor market needs of the American economy” (CVERD 1976, 2). In the 1960s, a second objective was added: “to increase the employment options available to each person…and, a third implicit objective was motivating students to learn basic academic skills” (CVERD 1976, 9).
In the 1970s, with the passage of the Education Amendments of 1972, 1974 and 1976, the objectives expanded to include students with disabilities, ↑ disadvantaged students, bilingual students, postsecondary students, and students in non-traditional occupations (GORDON 2003). The Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act of 1984 (Perkins I), Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act of 1990 (Perkins II), Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998 (Perkins III) have had a great influence on vocational education. The goals of Perkins I were program improvement and services for at-risk populations. Perkins II and III changed the way we look at vocational education today. The goals were to teach skills and competences necessary to work in a “technologically advanced society” (GORDON 2003, 278) and focused for the first time on the integration of academic and vocational education and the tech prep programmes. It also emphasized articulation agreements between ↑ high schools and postsecondary institutions, accountability, and expanding uses of technology (GORDON 2003). Lynch (2000) best summarized the changes which occurred in vocational education from the early 1900s through recent legislation. He stated that “It seems increasingly clear that we have almost come full circle with federal direction of vocational educa-
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tion. The post-turn-of-the-century legislation was enacted to prepare more students with the type of education it was thought they would need to run farms and factories in the 20th century. Today, Perkins III challenges us to prepare more students with the contemporary education they will need to work successfully in ever-changing, technologically sophisticated, and internationally competitive workplace. In essence, today’s workplaces call for an increasingly educated work force for the 21st century” (LYNCH 2000, 10–11).
Only recently was the Carl D. Perkins ↑ Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2005 approved. This bill will continue to improve career pathways for students from high school to postsecondary institutions and into the workforce. Accountability will play a bigger role, especially for community colleges where they will be expected to create programmes in fields where the demand for a prepared and skilled workforce is high.
The Influence of Research on Legislation Research often influences policy. Early advocates vested in establishing a vocational system primarily utilized studies to influence legislation. Many of the reports published by committees commissioned by government, business and industry and other stakeholders were influential in getting many of the legislative acts passed. Reports such as The Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education (1906) and the Report of the Sub-Committee on Relation of Children to the Industries (1906) are examples of those published by the Douglas Commission. Other stakeholders, such as professional organisations and labour unions also influenced legislation when their reports entitled, Report of the Committee on the Place of Industries in Public Education by the National Education Association (1910) and the Reports of the Committee on Industrial Education by the National Association of Manufacturers (1905; 1912) were presented to Congress. Advocates representing various stakeholder groups demonstrated to both federal and state governments the necessity for establishing and supporting vocational education. But the most influential report was the Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education (1914) whose findings and recommendations were incorporated in the ↑ SmithHughes Act of 1917. This act established the sys-
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tem of vocational education as we know it today. Although the collection methods were not detailed, the overall objectives of this report were to establish the current and projected need for vocational education and training and provided an understanding of the obligation to provide vocational training as a joint responsibility of both the state and the nation (HAWKINS / PROSSER / WRIGHT/compiled by JOHN CHESTER SWANSON 1966). 3.3.3.4.2 Focus of Research in Vocational Education (1960s–mid 1970s) After the passing of the ↑ Vocational Education Act of 1963, allocations for the funding of research were made available. But, research in vocational education was still mostly focused on studies which justified the establishment of programmes and the development of the curriculum. There was no set methodology utilized. Research in vocational education “is the product of legislative encouragement and methodological influence from research conducted in the fields of educational psychology, general education and agriculture” (FINCH / HILLISON 1990, 228)
and that “the influence of research methodology on vocational education research is as varied as its legislative counterpart” (FINCH / HILLISON 1990, 225).
They discuss the influence of correlation studies in the late 1800s, descriptive studies during the 1920s and rudimentary uses of experimental research by researchers in other fields which eventually appeared in early vocational education research (FINCH / HILLISON 1990). However, “more sophisticated ↑ experimental design and ↑ statistics were drawn from the field of agriculture” (FINCH / HILLISON 1990, 226). Later, interest in ↑ qualitative research evolved in vocational education. A committee was formed in 1974 to measure the impact of the research conducted in vocational education. The purpose of establishing this committee was discussed earlier. They reported that a review of the research from 1965 to 1974 showed that research focused around the following priority areas. – ↑ Career development and guidance – Students with special needs – Characteristics of students
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– Teacher Education – Instructional techniques – ↑ Curriculum development – ↑ Labour market supply and demand information – Administration of vocational education – Evaluation of vocational education programmes (FINCH / HILLISON 1990, 83). These conclusions were drawn from a review of a variety of sources including evaluations of vocational education, visiting ten research coordinating units, the holding of hearings, interviewing personnel from the U.S. Office of Education, and conducting a mail survey and a series of telephone interviews (CVERD 1976, 112). Specific methodologies were not provided for the studies reviewed. 3.3.3.4.3 Study of Statistical Sophistication in Vocational Education Zhang (1993), in his article The Determination of Statistical Sophistication of Research in Vocational Education examined the status of statistical sophistication in research on vocational education in the 1980s. His objectives for the study were to: (1) describe the statistical techniques used and determine the statistical sophistication of research; (2) describe the problem areas studied; (3) determine the relationship between the statistical sophistication of research and the problem area studied; (4) describe the methodological strategies used; (5) determine the relationship between the statistical sophistication of research and methodological strategy used; (6) determine changes over time in the statistical techniques used, the statistical sophistication levels, the problem area studied, and the methodological strategy used in the 1980s (ZHANG 1993, 7). He looked at a stratified sample of quantitative articles (n=118) from four respected journals in related vocational education areas published between 1980–1983 and 1986–1989. Although not all of the findings will be reported here, some of the demographic information and two of the major findings will be discussed because they are relevant to this chapter.
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There were a total of 30 different statistical techniques which were identified in the sample. About 5 % (n=67) of the sample articles were classified as “basic” or “understood by average readers who have completed a typical graduate level course in ↑ statistics” (ZHANG 1993, 9). Twenty-five per cent (n=30) were classified as “intermediate” or “understood by average readers who have completed two typical graduate level courses in statistics” (ZHANG 1993, 9); and 18 % (n=21) were considered “advanced” or “understood by average readers who have passed two typical graduate courses in statistics and at least one advanced course in statistics” (ZHANG 1993, 9).
The most frequently used techniques by clusters were found in descriptive correlations (Pearson r, Spearman rho, Kendall’s tau, Kendall coefficient of concordance, etc) and ANOVAs (one-way and factorial ANOVA, one-way ANCOVA); and the least frequently used techniques were found in regressions (simple linear regression, multiple linear regression) and nonparametric (factor analysis, MANOVA/MANCOVAs, discriminant analysis, path analysis, etc.) (ZHANG 1993, 12). The articles were primarily focused on the curriculum (38 %); teachers (25 %); settings (23 %) and students (14 %); a significant relationship between the problem studied and the statistical sophistication was found. The study also found that 57 % of the sample articles used surveying as the primary methodological strategy; 29 % used field study and ex post facto research; 13 % used field experiment; and very few used the laboratory experiment strategy (ZHANG 1993, 12). Zhang concluded that the majority of the research in vocational education could be described as basic while only a few could be described as advanced; that statistical sophistication was related to both the problem area and methodological strategies; and, the sophistication of research from the early 80s to the late 80s did not change (ZHANG 1993, 14). 3.3.3.4.4 Review of Research Published in JVER (mid 1980s–mid 1990s) Rojewski (1997), in his editorial, discussed the review he conducted of the types of articles published in the Journal of Vocational Education Re-
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search (JVER) from 1987–1996 (volume series 12 through 21). The JVER publishes refereed articles that examine research and research-related topics in vocational education and the preparation for work (JVER 1997). In this review, he found that 160 articles were published in 40 issues during the specific time period previously mentioned. Approximately two-thirds of the articles published during this period represented a quantitative research paradigm, while only slightly more than 10 per cent reflected qualitative methods. The remaining articles were categorized as “other” (ROJEWSKI 1997). Topics dealt with by the articles focused on content/area (21.9 %); student focused considerations (10.6 %); timing/career sequencing considerations (11.3 %); location/siting considerations (8.8 %); instructional methodology (8.8 %); and articulation/generalization (38.8 %) (ROJEWSKI 1997, 144). The specific methodologies were not discussed. 3.3.3.4.5 Gordon Study Gordon (2001), in his study, surveyed a random sample of 113 members of the American Vocational Education Research Association (↑ AVERA) to obtain baseline information regarding their perceptions of statistical significance tests and “to serve as a framework for promoting further discussion of controversial statistical issues among career and technical/workforce education researchers” (GORDON 2001, 8).
The Psychometric Group Instrument was used to measure perceptions. The purpose and objectives of the study were to: (1) explore current perceptions of ↑ AVERA members regarding statistical significance tests; (2) determine perceptions of AVERA members regarding selected statistical issues, such as score reliability and stepwise methods (GORDON 2001, 8). Some of the demographic characteristics of the sampled group include: 77 % were males and 93 % had earned a doctoral degree; 82.5 % worked in university settings, 7.5 % in school districts, 5 % in business and 5 % in other settings. Sixty per cent of the respondents revealed that they had over 15 years of experience in ↑ educational research. Findings showed that “respondents who were most comfortable with and interested in statistical issues
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(quantitative methods) may have been likely to respond to the survey” (GORDON 2001, 13).
Gordon noted that there were members who only use qualitative methods and these members may have been less likely to respond to the survey. In general, the findings suggest that the controversy surrounding the use of significance tests has raised some consciousness among AVERA members and over 70 % indicated a need for adequate workshops on emerging statistical techniques and ↑ research methods. In addition, most respondents disagreed with the proposition that significance tests should be banned; and, that their general views regarding statistical testing were consistent with previous research. The researcher recommended “that future AVERA researchers be encouraged to always interpret statistical tests, always interpret effect sizes and the replicability of the results should be empirically investigated” (GORDON 2001, 16).
3.3.3.4.6 Conclusion While the description of the research reviewed in this brief chapter provides an overview of the types of research that have been conducted in vocational education in the ↑ United States, it certainly does not begin to cover specifically the methodologies, ↑ research questions and findings of specific studies in each related area in the field. The broad nature of the field makes it almost impossible to provide a comprehensive review of all of the research. The purpose of this chapter has been to provide an overview of the types of research conducted in vocational/↑ career and technical education in the ↑ United States and to provide some historical background for establishing a research agenda in the field. Our hope, however, is that you understand the close relationship that research in vocational education has had to legislation and that in many cases, the research agenda has been driven by legislation and the funding priorities determined within each act. In some regards, research has been the foundation for the system of vocational education as we know it today. As we see a resurgence of interest in vocational education or career and technical education, the burden of proving, through research, the value in this system of education becomes critical to future funding. It most certainly will be a key to the preparation of a skilled workforce for the 21st century.
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3.3.4 National and International Reporting on VET. Case Studies 3.3.4.1 National Reporting on VET – Case Study of Australia Philip Loveder Vocational education and training (VET) is a key mechanism through which nations achieve the skilled work forces necessary for economic and social progress (→ 2.1). In ↑ Australia it is a complex sector delivering very diverse programmes in very flexible ways. The progressive deregulation of the VET market during the last two decades has created opportunities for private providers to train, issue nationally recognised qualifications and competitively tender with public providers for government funding of ↑ training places especially in those niche markets commensurate with their technical specialities. National policy attaches a high priority to meeting industry requirements and to accurately informing and evaluating policy analysis (→ 2.6), measuring skills uptake and improving system planning across a plethora of public and private providers and ensuring a consistent approach to the collection and reporting of training activity. 3.3.4.1.1 A Planning and Reporting Framework for VET Fully national reporting on VET in Australia is a relatively recent phenomenon, commencing ostensibly around the same time as the development of a national vocational education and training system in 1992. Prior to this, much of the responsibility for VET was with the State and Territory (provincial) governments; and reporting occurred at the jurisdiction-level. The need for reporting is in part due to a need for public accountability for public funds, but also as a way of ensuring system improvement. In September 1996, the Ministerial Council of the Australian National Training Authority (↑ ANTA) established the Performance Review Committee (PRC) as part of new national arrangements for ↑ performance measures, data collection and management, research and evaluation. This commit-
tee developed the principles for a set of ↑ key performance measures for vocational education and training and established a set of long term key performance measures for VET. The early work of the committee also involved developing the transition arrangements toward an outputs-and-outcomes based ↑ VET system (ANTA 1997). The Australian National Training Authority was abolished as of June 30th 2005 and its roles and responsibilities assumed by the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training.
VET in Australia has also been driven over this period by a series of national strategies. Of particular importance was the strategy entitled: Bridge to the Future: Australia’s national strategy for vocational education and training 1998–2003 (ANTA 1998). This strategy expressed the collective ↑ commitment by all Australian governments (state and national), in ↑ partnership with Australian industry, to a truly national vocational education and training system. The strategy analysed economic, industrial and social forces (→ 2.2) for change and their implications for vocational education and training over the five years of the plan. It set out a vision for VET, aligned with five key objectives. These objectives were (1) equipping Australians for the world of work; (2) enhancing ↑ mobility in the ↑ labour market; (3) achieving equitable outcomes in VET; (4) increasing investment in training; and (5) maximising the value of public vocational education and training expenditure. A further (and the present) national strategy is entitled: Shaping our future: ↑ Australia’s national strategy for vocational education and training 2004–2010. This has four (4) objectives underpinning it: Objective 1 – Industry will have a highly skilled workforce to support strong ↑ performance in the global economy Objective 2 – Employers and individuals will be at the centre of vocational education and training Objective 3 – Communities and regions will be strengthened economically and socially through learning and employment
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Objective 4 – Indigenous Australians will have skills for viable jobs and their learning culture will be shared. Any strategy must have a way to measure its ↑ effectiveness, and this is achieved through: Shaping our future: Mapping the future: a forward plan for Australian vocational education and training ↑ statistics, 2004 to 2010 which is a forward five year plan for the maintenance and future development of a world-class statistical collection in VET (ANTA 2004a). There are three (3) objectives under this strategy: – provision of a comprehensive and high quality information base to support policy development and research and evaluation in VET – to use that information base to underscore public accountability and measurement of the national ↑ VET system, including the ↑ key performance measures – to maximise the opportunity for the information base to be analysed by exploiting data linkages and making the data more widely available in a variety of formats. Underpinning both the national strategy and the objectives, are a set of Key Performance Measures (KPMs) used to measure the ↑ effectiveness of the system in delivering against its various targets. These KPMs were built on the ↑ SMART principles (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound) and related to the fundamental business and key strategic issues of the sector. These KPMs are particularly important in relation to national reporting using the national statistical and survey data. The present KPMs include: KPM 1: Student ↑ participation and achievement in vocational education and training KPM 2: Student employment outcomes and satisfaction with vocational education and training KPM 3: Employer engagement and satisfaction with vocational education and training KPM 4: Vocational education and training outcomes for Indigenous Australians KPM 5: Community engagement and satisfaction with vocational education and training KPM 6: ↑ efficiency ↑ performance.
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3.3.4.1.2 Statistical Collections Underpinning the Reporting Framework In November 1990, Australian Ministers committed their agencies to a comprehensive and radical program of statistical reform resulting in the Australian Vocational Education and Training Management Information and Statistical Standard (↑ AVETMISS). The standard was endorsed by all Australian Governments in mid 1993. The Standard is the first professional specification of information standards for vocational education in Australia and is overseen by ↑ NCVER (NCVER 2004b; 2004a). The data collections and surveys underlying the standard provide a significant amount of the measurable data for each of the KPMs for reporting purposes.
The Data Collections The AVETMIS Standard comprises two key components – the VET provider and the New Apprenticeship collections. Generally speaking students in the smaller New Apprenticeship collection will also be a subset of the larger VET provider collection.
Apprenticeships and Traineeships Collection Information is collected from the formal contracts of training of apprentices and trainees by each State and Territory Authority. Data is extracted from local systems and then submitted to the NCVER on a quarterly cumulative basis beginning from 1st July 1996. The data from this collection supports reporting under ↑ KPM 1 – Student participation and achievement in vocational education and training. In any given quarter key information submitted includes: – Learners and Students – The Training Provider – Training Contract Transactions, including commencements, cancellations and completions, their dates of effect and the occupational outcome addressed by the qualification. – The Employer, including their size, legal name and the industry they are involved using the Australian New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC).
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– Qualifications or Courses
VET Provider Collection Information is collected from ↑ technical and further education (TAFE) institutes, some universities and a range of private training providers who receive government funding. The data from this collection supports reporting under KPM 1 – Student participation and achievement in vocational education and training. It is an annual collection of training activity in a calendar year. In any given year key information is obtained about: – Learners and Students – Qualifications or Courses – Units of Competency or Modules – The Training Provider – The Training Provider campus or delivery location
Financial Collection for Publicly Funded VET NCVER also collects financial information for vocational education and training in ↑ Australia. This includes information on revenues, expenses, assets, liabilities and cash flow. This data supports reporting under KPM 6 – ↑ efficiency performance. The data is ‘adjusted’ to improve the accuracy and comparability of the ↑ efficiency measures.
Process for Information Collection and Submission Validation software developed by the ↑ NCVER is distributed to States and Territories for validation prior to data submission. States and Territories extract information from their systems and training providers to the AVETMIS Standard. NCVER re-validates the data on submission and various data quality checks are performed and feedback given to the states, with on some occasions, possibly re-submission of data.
National Surveys Program A second important part of the collections supporting the national strategy is a program of national surveys for VET. The data from the nation-
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al surveys program supports reporting under KPM 2 – Student employment outcomes and satisfaction with vocational education and training, KPM 3 – Employer engagement with vocational education and training and KPM 4 – Vocational education and training outcomes for Indigenous Australians. NCVER is responsible for managing this suite of surveys on behalf of the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). These include the following major surveys:
Student Outcomes Survey The student outcomes survey is carried out each year by NCVER and provides valuable data on outcomes for VET graduates and module completers. This is a survey of approximately 300,000 TAFE and non-TAFE students involving questionnaire design, up to 4 mailings, telephone non-response and booster surveys, web surveys and complex automated reporting to all states and approximately 80 institutes. Information from the survey includes: – graduates’ characteristics – course information – employment outcomes – employment prospects and outcomes before and after course of study – earnings and other employment related outcomes – further study – satisfaction with various aspects of their course.
Survey of Employer Use and Views of the VET System A regular survey of employers, conducted bi-annually since 1997. Employers are asked about their views on, perceptions of, and satisfaction with the ↑ VET system in ↑ Australia. This survey will be repeated in 2007.
Survey of Indigenous Students In 2004, NCVER undertook the first ever survey of Indigenous VET Students in Australia. In total, 785 Indigenous people were interviewed in 70 different locations across the country. The survey reported on reasons for undertaking the study,
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whether the training met their needs and the benefits derived from participating in training.
Down the Track Survey: TAFE Outcomes for Young People Two Years on Using results from the 2002 Student Outcomes Survey, NCVER conducted a follow-up longitudinal survey of a cohort of students in 2004, and examined outcomes over time for young people aged 15–24 years who undertook ↑ technical and further education (TAFE) training in 2001. In particular, the survey investigated changes in employment, wages and ↑ skill level, further study outcomes and other benefits reported from the training 3.3.4.1.3 Other Collections Beyond the NCVER collections, there are also other data from agencies such as the Australian Bureau of ↑ Statistics (ABS) who conduct surveys and collections such as the Survey of Education and Work (Catalogue: 6227:0), the Survey of Education and Training (Catalogue: 6278:0), which both occur every four years; and the Training Expenditure and Practices Survey (Catalogue: 1136:0) and the Census which collects some information on educational ↑ participation and achievement. On top of these, the ABS in 2006 will conduct an Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey as part of the international round of adult literacy surveys being coordinated by the ↑ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Enumeration would be in the second half of 2006, ten years after the 1996 Survey of Aspects of Leaning. The Australian Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) also manages a collection: Training and Youth Internet Management System (TYIMS) that collects New Apprenticeship commencement data provided through Commonwealth New Apprenticeships Centres (NACS). 3.3.4.1.4 Reporting and Dissemination Processes VET activity is reported in a variety of ways. Under its obligations to the Australian government, ↑ NCVER produces a range of publications that are used by policy makers and institutions to advise
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decision making. Greater use of the web is being made for very detailed tabulations. In addition to this, data cubes and specified tables are available and fully accessible on the NCVER website. NCVER also provides an ad hoc requests service for small statistical queries as well as customised data sets for agencies such as the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), universities, research centres and industry skills councils. At the national level, the major way that activity is reported is with the Annual National Report of the VET Sector: Volumes 1–3. This set of three volumes is prepared in accordance with the legislative requirements of the ↑ Australian National Training Authority Act 1992 (ANTA Act) and includes an assessment of the ↑ performance of the VET sector during a given year (DEST 2005). The report contains both qualitative and quantitative volumes, with Volume 1 providing a general overview of VET operations during the year; Volume 2 comprises reports from each jurisdiction on their performance against the nationally-agreed priorities; and Volume 3 reports on progress against the ↑ KPMs established by the sector and contains detailed ↑ statistics and other information on the performance of the national system against the KPMs. The consolidated report provides information on the operation of the national system, its achievements and challenges, and the outcomes for the system’s clients. This report is tabled in the Australian Parliament each year at the Spring sitting. As the responsibility for VET is one shared between the national and State/Territory governments, the states (provincial) governments will also have individual ↑ VET plans that contain certain targets (→ 5.4.5) that these jurisdictions individually wish to meet. In order to support ↑ Australia’s international education data obligations, NCVER also prepares a special statistical report to the ↑ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (→ 3.3.4.6) each year reporting on Australian vocational education and training activity compared with the International Standard ↑ Classification of Education (ISCED).
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3.3.4.1.5 Current Reporting Issues and Developments in Australia A key reporting issue that has arisen, is that because there are only formal arrangements in place to collect information on training for those providers in receipt of the recurrent VET funded budget, the national VET Provider collection is under-reporting the full vocational effort especially by private providers, in which case it is difficult to build a true picture of the skills available or required. Presently, there are efforts between governments and agencies representing the private training market (such as the Australian Council for Private Education and Training (ACPET) and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI)) to include private provider delivery in the national collections, which will allow the ‘whole of the VET effort’ to be reported. At present there is a proposal to call for voluntary submissions of data from private providers and enterprise registered training organisations. In the first instance, reports will be published on the characteristics of students and courses that lie outside the scope of public VET activity (ANTA 2004b). Matching across data collections with common individuals will allow the system to make better use of information and has been identified as a program priority. For example, recent changes to the AVETMIS standard has allowed the system to identify apprentices and trainees undertaking offthe-job training with a public provider. Another reporting issue relates to the ability to track longitudinal student flows. There are presently separate schools, VET and higher education statistical collections, which do not always allow for easy identification or tracking of individuals between collections, making it difficult to understand the true nature of student destinations. Moving toward a unique student identifier is a development being pursued in several states and territories as this would allow the proper tracking of student pathways through matching collections over time across sectors. An emerging challenge for the collection and reporting of training ↑ statistics has been the introduction of a new key performance measure (↑ KPM 5) – Community engagement and satisfaction with vocational education and training. Improving in-
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formation about training activity for regions and communities has been designated as a priority for the VET sector in Australia. Obtaining information on whole regions and communities presents some difficulties as traditionally data collections have focussed more on the individual, and extending this out to a regional perspective will require a different approach. It is important to note in concluding this chapter that, in some respects, the VET sector led the way in Australian government reporting during the 1990s. The model used by VET is one that has been adopted by other sectors, especially some of the social services. Having said this, there are still important improvements to be made to the way that the sector collects and reports data, and especially in its ability to understand the ↑ participation and achievement of particular demographic groups in Australian society.
3.3.4.2 Report on Vocational Education in China Lin Sun The Report on Chinese Vocational Education is a reference book. It systematically sums up the development and issues during the reporting period (it is published once a year or every two years) so as to provide information for formulating a macro policy of vocational education and conducting ↑ statistical analysis of and summing-up of experience on the development of vocational education. It aims at: analysing the demand for vocational education from social and economic development and industrial restructuring; researching on the development trend of national vocational education; summing up the national experience and experience of local special features of vocational education; focusing the discussions on key issues concerning the current development of vocational education; and formulating policy recommendations for future reform and development of vocational education.
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3.3.4.2.1 The Origin and Development of the Report The ↑ Report on Vocational Education is the result of Sino-German technical cooperation on vocational education. In 1990’s, the Chinese and German Governments undertook extensive cooperation in the area of vocational education within the framework of technical cooperation, aiming to learn from the advanced experience of German vocational education and reform in order to improve the Chinese vocational educational system. Advanced vocational educational concepts and scientific approaches are needed to guide the establishment of a scientific and rational system of vocational education that accords with the Chinese situation. In 1991, the German Government via ↑ GTZ funded the setting-up of the Central Institute of Vocational and Technical Education (referred as ↑ CIVTE hereafter). One of the main tasks of the CIVTE is to “conduct research on policies and regulations in the light of the development needs of Chinese vocational education and to offer consultancy services to the government”(CIVTE 1994).
One of the main channels for accomplishing this main task is to learn from the experience of the German “Report on Vocational Education”, conduct statistical analysis of the development of vocational education and conclusive research on macro policies and to deliver policy consultancy services for macro management decision-making (→ 4.9). In 1994, the CIVTE started its research on and compilation of the Report on Vocational Education. This work was pioneering as annual research on the development of ↑ educational policy had been very rare in the sphere of Chinese ↑ educational research and sciences. The Report was initially circulated as an internal document and officially published in 2001 as a yearly or biennial publication. It is now playing a more and more important role in helping the vocational educational administrations to formulate and enforce policies, and the vocational educational scientific research units to conduct their researches. Since 2002, this job has been designated a task jointly organised and accomplished by CIVTE; the Ministry of Education will build on this to gradually establish an
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annual monitoring system for vocational educational development. Right now, this research report is becoming a useful reference tool for facilitating the formulation of macro policy for vocational education. It contains data, information and recommendations that give a real picture of vocational education in ↑ China, thus serving as an important basis for policy advisory input to vocational education as well as important information for research on vocational education. At the same time, this work has indirectly promoted scientific research into vocational education in China with more and more provinces paying attention to research and development of vocational education, thus gradually establishing healthy interaction between policy formulation as regards vocational education and scientification research into vocational education. Since 1997, annual research on the development of vocational education in Shanghai, Liaoning, Beijing, Hunan and other provinces has been conducted one after another. 3.3.4.2.2 The Report Structure and Contents The Chinese ↑ Report on Vocational Education consists of 4 parts, they are:
Part One, Executive Summary of the Development of Vocational Education It mainly covers: (1) the status quo of the social and economic development and current policy with a focus on the development trend and policy adjustment concerning industrial structure, employment structure and policy on labour and employment as well as the impacts on identifying the key issues and train of thought; (2) statistical ↑ data on vocational education of various types and levels and the description of the reform and development. Take 2001–2003 for example, this part includes information on the increased amount of vocational education and training of various types and levels; the status quo and problems with the privately-run vocational education; vocational education in rural areas and the western part of ↑ China; teaching resources of vocational education; funding for vocational education; recruitment and employment; teaching reform and international cooperation; (3)
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review and comments on the reform and ↑ development policy of vocational education including comments on important meetings, documents and the impact of policy implementation.
Part Two, Thematic Report A task force was organised for managerial staffs in vocational educational administrative units and researchers at vocational education institutions to conduct specific research on key issues concerning vocational educational development. The thematic reports of 2001–2003 were about the ↑ higher vocational education during the first three years of the 21st century; the status quo and development trend of vocational and adult education in promoting the training for rural emigrant labourers; research on ↑ human resource development in the West and the development of vocational and adult education; research on the certified qualification system and the development of vocational education; implementation and impact analysis of the three vocational education programmes in the “Action Plan of the 21st century to Rejuvenate Education”; status and role of vocational education in the life-long educational system and learning society; research on the development and training involved in international vocational education etc. They covered areas such as senior vocational education, emigration of rural labourers, vocational certification system, regional economic development and vocational education, international development of ↑ vocation education and changing trends. The focus of the thematic report is on the new situation and new issues related to reform and development in this area as well as the development trend of international vocational education so as to increase the academic and pragmatic features of the research report.
Part Three, Local Report In view of the imbalanced economic development in China, the Report sums up and analyzes representative cases in economically developed areas, developing areas and under-developed areas in order to make the report more targeting, comparable and referable in line with the principle of differentiated guidance for different situation. For instance, the Report of 2001–2003 contained re-
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ports prepared by educational administrative units or vocational ↑ educational research units from 19 provinces, cities and autonomous regions on local development of vocational education, problems, lessons learnt and special features. The main contents are: (1) the social, economic and political background for the local development of vocational education; (2) general information on the local development of vocational education of various types and levels including the changing number of junior, middle and senior vocational education facilities, the recruitment and employment, teaching resources and financial input; policy measures for the development of local vocational education including important meetings and documents; management systems, school-running systems, investment systems, reform and development concerning teachers’ capacity building, important policies and cost-↑ effectiveness analysis for urban and rural development of vocational education; (4) special development features of local vocational education and the introduction of experience.
Part Four, Annex This includes important policies and documents in relation to vocational education from leading educational administrative units and other relevant agencies, and key activities of vocational education within the period of the Report (VOCATIONAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF MOE/CIVTE 2005). 3.3.4.2.3 Organisation of the Report The compilation of the ↑ Report on Vocational Education was initially undertaken by ↑ CIVTE independently. Since 2002, the Ministry of Education, in view of the needs for formulating macro policy for vocational education, treated this job as a special task and gave it to both the Vocational Education Department of MoE and the ↑ CIVTE (chief editor). According to the requirements of the Ministry of Education, each province, city and prefecture should conduct statistical and policy research on the development of vocational education to summarize the development, issues and experience of local vocational education and then submit all these to the CIVTE in a form of a report. The general part in the Report and all the manage-
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rial and organizational work relating to the compilation were done by the CIVTE. Each year, the CIVTE proposed a number of key, a hot issues relating to the development of Chinese vocational education and then invited managerial staffs and researchers from vocational educational administrative units and scientific research units to compile thematic reports. In addition, the CIVET also involved other research departments in the CIVTE in this job through various means. For example, opinions were widely solicited on the report contents each year among agencies such as the National Association of Vocational Education of ↑ China, academies of higher learning, and educational and scientific research institutes in order to win support and attention from all walks of life. The basic statistical data in the Report on Vocational Education is mainly from The National Statistical Yearbook and the National Statistical Yearbook of Education. The data analysis is mainly a short-term comparison between the same year and the previous year. Those data that are not representative nation-wide will be analyzed through a typical case. For example, the data of the graduates employed was collected through a typical case survey among recruiting units and employment ↑ statistics from local ↑ vocational schools. The policy part in the Report is mainly based on important conferences and documents about vocational education in the same year to describe and analyse the current policies and impact from implementation. As a report of the Ministry of Education, it is required that explanation and illustration of the policies in the Report need to comply with that of the Ministry of Education. 3.3.4.2.4 Issues and Prospects The current Chinese ↑ Report on Vocational Education is basically a data aggregation and a collection of documentations; several issues relating to guiding thoughts which emerged in the process of compilation have not yet been sorted out: Issue one is about the attribution, namely is the report a government working report or a research report. Since the tasks, nature and approaches of the two chief publishers, the Vocational Education Department of MoE and ↑ CIVTE are quite different,
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there have therefore been repeated debates on the orientation, contents and structure of the Report; Issues two is about the function, namely what key issues should be addressed by the Report on Vocational Education in relation to the employment and the development of vocational education? At present, the main contents of the Report are limited to the ↑ statistics of the development of vocational education and the analysis and summingup of the status quo, policy and hot issues. Since the survey of the ↑ labour market and the forecast of employment needs are missing, its contribution to addressing the key issue of a smooth transition from school to work is far from enough. Issue three is about the content and structure of the Report. So far, there has not been a formal decision on the basic framework of the Report, and the concrete issues such as format, structure and length of the main contents, and report preparation are rather casual. The issue needing to be addressed here is how to pay attention to specific and typical local issues while giving an overall description of the vocational education of the whole country; how to link the ↑ statistical analysis with ↑ qualitative research such as whether the latest theoretical research and result of reforms in the teachinglearning process should be included in the Report or not. In addition, it is imperative to establish a complete organisational and administrative system for the compilation of the Report on Vocational Education. At the moment, there are no compulsory specifications on the reports published in the Report on Vocational Education in the existing laws and regulations. The compilation of the Report on Vocational Education is a routine job and the Government should formulate regulations for the organisational structure, job and responsibility sharing, personnel and funding issues in order to ensure the completion of this job, especially to establish a reliable data source for the statistics and documents used in the Report. In the light of much geographical diversification, to include more local contents in the Report is also a feasible development trend so as to mobilize the enthusiasm of local research units of vocational education (SUN 2002). A well-documented and more influential report on vocational education should not only cover the in-
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ternal development of the Chinese educational system, but also analyse the change of social environment beyond the educational system such as the requirement for vocational education generated by supply and demand in the ↑ labour market and the structural change of ↑ professions. Data, information and recommendations included in the Report should be of valuable help to individual career development and the relevant organisations in the educational and labour sphere, and this is the future target for the Report on Vocational Education.
3.3.4.3 Germany Heinrich Althoff and Elisabeth M. Krekel The Report on Vocational Education and Training provides Germany with a comprehensive system of information on the state and anticipated future development of vocational education and training. It has been published annually as a report by the Federal Government since 1977. The first Reports on Vocational Education and Training focused solely on depicting the supply of and demand for ↑ incompany ↑ training places, but today the Reports on Vocational Education and Training contain extensive analyses based on statistics and research projects dealing with initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training. Owing to the results of the PISA tests, among other factors, a national reporting scheme is currently being set up in Germany that is meant to cover all spheres of education, from the elementary sphere through school and vocational education to higher education and ↑ continuing education. 3.3.4.3.1 The Report on Vocational Education and Training The legal basis for the ↑ Report on Vocational Education and Training is § 86 of the ↑ Vocational Training Act (BBIG 2005), which was extensively revised in 2005 (cf. in this connection: http:// www.bmbf.de/en/1644.php.) The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) was founded in 1970. It conducts research, development and counselling activities on the basis of the
Vocational Training Act (BBiG) (cf.: http://www. bibb.de/en/26173.htm). The BIBB is charged under § 90 of the BBiG with helping to prepare the Report on Vocational Education and Training. The Board of the BIBB is to be involved in the preparation of the Report on Vocational Education and Training. The BIBB Board is the statutory advisory body of the Federal Government on fundamental matters of vocational education and training. It makes recommendations and takes a position on the annual Report on Vocational Education and Training of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Representatives of employers, employees, the Federal States and the Federal Government are represented with equal voting power on the BIBB Board. The tasks of the Board are set forth in § 92 of the BBiG. The Report on Vocational Education and Training consists of two parts. In Part I the Federal Government evaluates the current situation on the job market for training positions and the government’s policy for resolving current education policy issues is presented. When the draft Report on Vocational Education and Training is presented, an internal dialogue immediately begins in the BIBB Board on priority issues of vocational education policy and vocational education research and practice. The different positions of the groups represented on the Board are documented in the form of minority votes. The decision of the Federal Cabinet and the position taken by the BIBB Board together with the minority votes of the employer and employee representatives are also contained in Part I. Besides extensive data and detailed findings concerning the job market for training positions and the structural development of vocational education and training, Part II of the Report on Vocational Education and Training contains data on the design of vocational education and training, on ↑ continuing vocational education and training and on international aspects of vocational education and training. Various ↑ statistics form the basis for the analysis of the structure and development of vocational education and training in Germany. School statistics contain data on the number of school leavers from schools of general education and hence
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between an enterprise (trainer) and a young person (trainee) has to be submitted to the Chamber and entered by the Chamber in the registry of traineeships (cf. → 1.4). 3.3.4.3.2 Supply of and Demand for Training Places: BIBB Survey for the Period Ending 30. September
Source: BBIG 2005
about the expected transfers to vocational education and training as well. Using the employment statistics in relation to the size or economic sector of an enterprise, one can calculate the development of ↑ in-company training in comparison to the development of the employees and the development of the enterprises providing training. (In Germany, trainees with a company training contract are subject to social insurance coverage and are therefore included in the employment ↑ statistics.) Two independent counts provide information on the number of new in-company training contracts concluded and on inventory and structure: that of the BIBB for the period ending 30 September and that of the Federal Statistical Office for the period ending December 31 (FLEMMING / UHLY/ ULRICH 2005; ULRICH 1999). The data base for both is the business statistics of the relevant agencies, which normally are the chambers (e. g. Chambers of Industry and Commerce, Chambers of Crafts and Trades). The chambers are obliged under § 34 BBiG “to establish and maintain a registry of traineeships”. In other words, every training contract concluded
Pursuant to § 86 BBiG, the BIBB conducts a survey every autumn among the relevant agencies (e. g. chambers) on new training contracts concluded by 30 September and still in effect. The results of the survey are available at the beginning of December for the current year of training and together with the business and placement statistics of the Federal Employment Agency (BA) they are a central basis for the training position balance-sheet of the Federal Government. The business and placement statistics of the BA contain important data on, among other things, the number of young people who have tried to get a traineeship through the BA, the number of applicants not placed and the number of traineeships vacant at the end of the placement year (on September 30 of each year). The overall supply of training positions results from the number of new training contracts concluded (BIBB survey for the period up to 30. September) in each year and the vocational training positions still listed as open on 30. September at the end of the financial year in the business statistics of the Federal Employment Agency. The overall supply of 562,816 ↑ training places in the year 2005 is made up of 550,180 new training contracts concluded and 12,636 unfilled apprenticeships. The overall demand results from the number of new training contracts concluded and the number of still unplaced applicants registered with the BA at the end of the financial year; this number stood at 40,900 in 2005. Add this to the 550,180 new training contracts concluded and we have an overall demand of 591,080 training places. The nominal demand for vocational training positions in 2005 exceeded the supply by 28,264.
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Fig. 1: Trends in demand for ↑ supply of training places 1992 to 2005 (Source: BMBF 2006, 15)
To get a more precise picture of the supply problems on the job market for training positions we have to consult other data in addition to this “nominal” training gap. There are many young people who embark upon an alternative to ↑ in-company training (e. g. full-time ↑ vocational school education, vocational training preparation) and are therefore no longer counted among the unplaced applicants but still wish to have in-company training positions. These comprised 47,228 of the applicants registered with the BA in 2005. Results from BIBB/BA surveys of applicants show that the number of those seeking training positions is even higher (ULRICH /K REKEL / FLEMMING 2005; EBERHARD /K REWERTH / ULRICH 2005; ULRICH 2003). 3.3.4.3.3 Structural Development of Vocational Education and Training: Vocational Education and Training Statistics The December 31. count of the Federal Statistical Office qualifies as statistics pursuant to § 88 of the BBiG. The period covered by this survey is one calendar year (January 1. to December 31.). In addition to data on ↑ continuing vocational education and training, the Vocational Education and Training Statistics provide extensive information for incompany training (↑ Dual System) (cf. http://www. bibb.de/en/781.htm), e. g. on – Trainees: gender, citizenship, schooling, training occupation, training year, etc.
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– Trainers: gender, technical and pedagogical qualifications – Training counsellors: age, gender, educational background etc. Despite this broad data base, the Vocational Education and Training Statistics are of only limited scientific use (ALTHOFF 1984). This is not because of the lack of precision of the data obtained. On the contrary, they are recorded far more precisely by the relevant agencies than would be possible through direct questioning of the trainees or other persons required to submit information. It is rather because of the condition indispensable for research that the individual variables can be freely combined depending on the scientific questions asked. Thus far the Vocational Education and Training Statistics do not offer that possibility. Instead the data are collected in tables by the chambers and passed on through the State statistical offices to the Federal Statistical Office. The statistical offices can therefore no longer extract the tabulated features and recombine them at will depending on the questions asked. Because of the aggregate ↑ statistics on hand, the “contract dissolution” or “examination result” feature, for example, can no longer be combined with the “school education background” feature. In terms of regulatory policy, education policy depends on the precise number of young people entering in-company vocational education and training in particular after leaving general and ↑ vocational schools. Only this number accurately reflects the actual intake capacity of in-company vocational education and training. The Vocational Educa-
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tion and Training Statistics, however, refer to contracts and not persons (trainees) (ALTHOFF 1997). For there is a gap of about ten per cent between the number of young people entering vocational education and training for the first time and the number of contracts concluded, as can be seen from primary surveys. This results in part from young people signing new contracts during their further in-company vocational education and training following the dissolution of initial contracts. This means that there are always more new training contracts being counted than there are young people newly entering the training system. Hence primary surveys also show that about one half of all young people who dissolve their contracts continue with their in-company vocational education and training (BIBB 2005, 62, 78; BMBF 2003c, 96 f.). Much the same thing applies to the number of young people who drop out of in-company vocational education and training. These drop-outs cannot be correctly identified either. They comprise those young people who leave the in-company education and training system forever after their contracts have been dissolved and those who completely fail their final examination. It is basically impossible to clearly differentiate these two groups within the Vocational Education and Training Statistics. The group of young people who leave the training system forever after contract dissolution cannot be quantified with precision because the Vocational Education and Training Statistics do not offer the possibility of distinguishing them from those young people who continue their training in a different occupation or company after dissolution of a contract. The reason is again that the data is compiled on the basis of training contracts rather than trainees. For as soon as a contract is dissolved there is no longer a link to any new contract that may be signed. Contract dissolutions therefore necessarily appear in the Vocational Education and Training Statistics as ↑ discontinuation of vocational education and training even if the young people involved continue their ↑ in-company training in a different occupation or enterprise (ALTHOFF 2003, 35). The ↑ Vocational Training Act was reformed in 2005 and now includes far-reaching changes in the Vocational Education and Training Statistics of the
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Federal Statistical Office which will take effect on 1. April 2007. The possibilities of analysis will be improved considerably, in particular through the planned changeover from aggregate statistics to individual statistics. It will thus be possible in future to conduct elaborate context analyses for the features contained in the Vocational Education and Training Statistics. It will then be possible for the first time to establish links between examination success in individual occupations or dissolutions of contracts and the vocational background of the trainees. In this way the revision of the Vocational Education and Training Statistics will gain in value for scientific analysis as well. Even when the Vocational Education and Training Statistics have been revised, however, it will still not be possible to portray training careers in the case of trainees concluding a series of contracts. Even after 2007 it will only be possible to identify drop-outs nominally through a comparison of admissions and completed courses of training. Better identification would only be possible if each trainee were given an individual identification number. 3.3.4.3.4 Conclusion The BIBB survey for the period up to 30. September and the Vocational Education and Training Statistics are two central sources of data for reporting on vocational education and training in Germany. The current year of training is assessed on the basis of the results of the BIBB survey for the period up to 30. September in conjunction with the business and placement ↑ statistics of the BA. More detailed information and more discriminating representations of the trainee structure are only possible, however, using the results for the period up to 31. December, and only one year later. The survey ending on 30. September only distinguishes between Federal States, employment service districts, normal and shortened periods of training, and gender. However, when using the data up to 31. December, assessments are possible relating to, among other factors, age, school education background, training year and citizenship of the trainees as well. The results of the analyses constitute an important basis for vocational education and ↑ training policy and will be published in the annual Reports on Vocational Education and Training.
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3.3.4.4 VET Reporting: Case Study of the USA Lisa Hudson and Karen Levesque The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Education.
3.3.4.4.1 Vocational Education and the U.S. Education System The structure of data collection and reporting on vocational education in the ↑ United States is driven by the decentralised and individualistic nature of the ↑ school system. As a result, the U.S education system is missing two elements that make describing vocational education relatively easy or straightforward: ↑ uniformity, which helps to formulate a standard definition of vocational education; and formal programmes, which help to track participants in vocational education. The uniformity issue arises from schools’ strong tradition of local control; the programme issue arises from America’s philosophy of “letting a thousand flowers bloom”. Local Control. Uniformity is an issue because the U.S. education system follows a strong tradition of local control. At the primary and secondary levels (↑ compulsory education), the education system is comprised of about 14,000 locally controlled education agencies, with varying degrees of higher-level control by each of the 50 state education agencies. This system mitigates against a standard format for educational provision across the country. As a result, secondary-level vocational education is structured, delivered, and defined in a myriad of ways. Uniformity is also an issue at the ↑ tertiary (“postsecondary”) level, where vocational education is offered primarily by state-run 2-year “community colleges”, and by private for-profit tertiary institutions. If baccalaureate study in applied areas such as engineering and education were counted as vocational education, 4-year baccalaureate institutions would surpass private for-profit institutions as the second largest vocational education provider. However, in the U.S., these programmes are typi-
cally not considered vocational. The 2006 Carl D. Perkins ↑ Career and Technical Education Act (the federal law that supports vocational education programmes), for example, defines vocational education as preparation below the baccalaureate level (cf. Section 3 (5) (ii)). Each state determines the focus their community colleges place on occupational training (vocational education) versus academic preparation (that is, transfer to a 4-year institution to earn a baccalaureate degree) and the specific vocational programmes offered. These decisions are typically based on local ↑ labour market demands, as well as on local and state educational traditions and philosophies. Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom. Although U.S. schools may lack uniform definitions, they do share common American values. Specifically, Americans strongly resist educational programmes within the compulsory years that would constrain a student into one life path, such as preparation for a single career. Resistance is particularly strong to programmes designed as an alternative to college preparation (as vocational education has traditionally been viewed), because parents typically believe (realistically or not) that such a programme would limit their children’s future. Thus, while students can choose to take a variety of vocational education courses in secondary schools, they typically do so on an ad hoc basis, with no formal enrolment in a vocational programme of study or formal designation as a vocational education student. As with almost anything one can say about the American education system, there are exceptions. For example, there are about 900 full-time “vocational ↑ high schools” in the U.S., enrolling about 9 per cent of secondary school students. However, students enrolled in “comprehensive high schools” also take vocational education. Another exception is “career academies”. These schools, or schools-within-a-school, prepare students for a specific career path (e. g. a technology academy, a music academy). Notably, these programmes are usually designed so that students have the option of pursuing tertiary education after completing their studies. Thus, to the extent that career academy students pursue 4-year tertiary study, the career academies are not “vocational” as defined in the U.S.
In contrast, at the ↑ tertiary level preparation for a specific career (e. g. engineering, law, nursing) is an accepted part of the tertiary education land-
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scape and formal programmes are the norm. As a result, a tertiary vocational education student can be clearly defined as a student majoring in a vocational field of study at the sub-baccalaureate level (with the caveat that the student must first declare a major, which typically is not required for initial enrolment). As will be seen, although the problems of data collection in a decentralised education system are easy to recognise today, when the ↑ U.S. first began to collect national ↑ data on vocational education, policymakers were more naïve about the ease of this data collection. 3.3.4.4.2 History of U.S. Vocational Education Data Collection (See HUDSON 2000 and HOACHLANDER / LEVESQUE 1993 for more detailed historical analyses.) The U.S. federal government has supported vocational education programmes since 1917, when Congress passed the ↑ Smith-Hughes Act to help schools train workers for the country’s rapidly growing economy. In the 1960s, the focus of federal legislation shifted to ensuring equal access to vocational education. With this shift came an interest in collecting detailed national data to track student ↑ participation in vocational education. As a result, Congress instituted new requirements for states to include information on vocational education expenditures and student enrollments in their annual reports to Congress. Vocational education enrolments were to be broken down by race, student disability status, and other student characteristics, for all secondary, postsecondary, and adult education students in each state. To meet this data collection mandate, the U.S. Department of Education asked each state to provide the requisite data, after collecting the data from local education agencies within the state. Problems arose immediately, as these data requirements proved to be beyond most states’ recordkeeping ability. In addition, because of the diversity in how states defined the relevant data collection items – both across states and within a state over time – inconsistent and noncomparable data were common. After a few decades involving continual efforts to improve this ↑ administrative records collection, the data collection was stopped in 1983.
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Many factors accounted for the problems with this initial data collection effort, but the root cause was simply that the data collection method was inappropriate for the task at hand. State ↑ administrative records are designed to meet the unique needs of states and localities, and thus reflect the education conditions, policies, and structure of each state, as well as their specific data-gathering formats, capabilities, and requirements. The year-toyear consistency desired by the federal government, for example, may be of lesser concern to states than the periodic modification of their data collections to meet new priorities or reflect new initiatives. Standardisation of data within a state may also be made more difficult by variability among localities; in states where education is primarily locally run, states may simply be unable to enforce standardisation in local data collection practices. Finally, the collection of data on all schools, teachers, and students is costly and time-consuming; most states can afford to collect such information only for the most basic and critical features of their education systems. Thus, in 1984 Congress gave up on an administrative records data collection, and instead mandated a national data collection on vocational education without the requirement for data from every school and on every student. This legislation (and subsequent legislation) freed the Department of Education from the constraint of using state administrative records as their data source. Instead, the Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) could now collect ↑ data on vocational education through ↑ sample surveys, a method they had already been using to collect and report data on education in general. The current legislation mandating the collection of vocational education data, the Carl D. Perkins ↑ Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, makes this reliance on sample surveys explicit: As a regular part of its assessments, the National Center for Educational Statistics shall collect and report information on career and technical education for a nationally representative sample of students. (Section 114(a) (3)).
This sample-based data collection is currently known as the Career/Technical Education Statistics (CTES) system.
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3.3.4.4.3 The CTES System The CTES system is a derived data system. It collects national data on vocational education not through special surveys on vocational education, but through the inclusion of data items on vocational education within NCES’ general-purpose education data collections. Collectively these data sources provide information on the vocational education system at the secondary and ↑ tertiary levels, and on work-related adult education and training, addressing the following questions at each level: – What does the vocational education delivery system look like? – What is offered? – Who participates and what do they take? – Who teaches vocational education and how is it taught? – What is accomplished? As indicated in Table 1, although NCES surveys are the primary data sources for the CTES system, data from other federal agencies are also used (The CTES website (http://nces.ed.gov/.surveys/ctes) provides more information on these data sources). In a few cases, census data from administrative records are still used (i.e. the CCD collects data from all state agencies responsible for primary and secondary education, and IPEDS collects data from all tertiary institutions). These newer administrative records collections are based on longstanding cooperative systems with states and tertiary institutions; they collect only limited data that can be reliably reported in a standardized format. Two other CTES data sources deserve mention. The Fast Response Survey System (FRSS) and Postsecondary Education Quick Information System (PEQIS) allow for national ↑ sample surveys to be conducted on an as-needed basis, collecting information on specific topics not covered by extant data. For example, in 1999 NCES conducted an FRSS survey and a PEQIS survey on schools’ vocational education offerings (PHELPS / PARSAD / FARRIS / HUDSON 2001). The CTES system has three main advantages over the previous data collection effort. Most importantly, CTES data collections are almost all nationally representative sample surveys that use common, comparable definitions and data elements. It is because of this ↑ uniformity in data elements that the
CTES system can effectively overcome the dataquality problems that plagued the previous ↑ administrative records data collection. Second, the CTES approach allows NCES to relate vocational education to the larger education system and to other parts of the system. So, for example, tertiary students who major in vocational fields can be compared to students who major in academic fields in terms of their backgrounds, persistence, and attainment in tertiary education. Third, ↑ administrative records provide a limited data set that at best yields counts of students, faculty, courses, and other school features. In contrast, the wide range of cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys in the CTES system provides much richer data for policy analysis and research purposes. With CTES, one can explore, for example, how vocational education coursetaking interacts with academic coursetaking and with achievement, how students who complete vocational education programmes transition to the ↑ labour market or higher education, and how the qualifications of older vocational education teachers compare to those of younger teachers. The CTES system does, however, require strong coordination within NCES, to ensure that the NCES data collections used by CTES contain the data elements necessary to address vocational education issues. To do so, CTES staff participate on each relevant data collection’s technical review panel (TRP). In addition, CTES maintains its own TRP. The CTES TRP is composed of vocational education experts, including practitioners, researchers, and government representatives. The CTES TRP advises NCES – through a contractor – on items to be included in its data collections, priorities for analyses and reporting, and definitions for key concepts such as vocational participants and classifications of vocational courses and programmes. The CTES TRP ensures that the CTES system remains relevant and current in its approach to data collection, analysis, and reporting. 3.3.4.4.4 CTES Reporting The data collections in the CTES system provide the raw data for analysis. The specific analyses conducted by NCES are determined based on input from the CTES TRP and collabora-
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tion with the Department’s Office of Vocational and ↑ Adult Education. To date, CTES dissemination of these analyses has occurred exclusively through published reports. At the core of this reporting system is Vocational Education in the ↑ United States, a periodic publication that provides a comprehensive summary of the condition of vocational education at the secondary, postsecondary, and adult levels, based on the most recent data available. Three editions of Vocational Education in the ↑ United States have been published thus far (in 1992, 1993 and 2000), with the fourth edition due out in 2006 (LEVESQUE / LAIRD / HENSLEY ET AL. forthcoming). Between editions of this report, NCES releases more focused reports on specific vocational education topics. For example, in 2005 the CTES program released a report on Labor Force ↑ Participation in Work-Related Education in 2000–01 (HUDSON / BHANDARI / PETER / BILLS 2005) and on Trends in Undergraduate ↑ Career Education (HUDSON / CAREY 2005). In addition to providing data for NCES analyses and reports, the CTES system also contributes to the National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE), a periodic study mandated by the U.S. Congress in each authorisation of federal vocation-
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al education legislation. (These mandates began in 1976, with subsequent mandates in 1984, 1990, 1998 and 2006.) For example, the ↑ high school transcript studies have provided key data on secondary-level participation in vocational education, and the ↑ longitudinal studies have provided a main source of data on the economic returns to vocational education, and on the relationship between participation in secondary-level vocational education and dropping out of school. The last NAVE report was published in 2004 (SILVERBERG / WARNER / FONG / GOODWIN 2004). Finally, CTES data collections (like most NCES data collections) are generally available to anyone wishing to conduct research on vocational education, including research centres, university faculty, and practitioners. 3.3.4.4.5 CTES on the Web The CTES program maintains a webpage (http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ctes/) on the NCES website. Through this site, users can view and order CTES reports. Web users can also find ↑ statistics on vocational education using a table finder function on the NCES website (http://nces.ed.gov/ quicktables/). But if one is looking for a specific
Tab. 1: Data collection sources for the Career/Technical Education Statistics (CTES) system
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statistic, both of these processes can be cumbersome. In addition, the most recent data are not available in these formats until they have been published in a report, which typically occurs years after data collection. A system of web-based tables, organised within a logical framework, would make access to vocational education statistics more timely and accessible. A framework for the CTES ↑ web tables is currently under development. Plans are for three sets of tabular statistics (one each for secondary, postsecondary, and adult vocational education), addressing the five general questions listed above. This CTES web system will include estimates (percentages or averages), population counts, and associated standard errors, as well as variable definitions and course classifications. Tables will provide both the most recent data from each CTES survey and, for key statistics, trends over time. Building the CTES web system is a long-term, continuous process; the site is currently on-line with a limited set of tables from a few recent surveys, with expansion and updating occurring as new data become available. As is true for all CTES efforts, feedback from data users is welcome and encouraged.
3.3.4.5 National and International Reporting on VET. Case Study of the European Union Friederike Behringer 3.3.4.5.1 Education and Training in the European Union: Between Subsidiarity and Common Objectives Across European countries, the structures of education and training systems differ considerably (→ 3.3). The treaty establishing the European Community conferred power to the Community in some well-defined policy areas. For other policy areas – including education and training – ↑ subsidiarity prevails. Under the principle of subsidiarity every Member State of the European Union retains full responsibility for the content and the organisation of its own education and training system. The Community’s policy in the field of edu-
cation and training may include incentives and recommendations, excluding, however, any (formally effectuated) harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the member states (Amtsblatt der EU 1997, Articles 149 and 150). At the Lisbon European Council (2000), the Heads of State and Government agreed upon a major strategic goal for 2010: “To become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion”. The European Council stressed that this would require a “challenging programme for the modernisation of education systems” (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2000, par. 2 and 5).
The European Council had never before acknowledged to this extent the role played by education and training systems as part of the economic and social strategy and the future of the Union. A new ↑ open method of coordination (OMC) was introduced to facilitate implementing the strategic goal by improving the existing processes, coupled with a stronger guiding and coordinating role for the European Council to ensure more coherent strategic direction and effective monitoring of progress (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2000, par. 37). OMC is a soft-law approach in sensitive policy areas. It is a way of providing orientation towards common objectives, and international peer pressure is expected to increase momentum of national reform processes. Within OMC, as it is applied to education and training, the monitoring of progress based on indicators and ↑ benchmarks plays a central role. Since 2000, reporting on education and training in Europe has gained prominence. In principle, there are two strands of reporting: First, monitoring of ↑ performance and progress of education and training systems in Europe, based on indicators and common objectives established by the European Commission and its institutions, working closely with the member states. Second, reporting on ↑ VET research with the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (↑ Cedefop) playing a major role (→ 2.5; → 3.3.2). The first one has a focus on indicators that have been negotiated and on national reports submitted by member states. The second one aims at providing a state-
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of-the-art review and analysis of VET research in Europe and beyond. 3.3.4.5.2 The Lisbon Goal and Reporting on VET As mentioned above, regular reporting at Community and national level is an integrated part of the Lisbon process. This takes place in the context of different schedules and with a variety of bodies involved, including the agencies of the European Union (e. g. ↑ Cedefop, ↑ European Training Foundation (ETF)). (1) First of all, there is the annual report to the Spring European Council – the central annual review of progress. (2) In the field of education and training a separate biennial reporting schedule has been set up – the joint report of Education Council and Commission. (3) Finally, there is a separate review of progress concerning the Copenhagen Declaration, calling for enhanced European cooperation in vocational education and training (EUROPEAN MINISTERS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING /EC 2002), to be gradually integrated in the review of progress in the field of education and training.
Reports to the Spring European Council At the Lisbon European Council the pre-eminent guiding and coordinating role of the Council for the effective monitoring of progress towards the new strategic goal was acknowledged, and the Commission was invited to draw up an annual report on progress on the basis of structural indicators to be agreed upon (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2000, par. 36). The European Council in Nice (2000) adopted a first list of structural indicators comprising 35 key indicators. The list was revised and amended in the following European Councils, and a shortlist of 14 indicators has been agreed upon for a more concise assessment of progress (EC, E. C. S. G. 2003; → 1.3.5). In the long list of structural indicators (EUROSTAT 2005) there are five indicators pertinent for education and training (1) Youth ↑ educational attainment (20–24 year olds);
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(2) Early school leavers; (3) ↑ Lifelong learning (adult ↑ participation in education and training); (4) Science and technology graduates; (5) Public expenditure on education. The first of these indicators is included in the shortlist, too. However, these structural indicators only partially provide a solid foundation for reporting on VET (cf. for a detailed discussion BEHRINGER / PFEIFER 2005). The first indicator, based on Labour Force Survey (LFS), is not recorded according to general or vocational education. There is no possibility of estimating the share of VET based on data reported by ↑ OECD, as the two sources lack comparability. The definition of early school leavers as measured in LFS causes some problems, with a substantial share of those classified as early school leavers considering themselves to be students, in training or unpaid work experience in some countries. ↑ Participation of adults in education and training as defined for the structural indicator only refers to a period of four weeks prior to the survey (LFS). Almost certainly lifelong learning will be underestimated, and most likely the underestimation is biased. In addition, comparisons over time and across countries are hampered by methodological changes (concepts and definitions) implemented gradually by countries. And finally, with the new definition of lifelong learning the information collected relates to all education and training, not only to education and vocational training relevant for the current or possible future job of the respondent. Public expenditure on education and training is based on data collected by UOE, but it is not shown separately for VET, and information on private expenditure on vocational education and training is fragmentary. The last structural indicator, focussed on graduates of ↑ tertiary education, is out of the scope of VET. The conclusion of the mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy (2005) was a relaunch with priorities on growth and jobs (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2005). The European Council continued to underline the importance of ↑ human capital as Europe’s main asset, and called for the implementation of lifelong learning as a sine qua non of the ↑ Lisbon goal. The new start for the Lisbon
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strategy is reflected in the integrated guidelines for growth and jobs adopted by the European Council (EC 2005e). These guidelines frame the National Reform Programmes submitted by member states, setting out detailed ↑ commitments for action. Two guidelines for education and training are included as part of the guidelines of the employment policies of member states: – Expand and improve investment in ↑ human capital; – Adapt education and training systems in response to new competence requirements. The Commission’s Spring Report 2006 “Time to move up a gear” (EC 2006) includes an assessment of each Member State’s National Reform Programme, a succinct general evaluation of National Reform Programmes and structural indicators (shortlist) for each Member State.
Joint Reports of Education Council and Commission At the Lisbon Council (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2000, par. 27) the Ministers of Education were invited to “undertake a general reflection on the concrete future objectives of education systems” and to present a broader report to the Council in 2001. In 2001, Ministers of Education agreed for the first time on shared objectives to be achieved by 2010 (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION – EDUCATION 2001). The three strategic objectives are: – Improving quality and ↑ effectiveness of education and training systems; – Facilitating access of all to education and training; – Opening up education and training systems to the wider world. In Barcelona (2002) the Council of the European Union adopted a detailed work programme on the follow-up of the objectives of education and training systems for 2010 (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2002c). Eight working groups were set up focussing on one or more of the 13 specific objectives refining the three strategic objectives, as well as a Standing Group on Indicators and ↑ Benchmarks to assess progress towards the objectives with the aid of indicators. Education Council and Commission were invited to report to the Spring
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European Council 2004 on effective implementation of the work programme (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2002a, par. 43). The Education Council in May 2003 agreed on establishing reference levels of European average ↑ performance, without defining national targets (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION – EDUCATION 2003). These agreed European reference levels to be reached by 2010 are: (1) Youth ↑ educational attainment: At least 85 % of the 22 year-olds should have completed upper secondary education. (2) Early school leavers: An EU average of no more than 10 % of population aged 18 to 24. (3) ↑ Lifelong learning: The EU average level should be at least 12.5 % of adult working age population participating in education and training. (4) Mathematics, science and technology: The total number of graduates in these fields should increase by at least 15 % while at the same time decreasing gender imbalance. (5) ↑ Basic skills: The percentage of low achieving 15 year-olds in reading literacy in the EU should have decreased by at least 20 %. The Education Council 2003 did not decide on an EU reference level on investment in human resources. Four of the indicators forming the basis of the EU reference levels are similar or identical to the structural indicators discussed above, and hence are not related specifically to VET. The source of the indicator on basic skills is an assessment of 15-yearold students (PISA), most of whom are in general, not vocational education. The first joint report of Education Council and Commission was submitted to the 2004 Spring European Council (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2004a), with a view to biennial joint reports monitoring progress towards the objectives. Like in the report on “the future objectives of education systems” subsequent reports underlined coverage of both education and training. The joint report reviews progress made towards the common objectives and stresses the need to step up national and Community action. The importance of indicators and European reference levels (benchmarks) as an instrument of ↑ OMC is emphasized. The selection of indicators and benchmarks, however, is less targeted at VET. Reporting based on indica-
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tors is complemented by a stocktaking of progress against the priorities of the Copenhagen declaration on “Enhanced European cooperation in vocational education and training” (EUROPEAN MINISTERS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING /EC 2002), i.e. development at European level of frameworks (for a common ↑ quality assurance framework, a single European framework for transparency of qualifications and competences, and credit transfer in VET). The joint report calls for improvement of data and indicators, particularly for ↑ adult education and ↑ initial vocational education and training. Despite streamlining of reporting on the Lisbon strategy after the mid-term review 2005, a separate report on Education and Training 2010 work programme is to be elaborated every two years. Different from the previous report, the draft joint report 2006 and its Annex (EC 2005b; 2005c) are partly derived from national reports submitted by 32 countries and structured on the basis of a guidance note from the Commission, which requested concise information relating to the major priority areas of the 2004 Interim Report. These are: – The relationship between national policies and the Lisbon agenda; – Investing more and more efficiently in education and training; – Implementing lifelong ↑ learning strategies; – Reforms of higher education and VET; – Developing the ↑ European dimension of education and training. Countries were asked to provide key information concerning strategies or policies either already in place or at the planning stage, specifying progress made and main obstacles encountered, along with measurable changes and trends. Cross-country analysis aims at providing a synthetic account of the main priorities, concerns, areas of progress and results still to be achieved, expressed by the national authorities themselves. The assessment of progress against the five reference levels of average European performance (↑ benchmarks) in education and training constitutes another part of the draft joint report.
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Review of the Copenhagen Process The Copenhagen declaration (EUROPEAN MINISTERS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING /EC 2002) envisages a biennial review of the process. The first review took place in Maastricht 2004; it was informed by a research report commissioned by the European Commission (LENEY/AMMERMAN / BRANDSMA ET AL. 2005). This research report undertook an assessment of the contribution of VET to achieving the ↑ Lisbon goal, based on – Self-assessment reports completed by the Directors General for Vocational Education and Training (DGVT) of 31 European countries, using a questionnaire designed by the research team; – Independent reports on VET developments in 30 countries prepared by expert analysts for this study; – Analysis of reports and data at European and international level. Based on the conclusions of this comprehensive study the Maastricht Communiqué (MINISTERS FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING /EUROPEAN SOCIAL PARTNERS /EC 2004) defined areas where reforms and investment are necessary, and – for the first time – identified priorities for action at national level. It was restated that adequate data and indicators are a prerequisite to enable evaluation of progress in making VET efficient, effective and attractive, and priority should be given to the improvement of the scope, precision and reliability of VET ↑ statistics. The second review of the ↑ Copenhagen process will be the subject of a ministerial meeting in December 2006, and again a research report is being launched by the Commission to provide background analysis for this review. 3.3.4.5.3 Reporting on VET Research The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (↑ Cedefop) is an agency of the European Union. The objectives of Cedefop as explicitly stated in the Constituent Act, similar to some other Community Agencies, comprise inter alia research, dissemination and promoting cooperation. One element of the rationale for outsourcing certain Community tasks to agencies is facilitating regular contact with stakeholders. A lack of academic research on VET has been another rea-
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son for establishing Cedefop. This underlines the importance of both research and networking activities of Cedefop. Since 1998, Cedefop has published three comprehensive reports on ↑ VET research to provide a review of research in initial and ↑ continuing VET in Europe, the main theoretical and conceptual approaches, empirical findings and the implications for policy, practice and future research. These regular reports consist of a background report and a synthesis report. The background report contains contributions of renowned researchers on specified topics; it consists of two or three separate volumes. The synthesis report presents the main VET research issues, based on the contributions to the background report as well as on ↑ Cedefop’s own research, and draws conclusions for decision-makers and researchers. The focus of the reports is adapted to emerging topics, as indicated in changing titles and contents: – First research report (1998/1999), with a focus on “Training for a changing society”; – Second research report (2001): “Training and learning for competence”; – Third research report (2004/2005): “The value of learning: evaluation and impact of education and training”. The fourth research report (to be published 2007) will investigate the conditions for achieving the Lisbon-Copenhagen-Maastricht goals. It also aims at identifying new and emerging research issues beyond 2010. In pursuit of its goals Cedefop is running or participating in networks in close cooperation with member states. ReferNet has been established by Cedefop to meet the growing demand for high quality information on a wide range of developments in VET in the EU. ReferNet is covering all EU and EEA countries. It comprises a national consortium in each Member State made up of organisations representative of vocational education and training institutions and bodies with VET ↑ research capacity. Amongst ReferNet associated members at European level are ↑ ETF and Eurydice. ReferNet has several tasks – Collecting information, updating online databases, information services;
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– Providing cross-sectional and thematic policy analyses; transversal knowledge; support for policy debate; – Contributing to the development of a concerted approach to research. In close collaboration with ReferNet and other European research networks (e. g. Vetnet) and associations ERO (European Research Overview) carries out its work. It provides ERO Base – a database of research projects, research experts and research papers. The Research Monitor, developed as part of project work related to ERO, provides an overview of networks of researchers in VET (http://www.b.shuttle.de/wifo/vet/networks.htm). Three networks with a general profile in ↑ HRD and VET research in Europe are listed: ReferNet, CEEC (focussed on Central and Eastern European countries), and Vetnet. Vetnet, established 1997, is concerned with research and development in the initial and ↑ continuing VET. It is part of the European Education Research Association (EERA). The networks aim at promoting discussion, dissemination and cooperation and thus complement other activities to report on VET research at European level. 3.3.4.5.4 Conclusion Adequate data and indicators are a necessary prerequisite for monitoring progress towards defined objectives, for evidence-based policies and for further research. Regarding VET, even key data are lacking, both on input as well as on outcomes, and the urgent need for making adequate data and indicators available has been reiterated. Progress has been made, regarding extension of coverage of countries. The third Continuing Vocational Training Survey (2006) as well as the ↑ Adult Education Survey (2005–2007) are expected to fill some of the gaps regarding ↑ adult learning. However, the replacement of the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) by the Community ↑ statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) is a step backwards. EU-SILC does not collect information on continuing training – while ECHP did. Improvement of information on VET does not always necessitate new surveys. Better access to existing data sets for researchers would make better use of resources and could improve reporting on
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VET. Disaggregating data on education and training according to general or vocational orientation of the programme could be achieved by introducing this differentiation in existing questionnaires, like LFS or the ↑ Unesco-↑ OECD-Eurostat (UOE) questionnaire. This would significantly improve reporting on VET, but also ↑ VET research.
3.3.4.6 National and International Reporting on VET – Case Study of OECD, ILO and the World Bank Simone Kirpal Despite having received considerable attention during the 1970s and 1980s at the international level, investments and research interests in vocational education and training (VET) and ↑ adult learning severely declined during the 1990s due to disappointing economic returns of programme investments in these areas. International organisations instead increasingly shifted their attention and major efforts to basic education, primary and secondary education in particular. More recently skills development and adult learning – but also early education (Early Childhood Education and Care – ECEC) and school-readiness – have regained significance in the context of policies of ↑ lifelong learning, poverty alleviation, youth development and social cohesion, all of which have been defined as priority areas by donor agencies and ↑ intergovernmental organisations during the past few years. The debates about the role of VET in reaching the ↑ Lisbon goals defined by the European Commission (LENEY/AMMERMAN / BRANDSMA ET AL. 2004), for example, exemplify how the interdependence between skills development and economic growth and/or education and work have regained a strategic role in international policies. This chapter gives an overview of the reporting and programme strategies in VET undertaken and implemented by selected international organisations, namely the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), ILO (↑ International Labour Organisation) and the ↑ World Bank. In the context of international policies, the
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role of VET in a particular international organisation has to be looked at and understood from within the self-understanding and function, or ‘mission’, of the organisation in question. As those three organisations differ considerably in terms of their roles, functions and aims as international, intergovernmental bodies, the chapter starts out by outlining the main objectives of each organisation then to identify how and to what extent vocational education and ↑ training policies and programmes are being integrated into the organisations’ strategies for fulfilling their objectives. The approach taken will consist of elaborating differences and similarities between the three organisational strategies of making vocational education and training part of their policy and research agenda. As for these organisations there exist strong interlinkages between their VET research, policies and programmes this chapter complements chapter → 1.8 of this volume, which makes reference to the evolution of TVET research in the ↑ OECD, ILO, the ↑ World Bank and other intergovernmental organisations and ↑ bilateral agencies. 3.3.4.6.1 The Role of VET in International Organisations’ Policy Priorities The different aims and functions of the OECD, ILO and World Bank are rooted in their history and forms of representation. As specialised agencies of the ↑ UN system the ILO and World Bank are categorised as supranational bodies representing the majority of the world’s national states – membership numbers of the World Bank Group range from 140 to currently 184 member governments for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), while in 2006 the ILO had 178 registered member countries. Against this background, the mandate of these organisations is to establish worldwide guidelines and standards within their respective political domain, human and labour rights in the case of the ILO and ↑ development policy in the case of the World Bank respectively. The OECD, by contrast, is represented by 30 industrialised, mainly European countries. It does not have the status of a supranational body, but can instead be considered an intergovernmental ‘permanent conference’.
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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (www.oecd.org) The OECD emerged from the former OEEC, which was established after World War II to implement a common concept for the reconstruction of Europe and to facilitate cooperation amongst its member states. Concretely, it was formed to administer American and Canadian aid under the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. The objectives of the OECD are primarily to support economic growth and prosperity of its member countries. While more recently the OECD has started to move beyond focusing on its member countries, its major concern rests with setting its analytical sights on countries with an established or emerging market economy. Concerns about VET within OECD policies has to be evaluated against OECD’s main objective of developing analytical instruments such as statistical indicators and ↑ benchmarks to compare, support and enhance economic growth. Generating international comparative background information, data and indicators on ↑ educational attainments (which selectively also make reference to vocational programmes) (OECD 2005b), employment or health, for example, as well as national reporting by means of individual country surveys and reviews thereby are major methodological tools. The OECD’s International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) in particular makes reference to skills gaps and access to job-related training, among others (OECD/Statistics Canada 2000). The more recent Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (OECD/STATISTICS CANADA 2005) analyses the relationship, match and mismatch between job tasks and (observed) skills and how skills are used at the workplace under consideration of emerging demands of knowledge-based work environments. Those international comparative surveys, statistical indicators and country surveys are used to identify emerging economic issues and trends and to help governments and policy-makers adopt strategic orientations. With broadening its ↑ commitment to ↑ developing countries the OECD has undertaken some major national studies of work-based learning and vocational training in selected Asian and African countries (→ 1.8 for details) and has more recently started to engage in providing a conceptual ba-
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sis and identifying indicators for assessing individual competences and learning outcomes. This engagement in supporting the development of ↑ competence assessment tools is embedded in OECD’s lifelong-learning policy, which has evolved as a major policy goal over the past three decades, but received a more vigorous emphasis and conceptualisation in 1996 (OECD 2001b; 2004a). ↑ OECD’s efforts towards ↑ VET policies, programmes and research are embedded in the overall framework that OECD’s ↑ lifelong learning policy establishes. The concept of ↑ lifelong learning is based on a cross-sectoral approach and comprises all forms of formal and ↑ informal learning (and the recognition of it) over the lifecycle. It emphasises the centrality of the learner, thereby shifting the attention from the supply side (i.e. training providers and formal institutions) to the demand side of meeting learner needs (OECD 2004a). Furthermore the concept confirms the multiple goals of education and its ↑ wider benefits such as personal development and social cohesion (→ 3.5.4 for details). Implementing this approach has wide-reaching “implications for key parameters of education and training policy: for its objectives; for the structure of provision; for the content, quality and relevance of education and training; for resource provision and management, and for the roles and responsibilities of different partners and stakeholders” (OECD 2004a, 2).
In terms of initial and continuing vocational training and ↑ adult learning prioritising a lifelong learning concept gives trainers in companies as well as training institutions a new strategic role and supports their ↑ professionalisation. Although well-defined at the policy level, the practical implementation of lifelong learning at national level (‘moving from rhetoric to reality’) still encounters major obstacles, because the monitoring of country ↑ performance on lifelong learning is hampered, above all, by lack of data. Thus, OECD increasingly engages in identifying assessment tools of competence development and learning, which are generated through work-based and other informal settings of learning. Shifting the focus to the growing significance of experience-based and informal learning (compared to formal vocational training programmes), the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) investigated how vocational experience-based
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learning could be better supported. This study formed part of a larger OCED initiative (with duration from 2000 to 2005) in which 25 countries participated. The main objective of this initiative was to identify the “Role of National Qualification Systems in Promoting ↑ Lifelong Learning”, i.e. to what extent national qualification systems influence the volume, distribution and quality of lifelong learning (BEHRINGER / COLES 2003). Through developing, testing and transferring model approaches towards reforms in initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training, the aim of the background studies was to analyse to what extent experience-based learning could be established more firmly alongside formal learning processes and how reforms of the vocational qualification systems in the past few years impacted on mechanisms relevant for lifelong learning. Several sub-projects focused on process-oriented initial and continuing VET; VET in learning organisations and experience-guided learning (PÜTZ 2000; REULING / HANF 2004) to enhance more systematically on-the-job experience as a source of ↑ vocational competence development; and the linkage between individual, social and ↑ organisational learning processes along with ↑ self-evaluation on the part of the individuals involved (OATES / REULING / HANF 2004).
International Labour Organisation (ILO) (www.ilo.org) The mandate of the ↑ International Labour Organisation is to promote social justice and internationally recognised human and labour rights. Founded in 1919 on the basis of the Treaty of Versailles it became the first specialised agency of the ↑ UN in 1946. The ILO formulates international labour standards in the form of conventions and recommendations to set minimum standards of basic labour rights such as freedom of association, the right to organise, collective bargaining, abolition of forced labour and equality of opportunity and treatment. It further provides technical assistance to developing, industrialised and transition countries in the fields of employment policy, labour administration, labour law and industrial relations, working conditions and occupational safety, among others.
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Producing and monitoring labour ↑ statistics is an important methodological tool to implement these goals and objectives. With this agenda, vocational training and rehabilitation have always been priority areas of ILO’s work. This has led increasingly to considering vocational training and ↑ human resources development as strategic components of both economic policies – as a result of its impact on labour productivity and the competitiveness of firms – and social policies in terms of ↑ labour market integration, ↑ employability and social inclusion. In developing and implementing TVET research, documentation and programmes ILO’s Employability and Skills Department (EMP/SKILLS) as well as the Inter-American Research and Documentation Centre on Vocational Training (CINTERFOR), which was founded in 1963, are the two most important players. While CINTERFOR, with its more pronounced regional focus, coordinates technical cooperation and transfers TVET knowledge and methodologies between its member institutions, EMP/SKILLS rather assists individuals to increase their employability chances through training, skills development and education with the aim of enhancing their income-earning opportunities and ↑ mobility. Through the vehicles of advocacy, knowledge development and services to ILO constituents, EMP/SKILLS promotes the improvement of ↑ training policies and programmes worldwide by placing special emphasis on training strategies that support the integration of ↑ disadvantaged groups in the labour market. ILO’s TVET strategies and programmes are characterised by (i) being closely linked to human resource development thereby requiring close cooperation with enterprises and employer associations, and (ii) a new orientation towards skills development for self-employment instead of more formalised training to prepare individuals to seek gainful (dependent) employment (GILL / FLUITMAN / DAR 2000; GRIERSON / MCK ENZIE 1996). While the first component builds upon international lifelong-learning approaches (VARGAS ZUÑIGA 2005) and ILO’s unique tripartite structure with workers and employers participating as equal partners with governments (ILO 2005b), the second component takes account of the particular needs in terms of
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skills formation and creating employment and income generating opportunities in ↑ developing countries (ILO 2005c; 2005d; MAYOUX 2006). In response to its strategy of enhancing employment opportunities for young and disadvantaged people, the ILO launched two major initiatives: With its ‘InFocus Programme on Skills, Knowledge and ↑ Employability’ (CHAMBERS / LAKE 2002; WHITE /K ENYON 2001) and the joint ↑ UN/↑ ILO/ ↑ World Bank Youth Employment Network initiated in 2001, the ↑ ILO strengthened its efforts at international level to improve the situation of unemployed youth. Both youth employment initiatives, which acknowledge the central role of skill formation, were accompanied by a series of research papers and case studies (see for example CURTAIN 2000; O’HIGGINS 2001; SARR 2000). In addition, the programme on Training for Rural Economic Empowerment (TREE), which was developed by the ILO and which is implemented regionally, emphasises the central role of knowledge, training and skills development for generating employment opportunities and growth for poor and disadvantaged individuals in developing countries. The TREE programme thereby presents a tool or methodology to identify, design and implement training and post-training assistance programmes for (self-)employment and income generation at the local level, following a demand-driven approach that takes account of the local conditions and needs. National Qualification Frameworks (NQF) also play a central role in this strategy (YOUNG 2005). Concerning the other priority area, which focuses on the linkage between training and human resources ↑ development policies, the ILO has produced a major report on “Learning and Training for Work in the ↑ Knowledge Society” (ILO 2002). Based on national-level questionnaires, the report draws attention to how recent HRD legislation, ↑ policies and practices reflect new approaches in learning and training. It examines the shift towards economies and societies increasingly relying on human knowledge and skills in producing goods and services and the role of education and training to enhance productivity, economic competitiveness and social cohesion. Against the background of principles of contemporary human resources development and training policies, laws
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and practices, the report reviews countries’ reforms of their systems of basic education and initial training to identify ↑ policies and practices, which encourage more and better learning and training opportunities for employed and unemployed workers to maintain their employability. Other studies have examined national experiences and approaches on the recognition of prior ↑ learning in the workplace to validate workers skills and enhance their employability (DYSON /K EATING 2005).
The World Bank (www.worldbank.org) As a major lender to education projects and programmes, since the 1960s, the ↑ World Bank has been greatly involved in supporting investments in TVET in ↑ developing countries. From the 1960s to the late 1980s, a large share of the Word Bank’s education lending portfolio was directed towards vocational education at secondary and post secondary levels. Whilst most of these loans were used to finance costly and complex vocational training systems, ↑ evaluation studies and papers increasingly questioned the cost ↑ effectiveness and ↑ sustainability of such an approach, which proved to be ineffective particularly for low-income countries and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (MIDDLETON / DEMSKY 1988). As a consequence, a World Bank policy paper in 1991 recommended shifting the Bank’s focus on training from that of strengthening the public supply of training to providing policy advice and supporting institutional capacity building, TVET reforms and non-formal training. This shift also meant that the World Bank started to pay more attention to the responsiveness, ↑ efficiency and quality of training provisions and to more strongly support private training providers. In line with international consensus, this policy paper decidedly marked the shift away from vocational programmes towards strengthening general education, primary and secondary education in particular (cf. CANAGARAJAH / DAR / NORDING / RAJU 2002; World Bank 1991; → 1.8 for details). Abandoning direct investments in TVET programmes to a significant degree, more recent World Bank strategies of considering TVET in policy formulations and targets consist of supporting projects or project components of training and skills formation through youth development pro-
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grammes. Since the 1990s, by addressing skills development within programmes that are primarily geared towards reducing youth unemployment, improving ↑ school-to-work transition and enhancing employability, the World Bank has pursued an approach similar to the ↑ ILO. The already mentioned joint ↑ UN/ ILO/ World Bank Youth Employment Network underpins the cooperation of both organisations in these areas. With its pronounced focus on poverty alleviation, the World Bank’s regional youth development programmes aim at improving the ↑ employability of at-risk youth from poor families through enhancing young peoples’ vocational and life skills. Job training, internships and additional education are thereby regarded as key strategies to facilitate young peoples’ transition into the ↑ labour market. In the Dominican Republic, for example, a recently launched major Youth Development Project seeks to provide young people with work experience and technical skills on the one hand, and to expand ‘second chance’ education programmes to complete formal education through night classes on the other hand. Combining vocational training with general education programmes is thereby seen as a particular strength of this approach, reconciling both educational areas by acknowledging their mutual benefits. In addition to focusing on private and public sector employers, the project pilots training courses and internships that promote entrepreneurship and self-employment. Similar programmes are supported in other regions such as the Job Creation and ↑ Skill Development initiative in the Middle East and North Africa Region (MENA). With a focus on linking skills development with ↑ human resources development the Egyptian Skills Development Project addresses the low investment of employers in training and up-grading the skills of their workforce. It is designed to help Egyptian employers of small and medium firms identify their human resource and skill training needs as a way to further improve their productivity and competitiveness. All those programmes have in common that they increasingly emphasise the development of skills through non-formal training and learning. Case studies and reporting on national experiences have shown that this strategy is particularly beneficial for low-in-
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come countries and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (JOHANSON /ADAMS 2004). With a different focus the ↑ World Bank also increasingly invests in programmes that address issues of training and skilling needs required by innovations in ↑ information technology and an emerging ↑ knowledge society. While identifying core competences and skills that are required in the knowledge economy, at regional level close linkages are created to VET and the role of employers and institutions. 3.3.4.6.2 Conclusions Though the title of this contribution suggests it, this review shows that a systematic form of international reporting on VET within international organisations – herein illustrated by the case of the ↑ OECD, ILO and World Bank – does not exist. Whilst TVET investments, programmes and priorities in all three organisations are underpinned by more or less extensive research, commissioned studies, case studies and analytical evaluation of country experiences, these tend to be driven by policy interests and priority areas rather then regularity and established academic standards or indicators. Thus, reports and studies need to be interpreted and valued against the purpose they follow in the light of each organisation and its particular role, aims and objectives. The most systematic form of reporting exists within the OECD, which seeks to generate international comparative data and indicators on ↑ educational attainments and employment, among others. OECD’s periodical surveys selectively also make reference to TVET in the industrialised and some transition and ↑ developing countries. However, although increasingly being concerned with developing indicators for assessing individual competences, skills and learning outcomes, the data obtained only fragmentarily make reference to TVET, and thus still remain far from presenting a systematic ↑ reporting on TVET. Commonalities between the three organisations can be identified in the adjustment of their policies and ↑ research strategies of TVET during the 1990s towards acknowledging the prioritisation of ↑ lifelong learning and employability, and self-employment and individual skills in developing coun-
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tries in particular. This has led to shifting the focus from (i) formal to informal and non-formal learning; (ii) public to private training provision; (iii) the supply side (i.e. training providers and formal institutions) to the demand side of meeting learners needs; (iv) technical skills to broader life skill sets; and (v) a restrictive economic perspective on skills to strengthening its wider individual and social benefits. Whilst interest in TVET declined during the 1990s at international level, skills development and ↑ adult learning have regained significance in the context of prioritising policies of ↑ lifelong learning, poverty alleviation, youth development and social cohesion. This has led to more systematically integrating TVET-related research and programmes into areas like youth development programmes, ↑ human resources development or income generation through self-employment requiring cross-sectoral and ↑ interdisciplinary perspectives and programme implementation.
3.3.5
Development and Evaluation of VET Courses Thomas Deißinger and Jürgen Zabeck
3.3.5.1
VET Courses as Historical Entities and Research Objects
The need to modernise vocational education and training (VET) systems along a “future-proof” strategy has emerged as a central issue of ↑ educational policy, both at home and abroad. Although intensity, speed and decisiveness alter from country to country, it appears that modernisation for various reasons has become an international phenomenon or problem, a fact that is underlined by the European Union’s ↑ commitment to “life-long learning” as a global strategy for all European countries (KOMMISSION DER EUROPÄISCHEN GEMEINSCHAFTEN 1996). As a consequence, the borders drawn between the various sectors of the educational and/or training system, including higher and ↑ further education, could become more and more permeable as the perception of a mismatch of learning outcomes with work requirements urges a fundamental re-
thinking of traditional courses as well as curriculum patterns. In contrast to these modern dynamics, the problem of integrating young people into the structures of social and economic life in former times was part of a natural process determined by the ongoing change of generations. When “division of labour” (SMITH 1776/1993) began to replace or complement the archaic forms of subsistence, occupations and ↑ work processes emerged as independent patterns for the production of goods and services and the process of skill formation became part of what Brunner (1956, 17) labelled the “basic tendency of European history towards rationality”. In contrast to higher education, however, the pedagogical concept behind vocational reproduction was “imitatio” which became institutionalised in the corporations of the medieval world. In England, e. g., in 1563, the Statute of Artificers formalized the system of guild apprenticeship by establishing what has been described as a national manpower and employment policy (PERRY 1976, 6; DEISSINGER 1994). Having served an apprenticeship under a properly qualified master was made the central prerequisite for obtaining “freedom of the trade” within a city or town. The rules which determined this selection in most cases did not include the standardisation of training contents. The latter obviously were the product of practices within the community of the trade or occupation, which meant outside state regulation and the “curriculum of the occident” (DOLCH 1959/1982). It is interesting, though, that despite this general development in all European societies, differences between the German-speaking world and most other countries in Europe in terms of a specific “apprenticeship culture” (DEISSINGER 2004) strike the eye of the historical observer: This includes the insight into what different societies perceived as “education” and how they linked the idea of training for an occupation or a job to the notion of personality development of individuals (WINCH 2006). In this lies the root of the separation of education from training which applies to most national contexts. For the German context it is remarkable that, although the vocational educational movement with Georg Kerschensteiner and Eduard Spranger (BLÄTTNER 1965; WINCH 2006) rehabilitated the idea and ideal of the vocationally educated indi-
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vidual, there was no real rehabilitation of the specific pedagogical aspiration of the term Bildung or “education of the invididual” (PAULSEN 1895). With the institutional development of both the general and the vocational education systems (the primary school or Grundschule and the vocational parttime school or Berufsschule are obvious products of this process) the term Bildung became more and more influenced by a technical or political understanding of “educational courses” and their institutional foundations. It may be claimed that educational courses function as social institutions by developing a specific “identity” without staying totally inflexible or unaltered in the face of external challenges. The results of such a “behaviour” may be termed “development” without stating that they emerge in an “organic” manner. When we bring together “development” and “evaluation” in this article, we look at expedient functions of educational institutions and the courses offered by them as well as at their potential to re-define or revise them in an appropriate manner (→ 2.4). This, of course, includes purely pedagogical objectives as they were put forward in the educational debate of the 1960s and 1970s, or with Humboldt’s educational reform at the beginning of the 19th century (BLANKERTZ 1969; DEISSINGER 1998, 25 ff.). We have used the term “apprenticeship culture” to point out that vocational training systems are determined by a specific “philosophy” or “intrinsic logic” which have to be understood “in relation to other societal institutions” including the ↑ labour market, the economy, the system of industrial relations and of course the system of government (RAFFE 1998, 391). With this premise in mind, looking at vocational training in a merely institutional manner by using the state function as the crucial tertium comparationis (e. g. GREINERT 1988) reduces the potential of getting insight into what really directs VET. In Germany, the understanding of a separate vocational pathway as “unique” and valuable in itself sets the country apart from most other European societies (with the exception of Austria and Switzerland). This unique positioning, however, has traditionally provoked criticism with respect to the organisation of vocational training and general education “according to separate criteria and systems of assessment” including “limited possibili-
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ties for progression between them” (YOUNG 2003, 228). On the other hand, it may be argued that academic and (non-academic) vocational pathways, in the German case, are well rooted within disjunct but interdependent subsystems and that their mutual interaction obviously contributes to stabilizing the “vocational track” in a stronger way than in other countries (DEISSINGER 1998). Although the ↑ dual system of apprenticeship training (Duales System), being the main VET pathway, emerged as a culturally fixed but functionally flexible framework, from which courses for outdated skilled occupations could be removed without negative side effects, new skilled occupations could be integrated and existing occupations could be adjusted to social, economic and technical changes (→ 3.1.1). The structure of decision-making committees consisting of four equal parties and the principle of consensus, which is valid for institutional structures and contents of vocational training, restrict the influence of partial interests as they prevent one-sided interpretations of evaluation results (DEISSINGER 2001c). Both the development of the apprenticeship system and of ↑ VET courses outside the dual system actually took place before an independent ↑ VET research was established (→ 1.4). The ↑ vocational full-time school (it was named Berufsfachschule in 1973), which prepares students for an occupation, has adjusted itself permanently to current changes without systematic evaluation until today (→ 3.3.8.2). When the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (Kultusministerkonferenz) established the Berufsfachschule in 1971 for “assistant occupations” (Assistentenberufe), there was no anticipating or accompanying evaluation. The same applies to VET courses at the Fachschule (1975), which extends vocational knowledge and skills and leads to high-level vocational certificates (e. g. as technician) and also to general school-based qualifications leading into the ↑ tertiary sector. Other examples are the Fachoberschule (since 1969), where the admission to universities of applied science (Fachhochschulen) can be acquired, and the vocational grammar schools (1967), which have their origins in the Wirtschaftsoberschule (1926).
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3.3.5.2 The Pragmatic Function of Empirical VET Research In Germany, in the 1960s, a ↑ VET research scene emerged as such by bringing together various strands of singular empirical research activities in a more or less homogeneous context (DFG 1990). At that time, the research community was above all eager to criticise the dual system of apprenticeship training (LEMPERT 1974) without looking explicitly at the integration aspect let alone the use of theory-based ↑ research approaches. Although the educational debate of the 1960s revealed a number of problems due to the company-based nature of the system and also pointed to its dwindling importance in the face of polarised ↑ labour markets, the German National Committee for Education (Deutscher Ausschuss für das Erziehungsund Bildungswesen) “defended” the apprenticeship system by stating its success and functionality (DEUTSCHER AUSSCHUSS FÜR DAS ERZIEHUNGSUND BILDUNGSWESEN 1964a, 131 ff.). This also happened without an empirical foundation of the arguments in favour of or against the traditional apprenticeship system. Although the original intention to use ↑ evaluation research was to compare pretended objectives with real achievements, the political instrumentalisation of evaluation research soon became apparent: In consequence, the function of research changed to feeding arguments into pre-set political decisions within the context of ↑ educational policy, especially with respect to new institutional or didactical features. One of the serious challenges of evaluation research until now is the methodological “protection” of research results against political instrumentalisation by establishing well-accepted standards of research practice (SANDERS 2000). One of the approaches is research based on “↑ system theory” (PARSONS 1976; LUHMANN 1996). By a system theory approach underlying evaluation research is meant that evaluation aims at describing reality, such as educational courses or institutions, by investigating and assessing relevant objects according to their purpose or functionality. Such a ↑ research design is able to select those empirical data which can be related to the problem which has led or leads to the establishment of already existing or new educational courses and which help to
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illuminate whether they contribute to solving the underlying problem or challenge. This includes the possibility that evaluation research can also be directed to revising an already operating scheme or institution because it has failed to meet the expectations underlying its foundation (→ 5.4). The relevance of evaluation research is given in all contexts where research can help to detect illusionary expectations, deficits in the legitimation of targets or wrong assumptions referring to effects associated with educational innovations. All results of this kind of research, however, must aim at identifying research issues in a manner which makes sure that evaluation not only leads to reliable results but also contributes to posing new issues and questions of research (SANDERS 2000, 67 ff., 167 ff.). In a ↑ system theory perspective the education system, with its differentiation of courses, educational targets and certificates, can be described as a “subsystem” within the social system, seen as a functionally structured entity (PARSONS 1976). The subsystem absorbs inputs (above all as alimentations) from society and at the same time is supposed to fulfil tasks (outputs) for other subsystems. ↑ VET courses can be seen as institutions which have to be organised (or organise themselves) in concordance with their function within the social system. This means that (i) they have to be attractive for a specific sector on the demand side of the educational system (e. g. school leavers and their aspirations to take up specific qualifications) and that they produce an output apt to reproduce society by providing marketable qualifications (external functionality); and that (ii) they fulfil these tasks by using learning arrangements which are appropriate to the purpose resulting from their function as pedagogical institutions (internal functionality). Against this background, any course innovation in the area of VET requires a matching of different interests between different groups such as the government, companies, chambers or trade unions – the setting which is typical for the German situation, including the fact that 16 federal states are involved in VET in schools. The most serious challenge in this policy context is to convince the relevant people and institutions that a new project or scheme is supposed to yield better pedagogical and/or social returns than the established system.
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For example, the school-based Berufsgrundbildungsjahr (vocational foundation year) was established and promoted by ↑ educational policy in the 1970s. In its Strukturplan (Structural Plan) the German Educational Council (Deutscher Bildungsrat) held that the first year of initial training should be organised as a mandatory full-time course within a vocational field (Berufsfeld) severed from production and systematised in a way different from traditional apprenticeship training (DEUTSCHER BILDUNGSRAT 1970). The underlying idea was to avoid the early “exploitation” of the apprentice and to open up new opportunities for educational aspirations even under the restrictive conditions of the world of work typical for vocational training. Although the realisation of the vocational foundation year was a “cooperative” or “alternating” concept, much closer to the ↑ dual system as originally intended, the major purpose of the course remained “education” rather than “qualification”, which became apparent in the curricula and the learning objectives which were “emancipatory” and therefore in accordance with the mainstream educational thinking of the time. From an evaluation perspective the question arises whether a primarily pedagogical legitimation of a vocational course is legitimate with respect to its “external functionality”. Are the competences and qualifications instrumental for bridging the first year of training and a subsequent apprenticeship? Are they, above all, appropriate for enabling young people to enter skilled employment successfully? What is the interest and aspiration of school leavers when they enter the vocational foundation year? Does it correspond with their expectations towards vocational training if they train in a “general” vocational field first before they pick up a specific occupation? Do they wish to be confronted with the world of work or do they prefer to be instructed in the classroom after graduating from general education? Another more recent example of a policy aiming at innovations in the German ↑ VET system has been the implementation of “practice firms” (Übungsfirmen) which have received much attention and structural support from the government in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. This curricular and instructional innovation is directed towards adding authenticity to the full time voca-
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tional ↑ school model. Against the background of the ‘training market crisis’ (DEISSINGER 2006a; DEISSINGER / HELLWIG 2004), Germany’s governments, both at the federal and federal state level, currently have to cope with the rising number of participants in school-based ↑ vocational preparation courses as well as full-time students in VET of whom only some 50 % attend courses leading to vocational qualifications that are nationally portable on the ↑ labour market. For an improvement of the status of these courses it is held necessary to strengthen the work-related features of VET outside the ↑ dual system. This problem, once again, reflects the traits of an “apprenticeship culture” rooted deeply in social foundations and mental patterns alike, which, e. g., are untypical for the English or Australian VET system (HARRIS / DEISSINGER 2003; DEISSINGER / SMITH / PICKERSGILL 2006). Practice firms are seen as pedagogical tools supposed to make ↑ vocational schools practical and, in the case of the two-year full-time ↑ VET courses in “vocational colleges” (Berufskollegs), to increase the marketability of the “assistant” qualification, both with respect to skilled employment and a subsequent apprenticeship course (FELLER 2002). Although the revised German ↑ Vocational Training Act (2005) provides for a wider scope of accreditation modes in the responsibility of the federal states (FEDERAL MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH 2005) the question remains whether, from an educational and social perspective, practice firms promote the ↑ employability of young people by developing skills in realistic ↑ learning environments which are able to simulate problems and work activities normally typical for workplaces in companies. Hereby, pedagogical expectations of the practice firm concept refer to the presumed benefits of an innovative learning arrangement which puts both the teacher and the student into different roles by requiring a new understanding of the relationship between teaching and learning as opposed to normal classroom settings of lessons in business administration or economics, i.e. learning arrangements which help to overcome the ‘dualism of thinking and acting’ (TRAMM 1994) and therefore follow the concept of ‘activity orientation’ (Handlungsorientierung) now seen as the dominant and
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most innovative pedagogical concept within the current VET debate (CZYCHOLL 2001). The practice firm concept can also be evaluated by looking at it from a ↑ system theory perspective (DEISSINGER / RUF 2006). While there seems to be a clear pedagogical value in the perception of students and teachers when learning and teaching in the practice firm setting (internal functionality), the impact on external stakeholders appears modest (external functionality). Chambers and companies still believe that socialisation during an apprenticeship producing real working experiences cannot be equalled by a full-time model of VET. Against this background, it is very likely that only ‘↑ sandwich models’ – dualising learning by combining internships or reduced periods of apprenticeship training with full-time vocational courses in a Berufskolleg or a similar institution – may in future function as partial or full substitutes for an apprenticeship. This, of course, puts strain on the practice firm concept and its political and pedagogical legitimation. One of the consequences, in fact, could be that the practice firm concept is no longer seen as a socially and economically best solution to “make schools practical” (DEISSINGER / SMITH / PICKERSGILL 2006). 3.3.5.3 Evaluation as a Corrective for Innovative VET Projects Evaluation may be defined as serving two functions of scientific endeavour: (1) to bring into focus the empirical reality of educational institutions and educational activities and (2) to allow for an assessment of intended effects against the background of the conditions for their realisation (→ 5.4). Therefore, the focus of scientific evaluation should be the ascertainment and assessment of empirical results according to defined targets. Furthermore, evaluation functions as a critical instrument with which to prevent an expertise following practical experience from causing damage, to raise the awareness for risky actions and to recommend the correction of objectives and/or treatments with regard to predictable effects. This task is not easy to achieve under the circumstances under which evaluation is usually prepared and initiated. In most cases evaluation is not supported by externally funded researchers, but by project fund-
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raisers pursuing certain interests. Research therefore is actually often used to give the impression that the agenda of ↑ educational policy is evaluated and if there are significant deficits the agenda ought to be corrected. This is especially the case in the area of ↑ pilot projects. Persons with a strong ideology resistant towards research findings can therefore sustain their resistance for many years (→ 5.1.3). However, if evaluation were really undertaken without critically reflecting the objectives of projects and if evaluation focused solely on external and internal functionalities in a technical sense, it would fail to fulfil the requirements of pedagogical research with its specific premises. Being a cognitive pragmatic discipline, ↑ educational research has to provide valid information; furthermore, it is important to provide pedagogical guidelines and support. Thus, educational research is an instrument for evaluation having its own criteria, which do not replace criteria defined by project fundraisers, but function as a corrective additionally. Evaluation approaches (→ 5.4.1) are clearly located within a historical and systematic context. According to the ↑ theory of educational institutions, they must therefore be regarded against the background of a complex institutional context in which political objectives, the demand for qualifications and pedagogical as well as anthropological ideas have to be treated as “real forces” (reale Antriebe) (REICHWEIN 1925/1963, 89). Evaluation in educational research assesses whether solutions to current problems can be found or have already been found. The concept of the Berufsakademie – officially called “university of cooperative education”, but better translated as “↑ vocational academy” (DEISSINGER 2005a) – may be seen as an example of higher education policy emphasising the functional aspect of education and training. In BadenWürttemberg Berufsakademien provide vocational training outside the “normal” ↑ tertiary system. Vocational academies can now look back on 26 years of expanded institutional structures and growing capacity of and ↑ participation in a new kind of “academic apprenticeship system”. In the early 1970s, many enterprises feared that due to an expansive ↑ educational policy young people with practical talents would prefer to go to grammar
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school and enter higher education. Politically, there was a consensus on the objective to qualify schoolleavers from grammar schools both in theory and in practice for higher positions in business enterprises. Since the model should become a regular institution through the accreditation by the Federal and State Commission for ↑ Educational Planning and Research Promotion (BLK) the support of research was needed. The evaluation of ↑ vocational academies was undertaken at a critical ↑ distance from practice and linked to the requirements of external and internal functionalities. Thus, the evaluation aimed at specifying the understanding of an “academic ↑ dual system”, identifying deficit arrangements and stabilising suitable institutional and curricular regulations. The critical analysis of the location of these institutions within the educational sector envisaged by their founders played an important role. The diploma issued at the vocational academy should be equal to the degrees from universities and universities of applied science. This led to false expectations about the future career pathways of leavers from vocational academies and a kind of “image problem”. Accompanying research had to interfere as a corrective and urge caution that vocational academies would only prove and save their identity if the higher education sector actually strived for differentiation (ZABECK 1975, 114; ZABECK / ZIMMERMANN 1995). Although not automatically a loved child of the higher education system of Germany, the success rate of the vocational academies is actually higher than that of the university: The “drop-out quota”, i.e. the percentage of first-year students who fail to qualify, lies around 10 %. Graduates in general are also seen to have good chances of finding a job. These integration effects were confirmed by the study of Zabeck and Zimmermann (1995): Both integration into the job and integration into the apprenticing firm are reported to be working well although unemployment rates are not significantly lower than among university and polytechnic graduates. Despite these undoubted advantages, the “system” keeps striving for parity with universities – risking, also by a misleading official name, comparison with institutions with a more scientific profile and the loss of status as a vocationally orientated institution (DEISSINGER 2005a).
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3.3.5.4
The Contribution of Pilot Projects to the Development of VET Courses
In the German context, since the early 1970s various decisions and agreements of the federal government and the Länder consolidated the establishment of ↑ pilot projects (Modellversuche) as an instrument of ↑ VET policy. ↑ Educational policy and administrative authorities regard pilot projects as models of exemplary practice, supposed to be useful to legitimate, specify and substantiate intended innovations. Institutions undertaking pilot projects are responsible for providing basic evidence of the viability of the research objectives. Right from the start, the intended purpose of pilot projects was to transfer validated innovations into institutions of the educational sector. This transfer made it necessary to describe general frameworks and treatments of the practice modelled (K LEINSCHMITT / RATH / ZABECK 1981). Therefore pilot projects were generally accompanied by researchers although there were no standards for their acceptability or for applied methods. There was no doubt that pilot projects should be evaluated according to the underlying political objectives. As a consequence, the emerging term “evaluation” was adopted and the association was abetted that pilot project research should become orientated towards the principles of empirical social science (RHYN 2001, 186). Since this is not always the case pilot projects lack a common understanding of methodological standards (TRAMM / REINISCH 2003). In the context of policy, practice and science (TERHART 2003b) there are researchers who claim successful results for themselves, although they should actually analyse these results from a critical ↑ distance (BECK 2003; SCHOLZ 1977). There is no doubt that ↑ policy and practice of pilot projects have so far benefited a lot from the involvement of educationalists providing important target-oriented suggestions (PÄTZOLD 1995b). Their involvement in the currently relevant debate on educational issues, their knowledge of historical and systematic interrelations and their ability to make problems transparent and develop respective solutions prevented many projects from an early failure. Researchers who accompany pilot projects (EULER 2003a, 201) have to know that they change the initial conditions of the outcome irretrievably,
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which impairs new findings within the project. To avoid this it seems useful for the development of courses to draw a clear distinction between executive and responsible authorities. The so-called Kollegschule Nordrhein Westfalen (KULTUSMINISTERIUM NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN 1972), which was established in the early 1970s, can be taken as an example opposed to this premise. In contrast with a ↑ system theory approach, policy and science have acted in mutual collusion, although it was never clear whether science was subordinated by policy or whether policy was directed by politicised science. At the beginning there was the political decision to establish comprehensive schools (1967) and linked to that was the decision to restructure the upper secondary stratum of the VET sector. The Ministry of Cultural Affairs established a “planning committee” to prepare the Kollegstufe. It created a framework and only within this framework the model should remain “open” (ibid., 13). The main issue, in consequence, was a double qualification embracing the general admission to higher education and at the same time a vocational qualification within a skilled occupation according to the ↑ Vocational Training Act (BLANKERTZ 1982a). The ideological nature and the lack of practical relevance were obvious from the outset (ZABECK 1973, 31). Researchers involved in the planning actually did not assure through an anticipating evaluation and by applying profound knowledge that the political objectives could be achieved with the means provided. Furthermore, there was no clarification whether the integration of vocational qualifications into a school-based concept was in accordance with vocational training ↑ legislation. The project was bound to fail because illusions had not been removed from the outset. It is only rarely that innovative approaches lead to fundamentally new concepts of ↑ VET courses. More often, partial revisions of established schemes lead to the development of pilot projects. They have to deal with two questions: The first one is when the pilot project finishes, the second one is how successfully achieved results can be implemented in a regular institutional context. If there is a significant deviation of the research results from the target the accompanying researchers should recommend the cancellation of the project
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and abstentionfrom changes. However, in many cases, specific premises determine ↑ pilot project research. The approach to improve cooperation within the ↑ dual system through a “cooperation of learning sites” (Lernortverbund) can be taken as an example (EULER ET AL. 1999). In the background there is an understanding of VET that onand off- the job training periods should be distributed between the learning sites according to their didactical appropriateness for each learning site. The theoretical basis of this pilot project is questionable; there are undesired side effects; and the experience with the implementation has not been satisfactory so far (PÄTZOLD / WALDEN 1995; 1999). Brandtstädter concludes that results from evaluation seldomly lead to a revision of decisions in ↑ educational policy (BRANDTSTÄDTER 1990, 225). The critical suggestions resulting from the ↑ evaluation study on ↑ vocational academies mentioned above were not followed by consequences either (ZABECK 1996). Educational policy and administrative authorities obviously tend to carry through and stick to what they have already decided. Against this background, Rauner suggests a new definition of pilot projects as a research instrument: pilot projects should no longer legitimate, nationally secure, test or even initiate reforms. They should rather be an instrument of contribution and support in the realisation and implementation process created by political and administrative decisions (RAUNER 2003b, 403). Only if pilot projects fit into the structures of the educational sector and accept what has already been decided may they be successfully integrated into innovations and unlikely to fail due to lacking connections to policy or administrative authorities. Currently, the implementation of the concept of ‘learning fields’ (Lernfeldkonzept) developed by the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs seems to take place in the opposite, conventional way (RAUNER 2003b, 406): The educational authorities claim that this innovation will be carried through administratively and pilot projects are only considered to underpin the innovation scientifically (BRUCHHÄUSER 2003, 501). If pilot project research followed this suggestion, it would contribute to research becoming merely a dependent tool of policy. Under these circumstances, pilot projects would certainly
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lose their critical function of evaluation in the context of the development of new ↑ VET courses or learning arrangements. Against this background, both distance-based ↑ evaluation research and pilot project research still have to look out for the con-
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ditions for successful innovations in the educational sector and at the same time clarify their theoretical and methodological premises (NICKOLAUS / GRÄSEL 2006).
3.3.6 VET Research on Pre-Vocational Education. Case Studies 3.3.6.1 Vocational Guidance and Work Orientation Heinz Dedering 3.3.6.1.1 Definition and Practical Implementation ↑ Vocational guidance and ↑ work orientation is generally considered to be a type of ↑ pre-vocational education and to be a task for the general education system. This learning field provides pupils with the facility for concerning themselves with basic matters and the contexts of ↑ vocation and work. The term “vocational guidance and work orientation” refers to two different tasks: Vocational guidance deals with the choice of occupation. This relates, on the one hand, to the vocational training and employment market situation (the objective side of the vocation selection process), and on the other hand to the tangible vocational requirements and expectations in addition to the pupils’ expressed general life expectations (the subjective side of the vocation selection process). In other words, we are dealing with preparation for the choice of occupation. This special vocation orientation, interpreted in its stricter sense, is aimed at the development of vocational selection competence. With this, we mean the ability of the person to decide on his/her first vocation in a justifiable manner during the selection process. Specific vocational orientation in the German ↑ school system is supplemented by the vocational advice offered by the employment agency or job centre (vocational education, for example about vocational requirements, current vocational training and employment possibilities, career paths and perspectives for development).
Work orientation relates to the complex working world including the sectors of technology, economics, household and career. It is intended that learners obtain general working expertise with which they can understand and form their working world. This process includes motivation and the ability to extend and intensify the expertise gained during their lives. Subjects included in work orientation are principally all forms of work – including active work (housework etc.) and community work (voluntary social activities) in addition to gainful employment. In most cases, work in gainful employment and preparation for career roles are in the foreground. In this case, work orientation is also described as general vocational orientation in its widest sense. Vocational and work-oriented course contents in Germany are available as early as the primary school (and in the associated special needs school) during social studies. Vocation and work orientation are mostly developed in the German Hauptschule (secondary modern school) and comprehensive schools, in addition to the German Realschule (lower-level secondary modern school) in a weaker form, in the form of ↑ prevocational education courses or subject combinations. Independent courses for vocation and work orientation are only seldom available in German grammar schools (grades 5 to 10). In most cases this is merely a component of one or more other subjects (social sciences/politics, geography, history etc.). In German grammar school sixth forms, vocation and work orientation is taught in subjects such as applied economics and applied technology in addition to ↑ interdisciplinary courses (“vocational and educational orientation”). In addition, vocation and work orientation takes place in the form of industrial placement, which is carried out
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in all types of German schools within the general education system. Work-oriented course contents can also be found in the vocational training sector. This has a supplementary function, in comparison to specialised education and ↑ further education, because the position of working people within the social and technical system, primarily at operative workplaces and in operative working processes, is dealt with. This normally takes place together with specific vocational theory and practice, but also sometimes in self-contained courses (for example, the vocational college in North Rhine Westphalia has courses in the theory of industrial economics). Accordingly, academic questions about work-oriented vocational training are dealt with in the contexts of vocational educational and further ↑ educational research. They will not be further dealt with in this article. Since work-oriented vocational education and ↑ vocation and ↑ work orientation transcend the vocational boundaries within the general education system (work-oriented general education), it is expedient to place both subjects on a uniform curricular and didactic basis and to integrate them into an integrated work-orientated education system (cf. DEDERING 1998). 3.3.6.1.2 Major Research Topics ↑ Vocational guidance and work orientation can be traced back in terms of the history of ideas to the upbringing and educational concepts of the educationalists in the Age of Enlightenment during the 17th and 18th centuries. In the literature, references are often made to the educationalist theories of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) which on the one hand connected with the ideas of educational utopians (e. g. those of Rousseau) and of educational realists (e. g. those of Comenius), and which on the other hand was based on first-hand experiences gathered during educational work with orphaned children (cf. PESTALOZZI 1899–1902, esp. Vol. 18). In view of developing industrialisation, Pestalozzi considered it necessary for young people to be prepared for the working world and gainful employment. His main concern was the combination of learning to work with the aim of allround education (of “head, heart and hand”). Pestalozzi’s use of these theories meant that he dis-
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tanced himself from the then-current practices of the industrial schools, which were primarily characterised by economic heteronomy (cf. DEDERING 2004). Pestalozzi’s educational notions were taken up once again by the reformation-oriented educational sciences at the beginning of the 20th century in the form of the work-oriented school, and were then further developed. The work-oriented school emphasised an education leading to independence through autonomy of the pupils. In Germany, these theories were especially shaped by Georg Kerschensteiner (1854–1932) (cf. K ERSCHENSTEINER 1954; 1961), in addition to Hugo Gaudig (1860– 1923) and Paul Oestreich (1878–1959). Kerschensteiner understood education for work to be general ↑ vocational preparation (habituation of working methods, and carefulness, thoroughness and prudence in addition to awakening of enthusiasm for work), which was intended to produce a civic education at the same time. The work produced by the people was at the centre, and this was accompanied by a process of thought. Kerschensteiner’s work-orientated school consisted of the independent subject of “handicrafts” and of employment classes as a principle (in other subjects). The workoriented school ideas from the time of the Weimar Republic were taken up and put into concrete terms during the reform discussions about vocational and employment orientation in the Federal Republic of Germany (cf. DEDERING 2002, 18), but the decisive impetus was caused by another event, namely the “youthful vocational privation” (Federation of German Trade Unions, DGB 1952). This was caused during the middle of the 1950s first and especially by a lack of vocational training and employment places, but then further developed with the reduction in work available and lack of qualifications for the introduction of modern, automated production processes in the West German economy into an extended qualification crisis. The vocational and employment-oriented research initiated concentrated, because of this, on the following main development points:
Fundamental Concepts The German Committee for Educational Matters produced a report on the German Hauptschule (comparable to English secondary modern schools)
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in 1964 and recommended that ↑ pre-vocational education should be introduced as an “independent form of teaching” within the Hauptschule system (cf. DEUTSCHER AUSSCHUSS FÜR DAS ERZIEHUNGS- UND BILDUNGSWESEN 1964b, 41 ff.), which triggered a wide academic discussion over the conceptual basis of this new subject. Numerous proposals were put forward for this (cf. ZIEFUSS 1996, 7 ff.), which can be fundamentally differentiated by the following aspects: – With regard to the mandate of pre-vocational education, the concepts either demonstrate a distinct educational, theoretical and political position (e. g. an ↑ emancipatory approach to pre-vocational education), or the educational, theoretical and political implications of pre-vocational education and the working world remain unreflected (e. g. in the functional and technical approaches). – With regard to the subject matter of pre-vocational education, the concepts are intended for one or several content areas, which (at least in most “early” approaches) are taken from the associated specialist knowledge (technical, employment, economic, home economic and textile studies etc.) in most cases. In the course of further development of pre-vocational education it became obvious that its concerns could not be derived directly from the sciences, but must be acquired directly from the world of work and daily life. Practically-oriented contents should be examined to see whether they are academically tenable. – With regard to the functional organisation of pre-vocational education, the doctrines offer four solutions: (1) pre-vocational education as an integrational subject, whereby the integrative ideas are considerably dispersed (from extending the contents of a core subject (mostly technology or economics) up to the imparting of technical, economic, social and ecological issues and conditions found in the working world in their changing relationships), (2) pre-vocational education as a – mostly cooperative – composite of several partsubjects (technology, economic and ↑ home economics theory amongst others), (3) elements of pre-vocational education as a component of other subjects, whereby the economic aspects are mostly derived from social sciences (politics etc.) and the technical aspects mostly from scientific sub-
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jects and (4) vocational and work-based choices in ↑ interdisciplinary activities. Whereas in the initial years of pre-vocational education, the conceptual efforts were primarily aimed at the first two organisational forms, the third and fourth solutions were increasingly incorporated in development work after the proposals made through the curriculum concept (with subjects of technology, economics, home economics and careers) by the conference of education ministers in 1987 (cf. KMK 1988, 3 ff.). – With regard to the methodical principles in ↑ prevocational education, the concepts make preferences either for a primarily theoretical-reflective learning (especially for the teaching of economics) or a primarily practical learning (especially for the teaching of technology). Up to now there have been no conclusive proposals made for the necessary connection of theory and practice through the use of problem and “hands-on”-based methods. – With regard to the scholastic anchoring of prevocational education, concepts have been created which were aimed at both the type of school and level of education. The concepts developed up to the beginning of the 1970s were aimed mostly at the German Hauptschule and Gesamtschule (secondary modern and comprehensive) systems. After this time, concepts were also put forward which were aimed at the entire secondary school stage up to A-levels (German Sekundarstufe I) (cf. the new proposals put forward for a core curriculum in 2003) and including A-levels (German Sekundarstufe II) (cf. DEDERING 2001, 201 ff.). An agreed basic curriculum for work-oriented education now exists in grades 1 to 13 in all general and ↑ vocational schools (cf. DEDERING 2000).
Curriculum Analyses A first wave of curriculum analyses was carried out during the 1970s and 1980s, in which almost all the “old” (western) federal states issued curricula, guidelines or assistance for pre-vocational education. A second wave started at the beginning of the 1990s and was related to the curricula publications which had been revised, especially with regard to changing structures in the working world, and to the curricula which had been primarily added in the “new” (East German) federal states.
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Horst Ziefuß has carried out an extensive appraisal. It contains an analysis of the forms of organisation, objectives and problems, contents and learning aims, systematic references and didactic concepts in pre-vocational education curricula in all federal states (cf. ZIEFUSS 1992; 1995, 485 ff.). In addition, Ziefuß has submitted a summarising observation of the insights and interests (change of work and technology, the advance of ↑ information technology, increased significance of information for career choice etc.) related to the change in didactic approaches (loss of importance of the project method, central importance of working job placements, relationships to situations etc.) and for the recognition and rectification of difficulties in pre-vocational education (insufficient integration of subjects in a sustainable compound system, adverse situations in favour of theoretical moments during teaching) (cf. ZIEFUSS 1996, 40 ff.).
Professionalisation Models In the 1960s and 1970s, teacher training for pre-vocational education was only a marginal subject of vocational and work-oriented research. It oriented itself largely to the federal state-specific pre-vocational education concepts for schools. In addition, colleges often went their own way in respect of the organization of studies. With the efforts made towards further development of pre-vocational education from 1980 onwards (revision of curricula, KMK materials), and especially with the setting up of pre-vocational education study courses in East Germany after reunification in 1989, the training and ↑ further education of pre-vocational education teachers was considered somewhat more during academic discussion. This resulted in the proposal of two models by the German Gesellschaft für Arbeit, Technik und Wirtschaft im Unterricht (GATWU 1992, equivalent to Society for Work, Technology and Economics in Teaching): a double training concept (with technology or ↑ home economics and dietary studies) and a triple training concept (with additional economics). Both concepts intended to use a high content of integrated study of industrial economics and social sciences, in addition to the didactics of pre-vocational education and school practical placements (cf. GATWU 1992; regarding criticism and further
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development of the models, cf. K AHSNITZ 1993). The concept of a course of studies in work-oriented education, by Arnulf Bojanowski, Heinz Dedering and Gerald Heidegger, is aimed at extended ↑ professionalism in the ↑ profession of pre-vocational education teachers insomuch as it intends to provide preparation for extra-scholastic fields of activity (vocational orientation, independence etc.) (cf. BOJANOWSKI / DEDERING / HEIDEGGER 1984, 2 ff.; 1996, 865 ff.). As a survey carried out by Horst Ziefuß shows, teacher training for the educational sector of ↑ pre-vocational education is frequently characterised in most colleges by separation of the subjects of economics, technology and home economics theory. Many college lecturers are still fighting for independence of their subject in both college and school as they were at the outset of pre-vocational education, although the experience gained with the complexity of the working world confirms the “old” assumption “that the ‘entirety’ of the structures and contexts shaped by the working world cannot be represented in individual subjects separated from one another” (ZIEFUSS 1998, 9).
Examination of Polytechnic Education In West Germany, the approaches used by polytechnic education in the old East Germany exerted “an extraordinary fascination” from the very beginning. “The cohesive educationalist and didactic concepts of introducing all pupils of every age to the basic phenomena of work and technology are convincing, and the continuous practice during implementation of this concept was also convincing. This fascination is also based on the fact that the ‘West’ did not have an equivalent alternative available at the time” (WIEMANN 1991, 10).
This meant that polytechnic education was not just an issue in the literature (cf. e. g. K LEIN 1962; MARKERT 1972, 136 ff.; DEDERING 1979, 243 ff.), but was also present at international events, e. g. at the international Haus Sonnenberg (cf. WIEMANN 1991, 10). Since German reunification, there have been increased efforts to deal with the East German polytechnic (cf. e. g. LACKMANN / WASCHER 1991). They are based substantially on inside knowledge and the experience gained by academics in former East Germany. This work should be
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deployed for the further development of vocational and ↑ work orientation.
Reception of International Approaches Whereas any vocational and work-oriented research carried out was mainly restricted to Germany up until the beginning of the 1990s, the political changes which have taken place in both Germany and Europe (German unification, European Union, opening of East European countries) have meant that such research has taken far greater account of approaches from other countries since this time. Accounts of ↑ vocation and ↑ work orientation in Western Europe (cf. BRAUER-SCHRÖDER / SELLIN 1996; HÖRNER 1996a, 693 ff.; ZIEFUSS 1996, 130 ff.) and in Eastern Europe (cf. BOJANOWSKI / DEDERING 1991, 47 ff.; HÖRNER 1996b, 663 ff.) are in the foreground. Research is also being carried out into the vocational and work-oriented educational system in countries outside Europe, for example in the ↑ USA (cf. RAUNER 1996b, 721 ff.) and in the Third World (cf. DRÖGE / NEUMANN 1996, 747 ff.). This work shows a high degree of dissimilarity between approaches. There are large differences, both within the Western European and Eastern European countries. It can be noted, however that the Eastern European approaches are aligning themselves with those in Western Europe after the political turnaround in the east. 3.3.6.1.3 Empirical Investigations A considerable number of empirical investigations into ↑ vocational guidance and work orientation are available. In the main, such investigations consist of circumstantial analyses and ↑ pilot projects. Horst Ziefuß et al. carried out a large circumstantial analysis in the form of a questionnaire at the beginning of the 1980s. 1045 teachers from West Germany (including West Berlin) were interviewed about their assessment of the pre-vocational education sector (cf. ZIEFUSS / HENDRICKS / REUEL 1984). Ziefuß supplemented this analysis with a qualitatively applied study 10 years later, which was carried out across the whole of Germany (cf. ZIEFUSS 1995), and was based on the question of how teachers assessed the curriculum for pre-vocational education in their federal state and how
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they applied it to their tuition. Those interviewed emphasised the necessity of the following measures (cf. ZIEFUSS 1996, 69): – Extension of pre-vocational education into all forms of schools in both classes of German secondary stage education (Sekundarstufe I and Sekundarstufe II); – Pre-vocational education as a compulsory subject; – Better teacher training; – Further development of specialised didactics, for example through limitation and unification of contents; – Increased consideration of developments in the working world; and – Extension of works visits and industrial placements in conjunction with vocational orientation. A new survey was carried out which looked at the possibilities and limits of school reforms in the work-oriented education sector in 2002 (cf. DEDERING 2004, 249 ff.). Department conferences in 172 general and ↑ vocational schools across the whole of Germany were surveyed. Whereas more than half of those surveyed estimated the chances of reforms within their own schools as “probably high”, almost two thirds considered the chances of reforms in the general German education system to be “probably low”. Other circumstantial analyses were restricted to the ↑ pre-vocational education situation in individual federal states (cf. for example, DEDERING / FEIG / WEITZ 1982, 79 ff.). Empirical investigations were also made into the individual sectors or elements of ↑ vocational guidance and work orientation. Firstly, references were made to the (mostly older) surveys about experiences made with industrial placements. In 1977, Hans K. Platte commenced a nationwide questionnaire sent to education ministries, trade unions, employers associations and various companies in addition to teachers, pupils and parents about the aims associated with industrial placements, and developed “exemplary industrial placement deployment plans” (cf. PLATTE 1981) on the basis of the results ascertained (the vocational aspect of industrial placements was particularly emphasised). Secondly, mention should be made of investigations about the complexities of “vocational choice
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and vocational selection preparation”. For instance, a new study carried out by Kleffner et al. supplied information about the vocational selection attitude showed by young persons (cf. K LEFFNER / LAPPE / RAAB / SCHOBER 1996). This is of interest insofar as the following conclusions can be made about vocational selection preparation. When questioned about influences on their vocational selection, the young persons surveyed named parents and relations in first place, and then industrial placement, vocational advice, friends and their school in descending order (cf. K LEFFNER / LAPPE / RAAB / SCHOBER 1996, 21). One of the consequences, which should result from this conclusion is that vocational selection lessons should be restricted to vocationally-oriented contexts, and that information about correct vocational selection should be left to the other institutions involved. Thirdly, attention should be drawn to some work carried out in the field of school textbook content analysis research. The school textbook study carried out in Bremen in particular should be mentioned. It investigated the presence of contents relating to the subject matters of work/↑ profession, economics and technology (their quantitative relationship to other contents, their qualitative depictions, their academic suitability and their didactic treatment) in secondary school (Sekundarstufe I) textbooks (cf. BÖNKOST/ OBERLIESEN 1997). ↑ Pilot projects (and similar ↑ research approaches such as trial projects) have been carried out on various aspects of ↑ vocation and ↑ work orientation; these are only valid for such projects. The development and trying out of curricula or of curriculum elements (teaching units, teaching forms, media, ↑ learning target tests, teaching location associations, teacher training et al.) were in the foreground. In most cases, the projects were located in one or several model schools. One of the main emphases of the pilot projects was vocational selection preparation. The German Federal Employment office in addition to the various state employment offices, the Education Ministry and several individual schools initiated approaches in this field, especially during the 1970s. The following attempts in particular are of importance because they specify tried and tested teaching and
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learning arrangements which are important for vocational selection preparation: – The industrial placement project (as an ↑ interdisciplinary activity in the teaching location association) functioning as a general and critical vocational orientation (cf. FELDHOFF / OTTO / SIMOLEIT/ SOBOTT 1985); – The pilot project for integrative vocational selection preparation (combination of vocational selection tuition, works visits, vocational advice, use of media, visits to the vocational information centre and an industrial placement) (cf. SACHS / BEINKE 1997); – The “girls and vocation selection” project (cf. LEMMERMÖHLE-THÜSING ET AL. 1991–1993); – Attempts to create cooperatively drawn-up vocational orientation across the various types of school in the German Sekundarstufe I (cf. DAMMER 1997). Since 1999, in the context of the “School – Economy/Working Life” programme promoted by the German Ministry for Education and Research, ↑ pilot projects for the development of new ways of vocational orientation and improvement of youth working skills are being carried out. Schools, secondary educational establishments, companies, trade unions and district councils are cooperating in these projects (currently numbering 46). Some of the projects are cooperating in cross-state networks, and “therefore include a wide range of cooperation all partners and types, target groups and thematic points of emphasis [...]” (cf. FAMULLA 2001, 4). The pi-
lot projects are being supported and evaluated by academic consultants (cf. FAMULLA 2001, 5). 3.3.6.1.4 Deficiencies and Problems in Research This outline of theoretical and empirical research into vocation and work orientation shows that a wide-ranging selection of efforts are being made into the funding and further development of this curriculum. However, this cannot merely be assessed as positive. The downsides of ↑ vocational guidance and work orientation research are the differences in academic and theoretical positions which are proving almost impossible to bring into line for a “single common curricular factor” and which are leading to “profile weaknesses” in voca-
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tion and work orientation (GMELCH 1991, 21). The subject is dominated – at least in the older research – by a “cultivation of one-sidedness” (ROPOHL 1997, 282), e. g.: – Suggestions made for isolated technology, economics and home economic tuition; – An understanding of ↑ pre-vocational education which is restricted to vocational selection preparation; – A concept of ↑ vocation reduced down to gainful employment; – A concept of technology reduced down to engineering terms; and – An understanding of working practice in the sense of simple technical work in the school workshops. Such one-sided ↑ research approaches are not capable of comprehending the practical and theoretical contexts of work, or of providing integrated concepts of vocational and work-oriented education. They are also unsuitable as a sole basis of orientation for teaching. Any ‘elaborated’ concepts, which are responsible for providing vocation and ↑ work orientation with their theoretical further development, are very different to these approaches. Attention should be drawn, for example, to the concept of a school-oriented pre-vocational education (cf. HIMMELMANN 1985, 227) and the didactic approaches of pre-vocational education between working and free time (cf. ZIEFUSS 1985, 242 ff.). The attempts towards an overall concept for prevocational education such as the compilation of technology, economics and work as an overall concept of material culture (cf. ROPOHL 1992, 6 ff.) should be mentioned, as should the reference to concrete, complex working situations (which have been generally extended for work-oriented education in the meantime) (cf. DEDERING 1998). These research approaches, however, are fated not to be given sufficient attention from the ‘practical side’ In general, an increase in academic ignorance can be noted since the turnaround in practical teaching during the middle of the 1970s in the field of ↑ vocational guidance and work orientation. Ziefuß even talks of an “academic enmity in the pre-vocational education discussion” (ZIEFUSS 1996, 36). In any event, the influence of academics on vocational guidance and work orientation is limited. Direc-
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tions followed by pre-vocational education, for example, are determined in the main by groups following social interests: “Pre-vocational education has just undergone a politically-determined discussion which certainly did not benefit its further development” (JENZEN 2002, 181).
Only in recent times have academic ideas and proposals for vocational guidance and work orientation been given increased attention in educational practice. Integrated concepts, such as those being used for curricular development in Brandenburg and Bremen, are increasingly being reverted to. 3.3.6.1.5 Research Tasks Intensive endeavours in all ↑ research fields are required for better profiling of the learning field of vocational guidance and work orientation and its anchorage as a compulsory subject for all schools (cf. GMELCH 1991, 29). Firstly, the academic and theoretical basics of research must be carried out with the aim of clarification of the didactic selfconception of vocational guidance and ↑ work orientation. Secondly, curricular action research requires consistent alignment to the elimination of current image problems in vocational guidance and work orientation, and thirdly the empirical effect of research in this area of learning must first be attributed a reasonable status. Historical and comparable research between separate countries could broaden the extent of enlightenment. In general, the entire subject must be approached so that the still-young ↑ research tradition in the field of vocational guidance and work orientation is solidified and continued in a forward-looking manner. This can only be achieved through cooperation with the referential and educational sciences in addition to school practice and the economy. However, there is still a problem in that there are only a few budding academics, and that therefore the future of vocational guidance and work-oriented research is in serious jeopardy. In order to safeguard this, the recruitment of new, younger academics is of the greatest importance.
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3.3.6.2 Prevocational Education: Case Study of UK Karen Evans Whether ↑ pre-vocational education improves young people’s prospects in education, training and the ↑ labour market has been at the centre of a long standing debate in the United Kingdom. Moves to ‘vocationalise’ the curriculum are typically seen to have entered the educational agenda in the UK in the mid-1970s, with a prime ministerial speech declaring that a primary function of education was to fit children ‘to do a job of work’ (CALLAGHAN 1976). The debate about the place of ↑ vocational preparation in fact goes back to the mid-nineteenth century (see → 3.3.3.2) when advocates of ‘practical subjects’ in the school curriculum met resistance not only from those expressing more liberal goals, but also from working-class parents, who had a different conception of what education for their children should be about (BALL 1979). The liberal position won the debate, and continued to do so in the 20th century as the principle of entitlement of all young people to a broad general education was upheld in the comprehensive reforms of the state education system (PRING 2004). ↑ Labour market changes and increasing unemployment in the 1970s set in train a series of ‘initiatives’ designed to give education a more practical orientation, but as previously this was to be applied only to a section of the population – those young people deemed to be ‘less able’. The ‘Youth Training Scheme’ (YTS) initially evolved from a scheme for combating youth unemployment. Despite the obvious collapse of the youth labour market, the origins of the failure of young people to get jobs was argued to lie in the classroom. The role of state-funded schools as student-centred liberal institutions with little direct response to employment labour market needs was challenged (WILMS 1988) as the Government introduced its ‘Low-achievers’ project, and then the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative and the Certificate of ↑ Pre-Vocational Education. All of these measures were, in practice, forms of ↑ vocational preparation for young people in the lower attainment bands. The ‘mainsteam’ curriculum was largely untouched by the call for greater vocational relevance. ‘A’ levels
in England were unchanged, while the supposedly unified General Certificate of Secondary Education was again stratified into upper and lower grade bands to distinguish the more able from the lower attainers held to be more suited to vocational preparation activities. The fundamentally selective nature of vocational preparation was one of the criticisms levelled at it (e. g. HOLT/ REID 1988; COLES 1988). Another research-based criticism was that comparison with the ↑ USA and ↑ Japan showed that vocationalising the curriculum will not give employers the workforce they need (ASHTON / MAGUIRE 1986; RAFFE 1988). A further criticism was that education needs no vocational justification – personal development and fulfilment, a rich and varied curriculum across the whole range of arts, sciences and technical subjects should be available to all children (PRING 1987). Did the early forms of the pre-vocational curriculum achieve their aims of improving the ↑ employability of school-leavers? Much research was carried out to evaluate specific initiatives such as TVEI, UVP and CPVE (e. g. BARNES /JOHNSON /JORDAN ET AL. 1987; BRIDGEWOOD / HINCKLEY/ SIMS / STONEY 1988; RAFFE 1988) but these were not able to demonstrate conclusively the value or otherwise of vocational preparation to the young people who experienced it. What differences did the programmes make to young people’s attitudes to work and VET, and their ↑ labour market prospects in different areas? The Economic and Social Research Council’s 16–19 ↑ research programme was a programme of research into the economic and political socialisation of young people that involved the follow up of two cohorts of young people aged 15–16 and 17– 18 over two years in four contrasting labour market areas in the UK: Swindon, Sheffield, Liverpool and Kirkcaldy. Bynner and Evans (1990) made an analysis of data relating exposure of young people to prevocational curricula and showed that in the most vocationally orientated schools, boys were benefiting marginally in getting into full-time jobs at 16, still an aim for many in the UK where early labour market entry is culturally embedded. Prevocational curriculum experience for school leavers gave them more exposure to administrative and clerical subjects and computing, but oth-
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er than a slightly stronger ↑ commitment to work, there was no significant difference in their values when compared with young people not engaged in prevocational studies (see → 3.3.6.1). Only one attitude measure showed a significant association with curriculum emphasis. Those young people in the most vocationally oriented school were slightly more committed to work than others. Despite these unpromising results, the promotion of various forms of prevocational education continued in the 1990s and 2000s, with the goal of bringing prevocational learning to young people with a wider range of abilities and moving the initiatives away from their low status marginality. In England, work experience became a curriculum requirement for all 14–16 year olds, and a range of vocational opportunities for 14–16 year olds have opened up. ‘Vocational’ subjects in the General Certificate of Secondary Education, and General National Vocational Qualifications, leading to Vocational ‘A’ levels and new Apprenticeships all provide options for young people leading towards higher level vocational education and training or easing the transition from education into work. More recently young people who have become disengaged from the wider curriculum offer in schools have been able to participate in the ‘increased flexibility plan (IFP)’ which allows combinations of work and education from the age of 14. From this account, in can be seen that the terms ‘vocational’ and ‘prevocational’ education are used loosely and interchangeably. In part, the absence of clear distinctions between them reflects the fact that in UK there have been few pre-requisites for entering vocational training. Prior qualifications are not essential to get onto the bottom rung of the National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) ladder, which extends from a very basic level 1 through to high skills at the top. Entry at higher levels does have prerequisites but these tend to be applied quite flexibly, and no generalisations can be made about employers’ attitudes towards employing young people without qualifications. Larger employers require higher and higher level entry qualifications, and most carry out their own further training; but for small enterprises, attitude and motivation are often still the most important prerequisites. One can say that the pre-requisite lies
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with the employers’ evaluations, and some will accept young people with low levels of prior school achievements if they consider them trainable for particular tasks and roles. The vocational training system differs from the academic system: there is less emphasis on grades/qualifications; instead the accentuation lies more on experience, perceived ‘trainability’ for the specific job, on inter-personal skills and the development of ‘knowhow’. Personal attributes and competences often count as much as credits or qualification. In the present context, we have argued (EVANS / K ERSH 2006) that ↑ pre-vocational education may be best considered as an ‘orientation stage’ for those learners who do not have clear aims and stand to benefit from: (1) learning about the wider world of employment or vocational education and training (2) developing or building on various skills (including technical skills) as well as personal and social competences (3) ‘tasting’ or sampling a range of vocational options. In addition, prevocational programmes should be based on the needs of young people themselves and of the society into which they are entering, taking into account their aspirations and their contributions to the wider community. We have seen from the above that the changing employment situations of the late 20th century led to a version of the ‘moral panic’ over the effects of unemployment on young people’s motivations to work. Although Britain was at that time the ‘unemployment centre’ of Europe, these fears extended widely across Europe as youth unemployment increased everywhere with fears that a generation would be raised lacking the ‘work-ethic’. In fact, the decline of employment opportunities for young people ‘tightened the bonds’ between education and employment in a host of ways. The expansion of post-↑ compulsory education has produced new sets of structures and experiences between the end of the compulsory phase of schooling and first entry to the ↑ labour market, at ages up to the mid-twenties. While new options and pathways are increasing in relative significance as traditional transition patterns become ‘fractured’ and extended, disadvantage (see → 3.7.8) continues to be concentrated in groups defined by class, gender and ethnicity in particular localities (BANKS /
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BREAKWELL / BYNNER ET AL. 1992; BALL / MAGUIRE / MACRAE 2000). ‘↑ Lifelong learning’ solutions are proposed in many countries (OECD 1997). These recognise that formal educational systems can themselves contribute to social exclusion, and aim to provide alternative educational routes or ‘second chances’ for young people. Some of these are institutionalised versions of lifelong learning, sometimes seen as the ‘sticking plaster’ responses to more deepseated structural problems. Other interventions do not look to ‘lifelong learning’ as policy solutions. These are interventions based on standard ↑ human capital approaches, which see strengthening of standard forms of front-ended education and training as providing the best returns on investment (Type I below) or bringing ‘drop-outs’ back in (Type II). Interventions which draw on lifelong learning ideas (explicitly or tacitly) are Types III and IV. (Tab. 1). All of these types of intervention are found within the UK and they are found in different combinations throughout the European Union, as researched by Evans and Niemeyer (2004). Type I approaches aim for extension of the period of initial compulsory education and increased ‘retention’ in the standard routes. All of the Northern countries have used
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Type I approaches, although Belgium appears to have been more successful in securing an effective extension of the period of ↑ compulsory schooling than England. Type II approaches apply where there are highly structured transition systems with qualification hurdles which explicitly determine labour market entry or exclusion from it (e. g. Germany). Fitting more people into the existing front loaded systems has been complemented in most countries by Type III alternative routes. This aims to expand the mainstream to incorporate the new routes, to counter the negative effects of ‘second class’ labelling and ensure their recognition. The English approach to rebrand various prevocational initiatives and establish them as part of a progression route into the higher level ‘advanced ↑ modern apprenticeships’ is part of wider plans to expand educational ↑ participation in the 14–19 age band. Type IV approaches are found principally in the voluntary and community organisations, third sector non-profit organisations which play important roles in supporting ↑ disadvantaged young people in many countries. These organisations may be the lead provider of Type III programmes, or may work in ↑ partnership with other providers in any or all of the types of provision.
Tab. 1: Incorporating prevocational education into national systems: Types of intervention
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While interventions of all of these types have proliferated in the UK, the needs of young people remain fundamentally the similar. They need the chance to develop, over an extended period, a wide range of interests and skills on top of which VET programmes and employers can meet the specific requirements for particular occupations (see → 3.6.6). Many also need material and social forms of support. Research in England has typically focussed on the policy frameworks for prevocational and vocational programmes, the most recent examples of which are taking shape within the Nuffield 14–19 ↑ Research Programme. Research agendas in Scotland and Wales have also focused strongly on the analysis of policy frameworks and their effects, and a growing amount of research focuses on ‘home-international’ comparisons which outline the differences in prevocational and vocational education policies in the countries of the UK (RAFFE / COURTENAY 1988; RAFFE / BYRNE 2005). While UK research has strengths in the policy analysis domains, research into the pedagogy of prevocational programmes has been relatively weak when compared with other European countries. An analysis of pedagogical research in prevocational education in EU countries is given in Evans/ Niemeyer 2004. This shows how the well formulated and dominant traditions of social and ↑ vocational pedagogy in Europe have tended to compete with each other in the prevocational domain, and has argued that expanded versions of ↑ situated learning theories inspired by socio-anthropological perspectives hold promise for a more holistic approach to pedagogical development. Emergent UK socio-cultural research into work-based learning pedagogies has the potential to play a role in the development of more holistic formulations relevant to the prevocational field. Meanwhile, finding the balance between anticipatory socialisation for VET and the world of work, and development through the realities of the workplace itself, continues to challenge the policy, practice and research communities in the United Kingdom and the wider European Union.
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3.3.6.3 Pre-Vocational Education in the Netherlands Jeroen Onstenk 3.3.6.3.1 Introduction Pre-vocational education in the Netherlands is probably the most discussed, but least understood part of the Dutch educational system. More than 60 % of all youth is enrolled in pre-vocational education, but it has a bad public image and partly a bad self-image as well. At the same time, it is a fascinating and very innovative educational sector. In the Dutch educational system, a clear division is made between vocational education on the one hand and general education on the other (CEDEFOP 2004a). The choice of one stream or the other can occur at different stages of education. Unlike in some other European countries (like ↑ France, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom) (→ 1.3; → 3.3.2.2; → 3.3.6.2), integration of, or at least a closer link between, vocational education and general education is not sought. The separation between the two streams has become even more clear cut in the past few years, since (in 2001) the strengthening of the vocational stream, from ↑ prevocational education through secondary vocational education to higher professional education, became a main policy objective. 3.3.6.3.2 Pre-Vocational Secondary Education Education is compulsory in the Netherlands from the age of five until the school year in which a pupil becomes 16. Full-time ↑ compulsory education is followed by part-time compulsory education, where students are required to attend school for two days a week until the school year in which they reach the age of 17. Secondary education (voortgezet onderwijs, VO) is targeted at students aged between 12 and 16 or 18 and can be divided into two educational streams. 40 % of a year cohort follows the general education stream after primary education, in either the lower (5 year HAVO, secondary general education) or higher (6 year VWO, pre-university education) pathway to higher education. HAVO gives access to higher professional education (HBO). HBO gives access to University.
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VWO gives access to University, but a small proportion of VWO-graduates enter HBO. 60 % of all students flow into pre-vocational secondary education (voorbereidend middelbaar beroepsonderwijs, VMBO). Pre-vocational secondary education lasts four years. It prepares for training in secondary vocational education (MBO). The curriculum consists of general subjects as well as, in the last two school years, vocationally oriented subjects, which can be followed on at various levels in various learning pathways. This type of education is classified as ISCED level 2 (CEDEFOP 2004a). VMBO is a relatively new type of education. It came into being in 2001 when junior general secondary education (middelbaar algemeen vormend onderwijs, MAVO) and preparatory vocational education (voorbereidend beroepsonderwijs, VBO) were merged. The aim was to strengthen the position of VBO in the system and improve the ↑ v ocational preparation of students in MAVO. The integration is consistent with the fact that the majority of MAVO students already transferred to MBO (upper cycle). VMBO consists of four types of learning pathway: (a) theoretical learning pathway. Those qualifying from the theoretical learning pathway can transfer to MBO (level 3 or 4) or continue their education in the fourth year of HAVO; (b) mixed learning pathway. This is similar to the theoretical learning pathway but is more vocationally oriented; (c) vocationally oriented learning pathway to prepare for MBO courses level 2, 3 or 4; (d) vocationally oriented learning pathway to prepare for MBO courses level 1 or 2. The vocationally oriented pathways offer four fields of study: technology, care and welfare, economics and agriculture. There is a growing number of inter-sectoral and multi-sectoral curricula. In addition, there is a specific practical pathway for low-achievers, which is geared towards direct preparation for the ↑ labour market. Almost all VMBO students go, after completion (or not) of VMBO, into senior secondary vocational education (middelbaar beroepsonderwijs, MBO). A growing number of students in MBO
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level 3 or 4 after graduation go on to higher professional education (hoger beroepsonderwijs, HBO). Senior secondary vocational education is the pivot in this so-called vocational column. As educational careers can in fact be very varied and often do not take the official pathways the system prescribes, there is an ongoing stream of research into actual ↑ educational careers and motivations (ESCH / NEUVEL 2005; BRUIJN 2006)
Population Although the majority of all youngsters go to VMBO, its public image is low and dominated by the presence of ↑ problem youth. As VMBO schools take in all youngsters with lower abilities, and as there is no lower type of secondary education, these schools are often confronted with young people that have serious motivational, intellectual or behavioural problems. It cannot be denied that problems often surface at VMBO schools and that there are many pupils who need extra attention. At these schools you will find the most vulnerable group of pupils and this is one of the reasons that many school heads, staff members and pupils in VMBO are concerned with the negative impact that news of these problems is having on the image of VMBO. This image, however, ignores the opportunities that VMBO offers to the majority of the pupils and the many positive developments in the VMBO sector. For ↑ problem youth there is a support structure. Schools can get extra funds to give students extra support (in dealing with psychological, social or study problems). A growing number of students are getting extra support, especially students from ethnic backgrounds in the lower vocationally oriented pathway (OCW 2005). Most of these pupils come from weaker socio-economic environments, nowadays often coinciding with ethnic groups. For these pupils, extra effort is necessary in order to give them a fully fledged place in our society through secondary education. Truancy as an expression of such problems is a reality, as is the risk that in more serious cases the pupil will give up and drop out of school early. In the large and midsized cities, especially, there are schools with relatively large groups of pupils for which these prob-
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lems are accumulating. This makes these schools, generally VMBO schools, vulnerable. Notwithstanding the bad public image, one remarkable result from research is that students as well as teachers in VMBO in many cases are satisfied with the content and quality of their education. There are more complaints about the transfer to MBO (OCW 2006; LAKS 2005). In policy as well as public discussions on the direction of secondary education, great emphasis is placed on the need for further development and innovation of VMBO. The differences between VMBO pupils with respect to background, capacity, learning style, motivation and the support required for special needs are larger than they are at other types of schools and are increasing. Also, many social problems enter VMBO schools together with the pupils. Providing tailored education in VMBO is therefore even more important. Investments in VMBO will serve both to strengthen the knowledge economy and to improve social cohesion and inclusion in society. VMBO is profiting from the greater policy freedom that all schools have been given. Tailored programmes are especially important in VMBO because there are enormous differences between pupils and their respective capacities. Also, in comparison with other school types, the risk of early school-leaving is greatest in VMBO. So a lot of research is done to investigate causes for drop out and early school leaving as well as to design methods to support and motivate youngsters to stay at school, at least until getting a starting qualification (REBELGROUP 2006; STEEG / WEBBINK 2006) 3.3.6.3.3 Research and New Developments As part of the general trend for decentralisation in the Netherlands, recently VMBO schools have been given more freedom in the area of ↑ curriculum design, course programmes, dual courses combining study and work experience, the structure and testing/completion of education, total teaching time, special needs support structure and continual learning lines.
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Smooth Transfer within Vocational Education Since 2001 there is an active policy to promote the vocational column (VMBO-MBO-HBO) as a major route to higher education in order to reach the Lisbon-objectives (→ 2.5). Promoting educational careers by a well established vocational education route is necessary to respond to the demands of the ↑ knowledge society. In addition to streamlining formal requirements, special efforts have been made to coordinate the contents of the courses and develop continuous pathways to ease vertical progression. Furthermore, a new pedagogical-didactical approach for all sectors in vocational education needs to be developed to create smooth transfer, and will be designed to respond to this development (BRUIJN 2003). The ↑ educational career of the student is at the centre of this policy and better cooperation between government departments concerned with youth should guarantee a lower drop-out rate. ↑ Pre-vocational education needs extra emphasis and support to improve its quality and image. VMBO courses will require further strengthening as the corner stone of the vocational education system. There is agreement that the disconcertingly high percentage of ↑ early school-leavers has to be firmly tackled. Most do not leave school at VMBO itself, but in (not) transferring from pre-vocational to vocational education. Policy statements stress that by holding onto as many young people as possible and enabling them to participate in the labour process, the Netherlands can improve its competitive strength. It will also prevent a group of young people from being left out of and left behind by the rest of society. The realisation of a good connection between VMBO and MBO is especially important because, through this, school dropout rates can be reduced. Here educators emphasise that the risk of a pupil dropping out of school is greatest in the basic vocational programmes of VMBO and the next stage at levels 1 and 2 in the Regional Training Centres. Talents are also not optimally utilised and appreciated if the work experience gained by these young people cannot be recognised in a basic qualification at the level of MBO-2. Targeted actions to improve this connection, collaboration or continual programming, or
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to recognise each other’s acquired competences, can produce a lot of good results
Early School Leaving Early school leaving is a major concern in the Netherlands. In 2001, about 47 000 youngsters (under 23 years old) left school without a basic qualification (one equivalent to the successful completion of a vocational education and training course at level II of the qualification structure of senior secondary vocational education, see → 4.5) or to the diploma of senior secondary general education (HAVO) or pre-university education (VWO). Priorities in the coming years are to keep the working and learning career of students in view, to further strengthen cooperation in the regional networks, to give educational institutions more freedom to experiment with tailor-made programmes for these youngsters in line with the youth unemployment action plan, to give better support to students and to increase their responsibility for their own careers.
New Contents The ↑ vocation part of pre-vocational education is divided in four sectors: technical, agricultural, economical and caring. There is, however, a growing number of inter-sector and intra-sector programmes. The backgrounds to this are developments in the employment structure as well as great attractiveness for young people, especially those that do not yet know what they want to become. Schools will be given greater freedom to develop the course programme and to achieve a good link to MBO – e. g. by analogy to the first stage of secondary education – by coming up with a more general description of the exit qualifications. It will be made possible for schools to offer broader intersector and intra-sector programmes aimed at the regional ↑ labour market – while retaining the civil effect and guarantees for transferring to the Regional Training Centre.
New Didactics To be able to provide tailored education, VMBO has recently been given a measure of freedom in the regulations concerning curriculum planning
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programming, dual courses combining study and work experience, the continual learning line, the structure of education, the examinations, the teaching time, the special needs support structure in VMBO and the lump sum funding of employmentoriented training. There are innovative, attractive programmes for more challenging pupil-oriented education that correspond with the reformed first stage of secondary education and the new qualification structure in MBO. Schools should be able, as a result, to give further shape, within a firm and spacious framework, to lively, strong and innovative VMBO and employment-oriented training that fits with the pupils’ needs and takes into consideration the post-secondary education and the labour market in the region. VMBO is characterised by the introduction of ↑ new didactics, ↑ learning environments and learning concepts like problembased learning and natural learning (compare new VET didactics → 3.7). The principles behind these concepts are (SANDEN 2004b): (a) learning is an active process; (b) one can learn from experience; (c) knowledge already existent is activated; (d) learning is dependent on the context in which one learns; (e) the motivation of the learner is essential. The new ↑ didactical concepts aim to gain and develop competences by putting the learner at the centre. There are many examples of modern, attractive programmes that link teaching closer to professional practice, for example by so-called workstation structures and by using modern equipment. Teaching subjects are restructured so that they are more focused on competences (SANDEN 2004a). This is both to make ↑ pre-vocational education more attractive for students and to correspond better with developments at the Regional Training Centres. In collaboration with the business community, learning is brought into a much closer relationship with professional practice in order to bring about more and better combinations of training and professional activity. Research data reveal a more positive image of VMBO than is presented in the popular media. A research project involving 4000 students that started VMBO in 1999 shows that these students are very enthusiastic in their final year of study about their
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education and more specifically about their workrelated learning (HARMS /KUYPER / WERF 2005). They are satisfied with the balance and relationship between theory and practice. Theory is often not much appreciated, but is seen as useful and necessary. Many students are prepared to reflect on their activities on their own level. Educational concepts with a strong emphasis on active and authentic learning have a positive effect on the motivation and ↑ commitment of students (TEURLINGS / WOLPUT/ VERMEULEN 2006). They often have contradictory feelings about the new educational concepts. On the one hand, students find it hard to be quiet and sit in a classroom, passively listening to a teacher for a long time. On the other hand, they find it difficult to deal with theory autonomously and construct their own concept of the vocational world. For this reason they sometimes prefer classroom teaching by a strong guiding and explaining teacher. (HAMSTRA / ENDE 2006). One important caveat is that VMBO is threatened by a serious teacher shortage in the very near future. All kinds of new developments have been started to ensure the enrolment of teacher students, both young and experienced workers from different trades.
Strengthening Learning in the Workplace Regulations with regard to content and examinations in pre-vocational education have been made more flexible. Reforms in the course programmes are strived for, among other ways, by linking the learning process closer to practice in the respective ↑ professions (ONSTENK 2003). It is also necessary, in the interests of the pupil, to be able to respond quickly to the needs of the business community and post-secondary education. In 2001, the social partners and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science signed an agreement on learn-work trajectories to strengthen ↑ learning in the workplace in preparatory senior secondary vocational education (VMBO) and to serve as a strong basis for a successful career in vocational education at senior secondary or higher level. Another aim is to reduce the drop-out rate and to increase the chances of youngsters to obtain a basic qualification with education that puts more emphasis on working and learning in practice. This de-
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velopment is the result of closer cooperation between the regional ↑ labour market authorities and the companies and the schools providing pre-vocational education. In 2003, this agreement was formalised by law. The dual training and work placement routes in VMBO will be expanded in the coming years (ONSTENK 2003). Contacts with individual companies, business associations, the Chambers of Commerce or other institutions at the local and regional levels are necessary to find ↑ practical training positions or apprenticeship jobs for VMBO pupils or to find positions for them doing social-service practical work. Such positions can contribute to a further reform of education. For example: pupils can run a shop in a nursing home and thus gain relevant learning experience. The knowledge centres for the professional and business community have a role to play in the accreditation of companies providing ↑ practical training jobs and are signatories to a practical training agreement. At the central level, plans can be established, e. g. with (the departments of) MKB-Nederland, the association of small and medium-sized enterprises (midden- en kleinbedrijf), or the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers (VNO-NCW, formerly Verbond van Nederlandse Ondernemingen and Nederlands Christelijk Werkgeversverbond) in order to create practical training positions, apprenticeship jobs or positions getting a social-service work experience. This subsequently deserves to be developed concretely at the regional level, i.e. around the school or the schools that are looking for such positions.
3.3.6.4 The Development and Study of Pre-Vocational Education in Japan Moriki Terada 3.3.6.4.1 Subject Definition: Pre-Vocational Education in Japan In ↑ Japan, phrases such as “↑ pre-vocational education” or “vocational preparatory education” are seldom heard. This is due to a prevalent notion in Japan that separates vocational education
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from regular education. The notion is that only vocational education schools (generally ↑ high school vocational education related courses) are responsible for providing education for or concerning ↑ vocations, while other schools, in other words standard and ↑ compulsory educational institutions such as junior high schools and regular high schools, are responsible for providing non-vocational (academic) education. However, vocational education and guidance have been offered regularly in Japanese junior high schools and high school regular courses in the past, and they continue to be offered today. In Japan’s general education system, pre-vocational education is provided as part of ↑ vocational guidance, that is, an educational activity currently referred to as “↑ Career Guidance”. It is also provided in the specific general education subjects that function as ↑ vocational preparation (i.e. “Technology and ↑ Home Economics Education” in junior high school, and ↑ career education subjects such as “Industrial Society and Humans” in high school). Some aspects of pre-vocational education are also included in the cross-curriculumstyle “Integrated Learning Periods”. This article takes a general view of the development and current state of the research on pre-vocational education in ↑ Japan after World War II from the following aspects: (1) development of the cases that have become the subject of research, (2) formation of the core of research, (3) policyled and practice-oriented research, (4) methodological characteristics of academic research, and (5) broadening of academic research subjects. The study of the field of ↑ Home Economics is not included in this article. 3.3.6.4.2 Research up to the Beginning of the 1960s: Integrated Development of Vocational Guidance and the Vocational Study – The first pre-vocational education after World War II began in 1947 with the institution of “↑ Vocational Study” in junior ↑ high school. The content of this subject was essentially preparatory and not organised according to ↑ vocational disciplines. In the midst of the conflict between the ideology that emphasised vocational education and the ide-
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ology that emphasised vocational guidance, this “Vocational Study” was restructured into two subjects, “Vocational Study” and “Home Economics”, in May 1949 based on the “Try-out Course” subject organisation scheme. In December 1949, these subjects were again integrated into one subject called “Vocational and Home Economics Studies”. In the meantime, the Official Curriculum Guidelines of 1951 settled “Trade”, a vocational education concept, as a basis for course organisation. From the viewpoint of the “fundamental technology and basic daily activities”, the guideline revision in 1956 proposed pre-vocational education across the six areas consisting of agriculture, fishery, industrial technology, commerce, home, and ↑ vocational guidance (three to four hours weekly over three years). It resembled the structure of Germany’s “Arbeitslehre” (work education). This change in Japanese subject structure is very important, for it marks a historic differentiation of the research activities on vocational subjects (vocational education) on the one hand and vocational guidance on the other. – The vocational guidance in that period is represented in the enlightening research by psychologists and Ministry of Education bureaucrats such as Ando et al. (1951) or Sakamoto et al. (1953) and their introduction of the American vocational guidance approach. These works marked the very beginning phase of the academic development of the subject, and the topics of the research were the reception and borrowing of the theory concerning vocational aptitude seen in the achievements of F. Parsons, the founder of vocational guidance research in the ↑ United States of America, and the National Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA). The vocational guidance aimed at “assisting individuals in choosing a ↑ vocation, preparing for it, obtaining employment, and making progress”, and the guidance consisted of the following: Vocational Understanding, Vocational Research, Vocational Practice (trial process), and Vocational Selection (called Vocational Selection Guidance) (Ministry of Education 1947). In terms of the subject of the research, the dissimilarity between the United States of America and Japan was postwar Japan’s heavy emphasis on the employment placement function “Vocational Se-
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lection Guidance”. That important function was assigned to school principals by the Public Employment Security Office (the Employment Security Law of 1947). In turn, researchers added two more areas to the four areas of vocational guidance stated by the Ministry of Education, namely Students’ Self-understanding and the Post-graduation Follow-up Guidance, and their research activities covered the total of these six areas (MASUDA 1959). – In the meantime, unlike the vocational guidance research which was supported by expert scholars (psychologists), the research on “Vocational and Home Economics Studies”, as part of the junior high school general education, lacked expert researchers. For this reason, Ministry of Education bureaucrats, under the guidance of the researchers of educational studies in general (ANDO 1950), or at times of their own initiative (SHIRAI 1952), actively introduced ↑ vocational education theories and curriculum organization methods from the ↑ USA without drawing a clear distinction between the junior and senior ↑ high school levels. In that environment, Jun Hasegawa introduced the most complete curriculum theory for the school subject of ↑ Vocational Studies (in the industrial field), and actually directed the drawing up of the Official Curriculum Guidelines of 1951. He also translated “Trade and Job Analysis (2nd ed., 1947)” by the American author V. C. Fryklund. (FRYKLUND 1949, Hasegawa translation). The above work plainly indicates the strong vocational orientation and the dominance of substantial training-oriented contents in the general vocational subjects at the time. 3.3.6.4.3 Research Concerning Technology and Home Economics Education as a Formal Discipline (from the 1960s onward) – The Japanese economy readied itself for rapid growth as it entered the latter half of the 1950s. Economic organisations, one after another, suggested the expansion of vocational education in senior ↑ high school educational systems as well as the systematisation of science and technology education in junior high school. The Ministry of Education was making preparations for restructur-
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ing “Vocational and Home Economics Studies” into coeducational “Technology Education”. However, as a result of the “rollback” from the ↑ Home Economics teachers’ organisations demanding the continuation of female Home Economics education, and the intervention by politicians in this rollback, it is said that “Technology Education” became “Vocational ↑ Technology and Home Economics Education” literally overnight, on the night of the 27th of July 1958 (K IYOHARA 1989, 931). From around that time, the major part of the “new graduates’ job market” has shifted from junior high school graduates to senior high school graduates. Technology and Home Economics Education was structured as a cooperative compulsory subject centering on the contents of the industrial physical production technology and Home Economics. Therefore, all contents from Commerce, Fisheries, ↑ Vocational Guidance, and most contents from Agriculture were excluded. Consequently, its nature as a subject for general education (a non-vocational preparatory subject) became particularly accentuated. – In that period in the history of ↑ Japan, there were no expert research personnel studying vocational education or technology education in universities or equivalent institutions, and the gap was filled by general educational studies researchers and a number of practical-schooling advocates (who supported vocational education and technology education research in the 1960s and 70s). Since the 1950s, the “Production-oriented Education Theory” that aimed at placing the production technology education as a general subject had been advanced by Kido (1950), Miyahara (1956) and others. This move was a result of the influence from the philosophies of the “Polytechnism” of the then Soviet Union and the “Industrial Arts Education” of the USA. – Toshio Hosoya, who represents “the first generation of Japanese vocational education and ↑ training research“, academically led the start of ↑ Technology and Home Economics Education. Originally specialising in educational method studies, Hosoya went on to set up the Japan Society of Vocational and Technical Education (current members: approx. 300) in 1960, together with a small
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number of vocational guidance specialists and industrial psychologists. His subject theory aimed at structuring vocational education and technology education in particular as project learning (technical experience subjects), and thereby achieving “the cultivation of logical thinking and nurturing of practical skills” (HOSOYA 1969, 204), and this theory continued to influence the subsequent Official Curriculum Guidelines. – Furthermore, the research activities of two private research organisations (many of their leaders had shifted over to universities in the 1970s and 80s as scholars and professors of vocational education and technology education) made a significant contribution to the practical development of Technology and Home Economics Education during its establishment. One of them was the “Japanese Society for the Study of Technology Education” that emphasised the difference between Home Economics and Vocational Technology, and continued to uphold the latter, basing its opinion on the mastery of the “technological studies” and “technical skills”. This society’s subject theory was systematised in 1972 (HARA / SASAKI 1972). The other powerful organisation, which was named “Society of Industrial Education”, developed research on the educational practice and subject groups by viewing the coeducational Technology and ↑ Home Economics Education from the perspective of “learning of skills during the process of labour” (SANGYO KYOIKU RENMEI 1996). – With the establishment of the Master’s courses in national teachers colleges in the 1980s onward, the research on Technology and Home Economics Education finally reached the analytical and empirical research phase. The research came to be conducted by the researchers at the above teachers colleges who were members of the “↑ Japan Society for Industrial and Technical Education” (established in 1958), and usually holders of a Ph.D. degree in agriculture or engineering, or those who had completed the teachers college master’s course. Their research was mainly on teaching materials for fields such as metallurgy, mechanics, electricity, and agronomics, as well as on the factor analysis of the development of technical learning and technical skills (Bulletin of the Japan So-
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ciety of Industrial and Technical Education, published quarterly). In the meantime, “the second generation”, who worked as professors at non-teacher-training faculties of education in national universities, took the initiative in ↑ curriculum research (MOTOKI 1973) and institutional history research (H ARA / UCHIDA 1975) from the beginning of the 1970s onward. In addition, a considerable number of young educational studies researchers with doctoral training (“the third generation”) specialised in ↑ historical research (MORISHITA 1988) and comparative research (TANAKA 1993), and published their findings in the 1980s onward. The recently published work by Kiyohara (1989) is a masterpiece of research on the history of educational practice. However, none of the above research concerning Technology and Home Economics Education has dealt closely with vocational education, or even ↑ pre-vocational education. 3.3.6.4.4 Research on Career Guidance and Career Education – ↑ Vocational guidance lost its relevance and standing with the establishment of ↑ Technology and Home Economics Education. From then on, vocational guidance was offered not as a subject but as part of “Classroom Activities” (by the classroom teacher) that belonged to the extracurricular education called “Special Activities”. It was also decided for ↑ high schools that vocational guidance was to be offered as ↑ Career Guidance. – According to the nationwide survey by the Ministry of Education in 1973, it was revealed that only 10 to 15 hours on average were allocated for Career Guidance classes per year in junior high schools. Moreover, in terms of the contents, junior high schools supplied “adequate” information concerning entrance into higher-level schools, but the instruction of the information concerning ↑ vocations and industries and the provision of instructive experience (i.e. field trips to workplaces) were extremely inadequate. Ultimately, as the number of students who went on to high school and university continued to increase, Career Guidance functioned as the employment agency in vocational high schools, and as the “counselling on going on to higher-level schools” and “advice on which
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school to try for” in junior high schools and general high schools. – The development of the career guidance movement since the late 1950s and the ↑ career education movement since the early 1970s in the ↑ USA have influenced the vocational guidance and its research in Japan. As a result, the Japanese Society for the Study of Vocational Guidance (1953) was renamed the Japanese Society for the Study of Career Guidance in 1978. The above society’s bulletin (Career Guidance Research) was published annually from Volume 1 (1980) to Volume 15 (1994), then biannually from 1995 onward. Except for some articles on theories based on educational sociology and educational studies, almost all the volumes are devoted to research concerning career motivation and career selection by researchers on developmental psychology and counseling psychology. – In the context of regret over the guidance research being biased in favour of going on to higher-level schools as above, and the escalation of the problem of the transition from school to employment for youth as a social problem in the meantime, the opinion which advocates the shift “from guidance to education” developed rapidly ever since the latter half of the 1990s. In contrast to career education in the ↑ USA that had the nature of overall reform of general education and vocational education at ↑ high school level in particular, in ↑ Japan, ↑ career education was introduced and recommended by ↑ career guidance researchers. There are two researchers, Senzaki and Nobuchi, who argued in favour of viewing career development as an education problem. Senzaki (1979) continued to insist on the development of career guidance into career education. Nobuchi raised career guidance as the problem in the “ecosystem” of education (1998). The research group led by Senzaki, at a later stage, put forward a suggestion for a “career development education programme” which consisted of four frames: “career design skills”, “career information search and utilisation skills”, “decision making (career selection) skills”, and “interpersonal skills” (1998). This research report paved the way for the term “career education” to enter the regular Japanese vocabulary, as seen in the document written by the Ministry of Educa-
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tion, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in the following year (1999). The “Japanese Society for the Study of Career Guidance” was renamed the “Japanese Society for the Study of Career Education” (approx. 700 members) in 2004.
3.3.7
Further Education and Training Research Rolf Arnold and Henning Pätzold
The jobs people do and their occupations have always shifted as a function of technological and societal change. Similarly, as we know today, primarily from international studies, the skills potential pooled in occupations is not only the “outcome” of change but also a central prerequisite of change. Hence what competence development needs to provide are approaches to interdependency which, rather than simply lamenting a “decline” in occupations, can at the same time identify in what new form (not organised conventionally according to particular occupations) professional expertise will in future manifest itself in global labour markets. This article starts with an overview of the basic conditions of modern TVET. From this we draw conclusions for research, discussing areas of research as well as methodological approaches with an emphasis on secondary analysis. We conclude by giving a prognosis of future trends in ↑ further education and training research.
3.3.7.1
Framework
From Vocational Education to Competence Development The prevalent method of production – with or without tools, with or on a machine – determines how people (can) work. It therefore determines the system of different occupations within a society. The occupations of carpenter and joiner, for example, have only existed since the time that the tools needed for woodworking have been available, at least in rudimentary form, making woodworking “with tools” possible. Similarly, all the forms of occupation characterising industrial and technical production today depend on the existence of machines. Hence the creation of an occupation is directly linked to technical development, i.e. the invention of tools, machines and production process-
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es. This becomes particularly clear when one looks more closely at the time correlation between new technical developments and the creation of occupations. The invention of photography in 1840, for example, was followed in around 1860 by the creation of the occupation of photographer. The occupation of car mechanic was established around six years after the invention of the motor car in roughly 1900. There are similar correlations in numerous other occupations. An important consequence of this close correlation between the dominant form of production in a society and the system of occupations is the steep decline in the industrialised countries in the number of people employed in the agriculture and forestry sector on the one hand and the steep increase in those employed in the service sector on the other. This clearly reflects the trend towards tertiarisation in modern industrialised societies, which the French social scientist, Jean Fourastié, had already described in 1949 in his famous book “Le grand éspoir du XX siècle” (FOURASTIÉ 1949). In modern industrialised societies “manufacturing” and “building” activities are performed by a decreasing percentage of the workforce, while the majority of people are engaged in “services in the widest sense”. As a result of this trend certain occupations are dying out (e. g. blacksmith) and others are being created (e. g. chemical technician, electronics technician, automotive mechatronic → 4.3). The number of occupations requiring specialist training is steadily declining and existing job requirements are altering. Hence the use of ↑ ICT has shifted the job profile of bank employees, for example, away from accounting functions and more towards customer-service and sales functions. There has been a similar change in job requirements for skilled workers in the production sector: as well as specialist knowledge and skills in their specific technical subject, skilled workers are increasingly required to demonstrate non-subject-specific competence, which has a lot to do with the personality of the worker in question, and with his or her autonomy, creativity and ability to communicate. The trend as far as the division of labour and job requirements is concerned – at least for the core areas of industrial labour – seems therefore to be moving towards greater qualification, but with a si-
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multaneous increase in autonomy and responsibility. There is a growing obligation to technical and vocational education and training and in-company competence development to prepare trainees to be able to respond to the future scope for action and to take over responsibility. This also means a change in the perspective from which vocational education and competence development are seen – which affects practice as well as research. Both are facing a fundamental, although not totally unexpected paradigm shift. There has already been increasing debate in recent years, both inside companies as well as in the education community, about systemic approaches to professional competence development. In the world-wide context these approaches have been situational, that is to say oriented to the systems established in a particular country or region. This shift of perspective also has fundamental consequences for the general focus of technical and vocational education and training and in-company competence development. Increasingly they are oriented less towards “models”, and more towards examining how competence development is “embedded” in the company and microsocial context (→ 3.4). It is apparent that requirement profiles tied closely to particular occupations are gradually disappearing. Craft skills are tending to lose importance as a selection criterion, whereas in modernised areas personality-related qualities and key skills (MERTENS 1974; PRATZNER 1978) are growing in relevance. The changes to the division of labour and occupational requirements have a quantitative as well as a qualitative dimension. It is therefore also necessary to examine how skills requirements on the different levels of an employment system are most likely to develop in the future. Projections of future skills requirements indicate that in modern societies roughly two thirds of the work performed by people in 2010 will be in the infrastructure and service sectors. The information sector, i.e. activities related to acquiring and processing information, will also expand in the future (→ 3.1.4). From the historical perspective the demand for “↑ education for all” or “teaching all things to all men” (COMENIUS 1967, 5) built a ground from which the beginnings of formalised technical and vocational education and training mark the start
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of Europe’s industrialisation. In the 19th century there was a direct link, particularly for vocational training, to industrial promotion: the aim was to train the workforce specifically to raise technological standards, quality of workmanship and hence the market opportunities for domestic production (also with respect to foreign countries). Similar considerations characterise the beginnings of German co-operation in the field of vocational training with Asian, African and Latin American countries. Many projects took as their slogan: more industry and jobs through more occupational promotion, whereby a positive relationship was often assumed between professional training, the creation of industry and new jobs. Yet such assumptions have frequently been proved wrong in the past. In particular it has become apparent that general technical education is more likely to have a positive effect on the ↑ labour market and the ↑ industrialisation process, while specialised skills, unless they are applied immediately, are lost again and have no effect on the labour market and employment. It has also emerged that there is no need for “speculative training in advance” since the qualification process can proceed in tandem with the establishment of production and manufacturing facilities. Today in the international debate on the economics and science of education, there is a more sober consideration of the relationship between compe-
Fig. 1: The Changing View of Competence Development
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tence development (↑ human capital), employment and economic development. In the background are the heterogeneous shapes of educational and economical systems in the world, which do not follow the industrialisation paradigm and the concept of catch-up development in most ↑ developing countries. Competing approaches to explaining the interrelationship between education, labour markets and employment have been replaced by an integral approach based on the assumption that an analysis of this interrelationship: – Must also take into account the social demand for education and training programmes, – As well as the job supply (“manpower approach”), – It must also equally consider flexibility and ↑ mobility aspects (What substitution potential and mobility potential do the jobs have, e. g. what key skills do the workers bring with them?), – As well as the segmentation processes which are just becoming evident in the jobs markets in ↑ developing countries (How does the link between education/competence development and job placement manifest itself in the different jobs markets?). The problem that arises from this for in-company competence development is that ↑ human resource development involves many different functional links which make clear answers and strategies difficult. The relationship between initial and contin-
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uing training on the one hand and employment on the other is not straightforward but is characterised by numerous interdependencies. In-company competence development has to balance these connections, i.e. help shape and develop them. 3.3.7.2
Bridging Adult Education and Vocational Education
The relation between ↑ adult education and vocational education varies deeply from country to country. The typical age for the start of vocational education itself differs and is of obvious significance for that relationship. Furthermore vocational education and training have shown the tendency to extend along the lifespan of individuals. Therefore the idea of adolescents as a “typical” target group for vocational education does not seem to be relevant anymore. In ↑ vocational schools for example the average age of the students tends to diverge. Moreover, vocational schools and other organisations of vocational education are more and more obliged to serve a broadening market of training demand which, too, leads to a variety of ages and backgrounds of experience on the students’ side. Though some countries still keep up a strong separation between vocational education and adult education it nowadays seems more adequate to perceive at least the most part of the former as a part of the latter. This of course has a strong impact on research in this area. While vocational education research was often related to adolescents leaving school and entering a certain kind of vocational training, apprenticeship etc., it now turns out that vocational education, as well as education in general, has to be seen as a lifelong process with different stages connected by a complex system of dependencies. This of course is even more relevant with regard to ↑ further education and training. Concerning research it should be stressed that there is a wide variety of theoretical concepts as well as empirical approaches in adult education, which are still not reflected enough in the field of vocational education. Implications of that situation are: – Vocational education research must no longer take the adolescent for the “typical” subject of research.
– Vocational education research must widen the time horizon. Processes of vocational education, including the development of a “↑ vocational identity” (→ 3.6.8), require a wide focus to be observed correctly. – The application of the methods of adult education research are to be taken into account for any vocational education research (→ 5). This especially holds for methods of ↑ qualitative research, which have a long and fruitful history as far as adult education is concerned. The adult education perspective, besides other aspects, stresses the utilisation of a constructivist approach to learning (REECE / WALKER 2003, 91 f.), which already plays a big role in adult education research and proves fruitful especially with respect to competence development and transformative learning (MEZIROW 1991). 3.3.7.3
Consequences for Adult Education Research
Of course the dramatic changes in the professional world in general as well as in ↑ further education and training in particular are not without consequences for research. Especially the emphasis of competence development (→ 3.6) leads to an immense shift of perspective. Briefly said, it seems that a large part of further education research has focussed upon the wrong topic. The traditional orientation towards qualification concentrated on conditions of training and learning, which led to the ability to perform certain actions related to a specific area of work. With the concept of competence this perspective is widened. Not only is it satisfactory, if somebody is able to perform the action. It is also necessary that he or she is willing to do so and, furthermore, recognises the circumstances which require the particular action. To act in a competent way means to know how to do something, but also when to do it. The obvious implication for research is that it is not enough to test if a trained person is able to perform an action in a test situation as this wouldn’t prove much about how he or she would act in “real life”. Moreover, the competence concept introduces a modified view of learning aims. Competence learning aims at the ability to make adequate decisions and
Areas of VET Research
therefore the importance of single qualifications generally decreases. From the aspects given in Fig. 1 one can draw four conclusions regarding further education and ↑ training research. The transformation of the perspective towards an orientation to cross-occupational content means a shift in the research on curricula and learning aims (→ 3.4.1). While in former times the development of critical attitudes towards certain concepts and procedures in industry and service may have occurred as a side effect, such attitudes are now central. But critical of course doesn’t mean to question any decision once made in a company and to permanently reorganise one’s own workplace. An employee is rather expected to develop a continuous “constructive scepticism” about his environment, to take chances of improvement without disturbing overall activity. This requires the ability to form clear opinions about changing situations and therefore goes far beyond the ability to “do something correctly”. This aspect becomes even more important as competences will be of cross-occupational use, which means, they will be adaptable to different workplaces in different companies and even in different ↑ professions. The lifespan perspective emphasises that vocational training as well as further education are no isolated activities but are to be seen from a biographical perspective. Further education follows previous learning and training activities and – what was long overlooked – are themselves rather links in a chain of educational and training efforts. Therefore further education has not only to foster ↑ vocational competence but also to prepare for succeeding training. This brings up the question of adequate possibilities to prologue the effects of certain trainings and courses and is therefore related to research on sustainable learning. A particular branch of this research deals with electronic media as opportunities to integrate follow-up actions into the ↑ work process (EC 2001). Also the lifespan perspective brings into focus certain characteristics of ↑ adult learning which render traditional learning theories inadequate. Therefore research on learning might be related more closely to contemporary concepts of adult learning (see LANGEMEYER 2005a).
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The third change leads from ↑ occupational profiles to more complex systems of demand, involving not only the profile itself, but also regional conditions, social and economical circumstances and much more. In this case further education research has not only to deal with the question of the anticipation of demand with respect to technical development, but also with respect to those other factors, including the task of preparing for change itself. Obviously it hereby becomes much more complicated to anticipate learning aims for future employees, and research has to incorporate much more of the findings of other social sciences, especially sociology, to develop a concise picture of future trends in ↑ further education. This also includes a shift from a rather didactical research perspective, asking, how something is taught successfully, to a more social perspective asking, what precautions are to be taken to secure that what is taught will be useful to the employee as well as the employer. Finally the system perspective accentuates dependencies between further education in general and surrounding conditions. Moreover, research in this area has virtually discovered new actors of learning, namely organisations and even regions (see EC, E. C. 2003d). This research faces a completely new unit of analysis. The challenge is now to develop analytical systems which on the one hand allow one to come up with the specific situations of single regions, and on the other to lead to comparable results going beyond the particular local or regional circumstances. 3.3.7.4
Resources of Vocational Education
With the growing attention given to vocational education as a key factor of economical development the different resources of research also come into view. There are several resources of national as well as international origin which offer valuable material regarding questions of vocational education. At first sight they can be divided into resources, which primarily serve aims of monitoring (as national vocational education reports or the ↑ OECD’s education at a glance) and material related to specified ↑ research questions. The national and international efforts for ↑ educational research can thereby serve several purposes. Obviously
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they are often the starting point for any research project as they bundle much of the large scale research efforts conducted in a certain area. Moreover, there is often the possibility to obtain the raw data of such projects to deal with according to research questions. As the data collection for large scale statistical research as well as for qualitative data usually is very costly, this secondary analysis is highly desirable. Furthermore, it has been shown that not only empirical data from surveys etc. but also qualitative data is a promising basis for secondary analysis (CORTI / WITZEL / BISHOP 2004). The following table (Fig. 2) gives an exemplary view of some of the major resources for ↑ data on vocational education. Whereas Fig. 2 only gives an overview, there is an unmanageable variety of sources for data, especially when the national sites, monitoring systems etc. are taken into account. 3.3.7.5
Suggestions and Recommendations for Specific Development and Research Projects
In the accelerated or “reflexive modernisation” (BECK / GIDDENS / LASH 1995) societies, the development of ↑ lifelong learning is accompanied by an extensive need for clarification, which is related to both the basic theoretical issues as well as the practical aspects. This dual perspective should also be stressed, since only a theoretical positioning with respect to the modernisation processes of ↑ continuing education and lifelong learning can prevent the detailed empirical analysis from becoming the image creator and thus the legitimiser (see ARNOLD 1996a, 55 f.) of the mentioned extraneous implementations of lifelong learning (see LENZEN / LUHMANN 1997). In this sense, in a summary that highlights some aspects and is inevitably incomplete, the following areas and issues can be identified for forwardlooking research and development projects:
Theoretical and Systemic Positioning of Further Education Research – What expectations (manifest and latent) do the actors in the ↑ further education and training market “hope for”?
– What are the underlying interests, demands and needs of these expectations? – What (manifest and latent) functions does further education and training “promise” to the individual, the enterprise and the society? – What happens with the realisation of these “promised” functions as well as with the “real” effects of further education and training? – How can comprehensive and universally applicable standards and ↑ quality assurance systems be defined and implemented within the framework of the “functional symbiotic” (Luhmann) integration of further education?
Overcoming the “Fixation on the Institution” Perspective – What en-passant forms and informal strategies of competence-developing learning are already being applied by adults in extra-institutional learning processes and with what results? – How do these informal types of learning correlate to previous education, previous learning experiences the background of professional demands and experiences as well as to sex and age? – Through what “measures”, “supporting structures” as well as concomitant forms can these informal forms be optimised in a sustainable manner? – What consequences does the issue of the occurrence and the evident ↑ effectiveness and expansion of informal ↑ adult learning (coaching and facilitating concepts) have on the institutions and professionals of ↑ continuing education organisations?
Acquisition and Application Research Based on Constructivist Learning Theories – What learning types, ↑ learning strategies and learning attitudes are typical of “autonomous” (autodidactic) learning? – How do the types of learning activities and the types of learners “interact” in adult learning? – What learning arrangements correspond, and to what extent, to the criteria for sustainable adult learning?
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Fig. 2: Research Resources
– How can these criteria be effectively integrated to the varying forms of further education and training offers, programmes and applications? – How sustainable is the learning achieved by different participant groups in learning arrangements for ↑ self-directed learning (away from the “one best-mode” concept)?
Research on the Transformation of Mental Models (Interpretation Learning) and Organisational Structures (Organisational Learning) – Through what didactic arrangements can reflexive and transformation processes (of premises) be initiated and supported? – How can the corresponding learning opportunities for learning at the workplace be implemented or arranged? – How can virtual (multimedia) arrangements be designed for reflexive and transformative learning processes – What professional requirements arise for incompany continuing education and further train-
ing as well as for human resources management or for executives on site (in the different departments)?
Empirical and Analytical Research on Motivation, Demand and Effects – What conditional factors constitute motivation for further training and “decide” about ↑ participation in ↑ further education and training? – How do the members of different social environments utilise the opportunities of self-directed competence-developing learning? – In which topic areas and fields of competence is the need for further education and training particularly marked or even increasing? – How do further education providers determine the demands which serve as the basis for planning their educational offers and programmes? – How do continuing education providers “guarantee” the quality as well as the ↑ effectiveness and ↑ sustainability of their offers?
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3.3.8 Vocational College Research. Case Studies 3.3.8.1 Study of Higher Vocational Education Research in China Weiping Shi and Guoqing Xu ↑ Higher vocational education came into being in ↑ China at the beginning of the 1980s and well established its position in Chinese higher education by the middle of the 1990s and started its great expansion at the turn of the century. The research into higher vocational education has never stopped in the past 20 years, during which more than a hundred books on higher vocational education have been published. With a careful search of the index of China Journal Net, we have found that there are 7,476 articles on higher vocational education, out of which 70 % were published after 2000. This indicates that most of the research has been undertaken after 2000 and development of higher vocational education has already attracted the wide attention of Chinese society (WANG 2004). The history of higher vocational education research is relatively short, but we can still classify the development of this research into three periods or stages according to its focus (→ 1.2; → 3.3.2). This study is based on an overview of books, papers and national research projects on higher vocational education over the past 20 years, with special focus on the research after 2000. 3.3.8.1.1 First Stage (1980s–2000) With Its Focus on “What is Higher Vocational Education?” “Why Should We Develop It?” and “How Should We Develop It?”
Research on the Development Drive for Higher Vocational Education Why higher vocational education initiated in the 1980s were widely accepted and began to develop in the 1990s in ↑ China, became the focal point of the research during this period. It was crucial to understand the necessity and conditions to develop higher vocational education in the Chinese economic, social and educational context of the 1990s before its actual fast development. Many scholars
attributed the demand for higher vocational education to the economic development, which required the upgrading of knowledge and skill structure of those working in the front line of production and services. Weiping Shi had generalized such drives for higher vocational education development into three factors: (1) economic reason – development of science and technology and its wide application in production and services requires the quality improvement of workers at large in order to meet the needs of economic development for more highly skilled workers; (2) social reason – in the light of the serious unemployment situation, to expand the size of higher vocational education can postpone the time of first employment for some school graduates so as to relieve the employment pressure in the ↑ labour market and avoid the social problems which might be caused by the high rate of unemployment; (3) educational reason – in the context of increasingly severe competition for entering the traditional universities, to develop higher vocational education can provide another alternative for the school graduate so as to meet the needs of ordinary people for mass higher education. This view held by Shi was relatively rational and later was commonly shared by the academic community in China (SHI 1998a; 1998b; 1998c).
Research on the Intension of Higher Vocational Education In 1994, several articles were published in Chinese Vocational and Technical Education, one of the leading journals of TVET in ↑ China, discussing the intention, implementation and development of ↑ higher vocational education, which indicates the great concern about these issues at that time. It was quite crucial to understand the intention of higher vocational education before its actual great expansion started: Jintu Yang et al. thought “Higher vocational education is mainly higher technical education”. Their argument was based on the talents structure theory. Social talents can be divided into four categories: theoretical talents, engineering talents, technical talents and skilled talents; while higher voca-
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tional education is mainly to train the technicians with practical skills and the technologists or frontline managers with specialized expertise. This kind of vocational college could be run either by the government (central or regional), by the industry (sectors or enterprises), by social organisations or private institutions, or in the form of ↑ partnership with foreign investors or cooperation between various kinds of institutions so as to mobilize all the resources available in society to develop higher vocational education. This is a relatively complete view of the conception of higher vocational education and the manner of its development. As to the name of such a higher institution for vocational education, the more popular view at that time was to call it a “technical college” or a “university of technology”, for the reason that this kind of colleges served mainly to train the frontline technicians or managers; and this was usually understood as “technical education” and such names could easily be understood by the international community (YANG / MENG / YAN 1995). Wei Ping Shi thought that higher vocational education should take “higher education” as its “family name” and “vocational education” as its “given name” based on his fundamental research on higher vocational education (SHI 1998a). Xinxiang Lu’s view was also quite popular during this period. He defined higher vocational education as: (a) a kind of education to train technical talents including academic education for diplomas and technical training for certificates; (b) the academic education for diplomas could be as high as an associate degree, bachelors degree or even up to postgraduate level, and ↑ China currently should mainly provide higher vocational education at associate degree level; (c) the technical training for certificates should mainly be for vocational and technical qualifications of various kinds, covering large areas of working (LU 1998, 29). In addition to this fundamental research, there were also ↑ comparative studies of higher vocational education and its linkage with secondary vocational education during this period. The comparative research mainly focused on the introduction of the successful experience in Taiwan and abroad. The research was necessary at a time when China began its development of higher vocational ed-
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ucation and “education borrowing” was the major aim of such a comparison. The research projects of the National Educational Science Planning in this period mainly focused on issues like the position of higher vocational education and its linkage with secondary vocational education and with general education, and the basic rules for technological education and its special features. 3.3.8.1.2 Second Stage (2000–2004) With its Focus on the Talents Training Model and School System Reform After 2000, higher vocational education in China started its great expansion. In the process, it was commonly recognized that the development of higher vocational education should change from expansion to quality improvement. In light of this context, the training model and major construction; in another words, the talents training models of higher vocational education based upon collegeindustry cooperation, became a focal point of the research during this period. This trend of research continued up till 2004 (→ 1.2). From 2002, MoE held three national conferences on the production-learning-research combination and cooperation, after which “service-aimed, employment-oriented, production-learning-research combined” became the basic principle and widely recognized pathway of higher vocational education development. Production-learning-research combination was the hottest topic of the discussion and research during this period. The book Only Pathway: Guideline of Production-Learning-Research Combination for ↑ Higher Vocational Education remarkably reflects the fruitful results of this research (HEDME/CSHE 2004). One-third of all higher vocational education research during this period was about the issue of production-learning-research combination and cooperation. These studies were undertaken from the different perspectives of comparative, historical, empirical and economic. In a word, the theoretical research and practical approach had been adequately carried out using the talent training model of higher vocational education from different perspectives. Yao Huang concluded that it was a special feature of vocational education to implement the production-teaching combination, which was
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also the successful experience of vocational education development in China and the basic model and development trend of vocational education in the international community (HUANG, Y. 2004). This was also true to the production-learning-research combination as the widely recognized talent training model for higher vocational education. Another focal point for higher vocational education research during the period was the issue of the ↑ school system. Several Requirements for Further Enforcing Vocational Education jointly issued by seven ministries of the central government pointed out that the two-year system should become the basic system for higher vocational education and this should earnestly be implemented within two or three years. This government demand immediately started a national debate. Some scholars thought that it could help higher vocational education in China to form its specific feature if its schooling was to be reduced from three years to two years, which could change its talent training model and improve its curriculum system. They argued that the introduction of a two-year system could break through our traditional system so as to form a new system of curriculum and create a better training model for higher vocational education, leading to success in training of the applied talents. But other scholars were worried that changing from three years to two years might have a negative effect on higher vocational education. It might lower the social status of higher vocational education, increase the pressure on employment, make it difficult to meet the training target, demand more improvement of teachers’ quality, and raise the running costs for higher vocational colleges. The more popular view was that the length of higher vocational education should be decided by the actual time required to meet the training target for respective majors and it should be varied rather than unified. Another controversial issue concerning the ↑ school system was whether we should have a kind of higher vocational education at four-year undergraduate level. Many scholars argued that currently our highest level for higher vocational education in ↑ China was still confined to associate degree level and was not right according to international practice. It was of historical significance to
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introduce a kind of higher vocational education up to Bachelor degree level in China. Some suggested that this could be achieved by upgrading a few existing colleges of higher vocational education in a better condition with good quality while others thought we should newly establish some four- year colleges of higher vocational education at undergraduate level which later could be developed up to postgraduate education. Some scholars pointed out that the process of such upgrading should be strictly controlled so as to ensure the quality of those newly established colleges of technology. In order to avoid losing control over this upgrading process, some scholars suggested that it should be essential to establish the proper standards for qualifying to be a four-year college of technology and the standards should be different from those for a traditional academic university, and thus the development for such standards should be taken seriously in the research into higher vocational education (SHI / XU 2003). There was another discussion about the talent training target of higher vocational education. Before 2004, an agreement had already been reached about what kind of talents higher vocational education should train, namely technology application talents. This agreement was broken after the Nanjing Conference in July of 2004 when the talent training target of higher vocational education was re-defined as high-skilled talents. The redefinition certainly conformed with “employment-oriented vocational education” recommended by the MoE. Some thought that skilled talents usually involved practical routine work whose qualification was relatively lower than the technology application talents and that they could well be trained by secondary vocational education. But others argued that mainly high-skilled workers were required by society and that secondary vocational education was hardly qualified to accomplish such training tasks due to its current students’ quality and training facilities, and therefore ↑ higher vocational education should undertake this responsibility. The training target of higher vocational education should also include high-skilled workers, which should be its main task for the present. Jintu Yang and Guangping Meng organized a few field studies in enterprises of different sectors or industries, based upon
Areas of VET Research
which they redefined the training target for higher vocational education. They thought that higher vocational education should not restrict its training target to “technology application talents”; instead the main function of higher vocational education should be to provide higher technological education and therefore it should mainly train technicians and technologists. They also argued that (a) not all the higher education at associate degree level was higher vocational education in nature, (b) for a certain period of time in China, higher vocational education would mainly remain at the associate degree level, (c) higher vocational education should not restrict itself to this level (YANG / MENG / YAN / HUANG 1999). This view, moreover, has been commonly accepted. Comparative research into higher vocational education during this period was also developed. For example, the book Contemporary Higher Vocational Education: from an International Perspective, covered its historic development, current provision, specific features and management system (JIANG, H. 2002). International ↑ Comparative Study of Higher Vocational Education pointed out that the upgrading of higher vocational education institutions would make the vocational system more perfect; higher vocational education would become an important part of lifelong education; and the relationship between higher vocational education and social/economic development would be closer (HUANG 2003). Ying Kuang’s Comparative Study on the Development and Change of Higher Vocational Education conducted a relatively complete research in area of higher vocational education comparison (KUANG 2005). 3.3.8.1.3 Third Stage (2004– …) With Its Focus upon Curriculum Construction for the Future of Higher Vocational Education Since 2004, the focus of higher vocational education research has changed to the curriculum and instructional model. It has been commonly recognized that curriculum is the key to all the issues in higher vocational education and that only the curriculum could finally clarify the issues about the position, training model and major construction of higher vocational education. The aim of higher vo-
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cational education could be explained and should be realized by its curriculum. The Appraisal for an Excellent Curriculum initiated by the MoE and the strong desire for specific features in higher vocational education was the direct drive for this curriculum reform. How to become free from the influence of the subject-based curriculum model in traditional universities and put more emphasis on the practical ability training for students, became the focus of this curriculum study during the period. Many papers entitled “study of the ↑ practical training system in higher vocational education” could be included in this approach. As the direct drive for this curriculum reform was to acquire specific features for higher vocational education in ↑ China, scholars in its favor tried to establish a kind of higher vocational college curriculum with a Chinese flavor. Many colleges of higher vocational education started their practical approach to the project-based curriculum. Guoqing Xu pointed out that the project-based curriculum should be set and organized by task items based on a systematic analysis of the working system; and therefore it was relatively comprehensive, complete, independent and different from the curriculum module based on skill units, and it should become the chosen direction of curriculum reform for higher vocational education (XU 2005) (→ 3.6.4). Another important project in this period is Guidance for Major-Setting and ↑ Curriculum Development in ↑ Higher Vocational Education. The authors tried to develop a new curriculum model and a new way of ↑ curriculum design for higher vocational education, based on the existing model profiting from successful experience abroad, especially ↑ Australia. They pointed out that the curriculum design for higher vocational education should meet the needs of industry and should be employment-oriented and vocational competency-based; and this kind of curriculum could be called VOCSCUM for short (GAO / BAO 2004). 3.3.8.1.4 The Features and Prospects of Higher Vocational Education Research The research into higher vocational education in China is relatively fruitful though its history is relatively short. In addition to the research mentioned
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above, there is also some research covering other areas of higher vocational education, for example, the teaching staff development, practical training base construction and so on. The features of all this research could be generalized as follows.
Research Closely Linked to the Development of Higher Vocational Education in China Research into higher vocational education has been divided into three fundamental stages in this chapter. The three stages are also the three critical periods of higher vocational education development in China and the focal research issues for each stage are also the major concerns of higher vocational education development of the period so that the research is almost consistent with every step of its development. Many issues in practice, such as the position of higher vocational education, the change of its ↑ school system and its curriculum reform, could immediately attract the attention and cause hot discussion in the academic world, which is the healthy side of higher vocational education research in China.
The Research is not so Balanced, with a More Practical Approach, and Less Theoretical Study Most of the research on higher vocational education is empirical and practical in the form of conclusions from experience or working reports. The theoretical standards need to be improved, especially for the construction of a theoretical system for higher vocational education. Many researchers are more interested in the vocational nature of higher vocational education rather than its nature as higher education, which could be explained by the relatively short history of higher vocational education research.
A Relatively Independent Research Team of Higher Vocational Education Has Already Come into Being It is quite important to have an independent research team of higher vocational education. Fortunately this independent team is taking shape along with the scholars from other areas of research who
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also care about the development of higher vocational education. For example, most of the vocational colleges have established “Research Institutes of Higher Vocational Education” or “Research Institutes of Higher Education” and many universities have established “higher vocational education research courses” in their Doctor’s or Master’s Degree programmes, in which a specialized group of researchers on higher vocational education have been trained. In general, this research team of higher vocational education is still relatively weak compared with other areas of research in education and this professional team needs to be further strengthened in future (→ 1.2). In conclusion, higher vocational education has already become an important part of higher education as well as the important direction of vocational education development in ↑China. The practice of higher vocational education development demands strengthening its theoretical research and practical approach. The future of higher vocational education research in China needs better development of its research team and academic institutions and to further upgrade its standard of theoretical studies while still sticking to its good tradition of linking theory with practice.
3.3.8.2 Research on Vocational Colleges and Schools Günter Pätzold 3.3.8.2.1 Definition of Term As a school of Secondary Level II the vocational college is a part of the overall educational system in Germany. It continues the training of Secondary Level I, imparting the necessary professional basic and specialized training for recognized ↑ vocations, and is, as well, related to an extended general education within the scope of the ↑ Dual System of training (compare K ELL / LIPSMEIER 1976; LEPPER 1983). The ↑ vocational school has a significant share in teaching the competence to act capable. The conference of the Ministers of Culture (Kultusministerkonferenz, KMK) sees the voca-
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tional college as an “independent place to learn” by which is meant to “enable qualified people to accomplish professional tasks and to cooperate in shaping the business world and society with social and ecological responsibility” (KMK 1999).
In order to reach this goal, the vocational college is asked to “adjust the lessons to specific pedagogy task that emphasizes orientation towards action” (KMK 1999, 9) Beyond that, the vocational college should also deal with core problems of our time in the context of general as well as specific vocational lessons. The vocational college is, numerically seen, the most significant form of ↑ professional training schools. While realizing its educational responsibility, it stays mostly programmatic and takes, within the law, an inferior position to internal training within companies (compare EULER 1998, 31 ff.). The courses of education are subdivided into different school types: technical, economic and administrative, ↑ nutrition and housekeeping, public health and social affairs as well as agricultural economics. Vocational colleges in North Rhine-Westphalia include the basic training school year which require courses for students without company contracts (compare PÄTZOLD 2001). In this basic training year students receive a basic education related to their vocational field as well as a general preparation for work. The basic training year fulfils no more requirements of the reformed vocational education system than those recommended by the German Education Council (Deutscher Bildungsrat) in the year 1970 (compare GREINERT 1984). Quite often, basic training courses turn into waiting loops. Forms of ↑ vocational schools do not only include vocational colleges. Occupational training schools as well as specialized ↑ high schools and other types of spezialized schools are also consistent parts of the vocational ↑ school system. The vocational college act of 8. January 1998 in North Rhine-Westphalia united the professional schools and college schools into vocational colleges. They had to combine professional training, organization and curriculum with the possibility of achieving general organizational school diplomas (compare LANDESINSTITUT FÜR SCHULE UND WEITERBILDUNG 1997; VERORDNUNG 1999).Vocational high
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schools, technical high schools, specialized high schools and specialized academies can be found in different states of Germany. Professional schools are naturally related to the general school system, the system of ↑ social work for youth, the ↑ further education system and the system of internal education. But they still form their own unity. Particularly the vocational schools depend on the conditions under which companies do their training. Because of the corporatist regulation of ↑ professions, the civil law of the freedom of agreement and company finances companies decide who will be trained and in what branch of profession the training will take place. Education of specialized classes is connected to the internal training signposts of its region. ↑ Compulsory schools are bound to open classes for all students who have reached the age of 18. That means that special offers are organized for those who do not have an internal training contract with a company. Dynamic changes in quality requirements of the occupational system led to new challenges for vocational schools. They need to react flexibly in terms of school organization and ↑ vocational pedagogy, which, as experience shows, do not yet have a tension-free relationship. The curriculum which determines the fields of vocational education for these vocational schools and colleges is enacted by the KMK and is adjusted and corrected nationally with corresponding local training programmes while others transform them into their own curricula. This leads to the result of different statespecific preconditions. The states are responsible to develop and issue the curriculum of other areas (Catholic and Protestant religious studies, ethics, German, communication, sports, health, politics, business management) for non-commercial ↑ vocations (compare KUTSCHA 1982). One can talk about vocational school research if the school is being examined as an institution with regard to its history, its different conditions, functions, expectations, influences, problems and results. You do not only have to empirically examine the observable and graspable behaviour of teachers, the creation of teaching situations, the interaction between pupil and teacher in order to empirically substantiate its organizational, structural and curricular issues, but you also have to include expectations of
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different groups at the macro, meso and micro level as well as present and future challenges for the dual educational training system (duales System der beruflichen Bildung). It has to be considered that nationwide guidelines for professional schools have meanwhile led to a significantly distinctive characteristic for the general educational school system (compare HARNEY/ RAHN 2000). It is important for TVET research to understand that there are different types of professional schools representing certain specific fields for research and formulation, for example: the integration of professional and general education, the school “substitute ability” of the dual training system, the de-specialization of professional training, the networking between school and company supporters as well as the coupling of school careers with the ↑ further education sector. Teachers at vocational schools are trained for and appointed to all school types. TVET research can’t be seen as separate from the general educational system. Its subject-producing activity has to include facts of professional organized work as well as internal training situations. A limitation to simple teaching research would be inadequate. Until the middle of the 1960s there was only a rudimental developed theoretical and empirical research in the Federal Republic of Germany. There were just sporadic initiatives from groups of federations, unions, teacher organisations and other actors from inside the ↑ vocational school (compare BERKE / BLATT/ FOCKS ET AL. 1985). Most of them developed out of specific points of view and thus were less systematic, less cooperative and rarely oriented to standards of empirical ↑ educational research (compare DFG 1990, 10 f.). However, one cannot consider that TVET research exists as an independent and accepted ↑ research field. The pedagogy of business and education hesitated to deal with the realities of training (ibid., 12). Research on vocational schools is inseparably linked with the development of vocational and business pedagogy, which first started to emerge from the task of training teachers for vocational schools on the 20th century (compare GEORG 1982; STRATMANN 1994; PÄTZOLD 2002). This influenced the interests of research. But one has to consider that the institutes of ↑ vocational pedago-
Handbook of TVET Research
gy which had been established for teacher training were not equipped to fulfil research tasks until the end of the 1950s. This changed when the training of teachers for vocational schools was transferred to the University. In the 1970s the implementation of basic vocational education, the equalization of general and vocational education, the school of socalled ↑ young workers and the development of a full time training system were of great importance (compare GRÜNER 1984; GREINERT 1984). Today matters of interest are how to learn location cooperation, how to optimize teaching and learning, the orientation of action and organizational conditions as well as the process of developing vocational schools into regional centres of competence. This all got in the focus of the TVET research interest. All aspects of research and creation focus on the line in the educational training system concerning the consistent points of intersection between schools, companies, other internal actors and the ↑ labour market. 3.3.8.2.2 Research on Pre-Institutional Development of the Vocational Schools So far there has not been any research which completely represented the history of the vocational schools, even though the historical educational research has worked on a large number of related facts. This cannot be fully laid out in this article which rather seeks to contribute starting points and lines of development. The vocational schools emerged from the national education and trade promoting institutions of the 19th century (compare MEERMANN 1909; BLÄTTNER 1947 and 1965; KÜHNE 1922; HORLEBEIN 1976; BLÄTTNER /K IEHN / MONSHEIMER / THYSSEN 1960; LIPSMEIER 1966 and 1978; LISOP / GREINERT / STRATMANN 1990). The development of vocational colleges and specialized schools was an important precondition for the networking between part time vocational schools and different forms of full time training programmes which today is common in vocational school centres (compare SCHÜTTE 2003). The separation between higher and lower specialized schools based on entrance regulations which was established before World War I was significant for the structuring of vocational schools. As a prerequisite it led
Areas of VET Research
to the transformation of higher specialized schools into specialized colleges, which resulted in a structural change of the college-system, as well as to the establishment of a system of professional schools out of separated vocational schools. It must have been the “guild law” of Sachsen-Weimar of 1821 which for the first time verbalized a rule of release according to which the master was asked to send his apprentice to school – this can be taken as the birth of the “↑ dual system” (compare STRATMANN / SCHLÖSSER 1990, 25). This rule was tightened up into law by the industrial code of 1869-71. Industrialization with its growing theoretical approach of professional content in the relevant technologies increasingly forced this imparting of knowledge at the newly developed location for learning which was the school. Particularly technical drawing demonstrates this very clearly (compare LIPSMEIER 1971 and 1978). Sunday schools and the general further-education school of the 19th century, the forerunners of today’s vocational schools, were mainly busy transferring, stabilizing, applying and completing the subjects already taught in general ↑ compulsory schools. Because of that, subjects like German or calculation were of major importance (compare KÜHNE 1922; GRÜNER 1975; GREINERT 1975; MÜLLGES 1970 and 1979; PEISZKER 1949; ZIELINSKI 1963). The school of ↑ further education was first of all meant to fulfil tasks of political integration. Its aim was not strictly economical, at least not on referring mainly to professional qualification (compare GREINERT 1995b, 58). Teaching at schools of further education was primarily of general nature – only a small amount of technical knowledge (mostly in technical drawing) was imparted. Therefore, the general further-educational school was relatively independent. Even in the schools of further education in trade cooperation with companies was rare, although specific theoretical subjects gained more and more importance. But this was often closely related to the overall education of citizens. A linking relationship between internal training and educational schools was at best only one-sided since the further educational school tried to adapt itself to the interests of craftsman training (compare LIPSMEIER 1971).
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Only with the development of a training scheme which was characteristic of industry and oriented towards technological progress ↑ vocational schools obtained a different functional determination (compare ABEL / GROOTHOFF 1959). In the middle of the 19th century the industrial “Sunday schools” differentiated themselves into schools for “trade”, “business” or “rural training” which presented their organizational and curricular outline (compare GREINERT 1975). The further-educational school was meant to integrate the petty bourgeois and the proletarian (male) teenagers into the middle class and its values and therefore, with the help of an institutionalized form of socialization, to fill the gap between underclass youth and bourgeois society (compare GREINERT 1982). The further-educational school itself can also be seen as a result of and a reaction to the qualification movement and its changes in handicrafts, in trade and later on in industry. The ↑ classical vocational education theory (compare STRATMANN 1988) since the 1920s gave the vocational school pedagogical legitimation. Its didactic orientation towards the ↑ vocation formed the basis for an expanding pedagogical institution (compare PÄTZOLD 1989 and 1994), at first this happened without justifying perspectives and without “joining the proletarian’s interest in emancipation” (compare GREINERT 1982, 122). In the middle of the 1920s, after the expanding of the training which was characteristic for industry, qualification became the main function of the vocational school. The constitution of the Weimar Republic established the general ↑ compulsory education, meant to be fulfilled by attending public school for 8 years and after that by attending ↑ further education school up to the age of 18, but in reality this constitutional Act was not very effective. For the first time the requirement of attending vocational school was established by the compulsory educational Act of the Reich in 1938. Compared with internal training the vocational school itself was degraded and enormously neglected during the National Socialist period. Especially ↑ vocational school teachers suffered from the fact that their professional consolidation, which was developed in the 1920s, was interrupted (compare SEUBERT 1977; PÄTZOLD 1995a).
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In the 1920s and 1930s the vocational school was almost completely seen as an instance for qualification and integration – first into a competent, skilled worker and citizen (compare GEISSLER 1996) and later, after 1933, into a skilled “German” labourer and a comrade of the people (“Volksgenosse”). The vocational school got more and more into the particular interests of the companies, later on in combination with governmental decrees concerning military business goals. General subjects were pushed back. The Weimar Republic emphasized the orientation towards vocational subjects (compare GREINERT 1995b, 85). In the 1920s started a cooperation debate on the subject of the construction of the curriculum. This debate was caused by the organizational development of the “compulsory vocational school” and its “de-politicization” and “de-professionalization” (GREINERT 1995b, 80 ff.). It reached its climax in a demand for synchronization of school and company in respect of time and subjects. During the period of National Socialism (compare SUEDHOF 1934) the vocational school became nearly completely dependent on “business” (compare WOLSING 1977; K IPP 1980; PÄTZOLD 1989). Its educational tasks degenerated, as Otto Monsheimer pointed out, into a “DIN (standardized) pedagogy of the Reich curriculum” (MONSHEIMER 1956, 73 ff.). According to this curriculum the importance of the technical classes of the leading vocational school of commerce was reduced to a pure annotation of the internal training (compare GRÜNER 1984, 14 ff.). This traditional way of teaching had already been foiled by the so called “Frankfurter Method” (compare WISSING 1954; PUKAS 1988 and 1989) in the early 1930s which tried to reclaim almost full didactic independence for the teaching within the ↑ vocational schools (compare PÄTZOLD 1994, 270 ff.). This was suppressed by the National Socialists and gained in importance and influence only after 1945, when the order to educate in vocational schools was once more extended and the necessity of a pedagogical legitimation for the vocational school became obvious. By way of centralisation of administration and management of all vocational schools in the Reich Education Department in 1937 and their nationwide unification into “vocational and specialized
Handbook of TVET Research
schools” it became customary to speak of “vocational educational schools” (compare LIPSMEIER 1966). They were now recognised as the second pillar of the general ↑ s chool system within the public educational system and not only regarded as a business-fostering facility, even though at that time it was not possible to get an official certificate or diploma. Only since the end of the 1970s the vocational school is nationwide allowed to award a belated “Hauptschule” diploma. Some states, such as North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Wuerttemberg, even accepted the vocational school certificate (with final examination on the training undergone) under certain circumstances as a middle school graduation. After a series of changes of ministerial responsibilities following the Second World War the vocational schools fell under the responsibility of the Ministry for Culture, Education and Church Affairs of each federal state. 3.3.8.2.3 Subjects of Curricular and “ActorSpecific” Vocational School Research Vocational school research, as a connection between empirical pedagogical research and normative, decisive pedagogical concepts, nearly did not exist until the 1970s. Vocational school research referred to basic types of pedagogic and didactic behaviour of the leading actors and also sought to define certain general organizational conditions for them. The results of that research were most of the time only of hypothetical importance and aimed mostly at manners in school or during lessons as well as on didactical solutions for teaching problems. Criticism of the focus of the dual training system in regard of method and content since 1970 has led to a number of single ↑ pilot projects with the emphasis on organizational and subject-didactical aspects of vocational schools (compare PÄTZOLD / BUSIAN / WINGELS 2002), particularly in the following subjects of ↑ vocational science: ↑ key qualifications, task-based approach, development and testing of arrangements meant to support competent vocational acting, professional environmental education, cross-disciplinary teaching, new ↑ information technology in business and administration, multimedia learning, ↑ quality management and self-organization. So far, results of this research,
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exploring mostly practical arrangements of some vocational schools, even though they have an “independent education task” could not shape their own didactics and curriculum. In the 1970s, TVET research was connected with efforts of reforming vocational education, initiating a social-scientific view. The orientation towards socialisation by the means of schools brought about an interest in the experiences of pupils in the institutions of professional education. It became evident that pupils experienced the significance of the vocational school differently. Even at that time, pupils who participated in internal trainings and those who had a better educational background appreciated the vocational schools less than those who got trainings with different characteristics and recruiting patterns (compare CRUSIUS 1973, 211; K RUMM 1978; MÜLLER 1980). In more recent examinations, for example those of the DFG (German Research Group) which focused on the process of teaching and learning in the commercial “first training” in revealing structures and legalities of ↑ teaching and learning processes (compare BECK 2000a; BECK /K RUMM 2001), it became evident that the vocational school was regarded to be of value for that part of the final exam which lies in the responsibility of the companies. But concerning the motivation to learn and the pupil’s interest in the teaching concepts, the company training got a much better result than the vocational school (compare WILD /K RAPP 1996). The support of autonomy and competence is also better experienced within the internal training (compare PRENZEL / DRECHSEL /K RAMER 1998). The empirical analysis of the North Rhine-Westphalian ↑ pilot project “Nine hour long Day in ↑ Vocational School” confirmed that students appreciate school and company differently. It is also confirmed that there are different degrees of appreciation towards the different vocational school subjects. The ones related to the ↑ vocation itself, mainly because of their significance for the final exam, have a much higher acceptance. There are certain reservations towards other subjects of the cross-disciplinary subjects, doubling their relevance (compare TWARDY/ BEUTNER / BUSCHFELD ET AL. 2001). Also the paradigm “Dependency or Autonomy” respectively the relationship between internal training and school
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training determines the development of the learning location known as the “vocational school” even today (compare LIPSMEIER 2000). The subject of “cooperation of teaching institutions” (Lernortkooperation) (compare PÄTZOLD / WALDEN 1999) combined with the subject of the orientation on fields of study and a task-based approach become evident in examining all the varieties on the level of curriculum: synchronised curriculum, adjusted/coordinated curriculum, autonomous curriculum (compare NICKOLAUS 1998, 296). Results of research on vocational schools demonstrate that although cooperation activities on a political and administrative level work well together, at the didactic level they are more sporadic. The level of collaboration between trainers and ↑ vocational school teachers is in general dissatisfactory (compare ZEDLER 1995; PÄTZOLD /DREES / THIELE 1998). Even if there is cooperation, it is not always sufficient to fulfil vocational-pedagogical expectations. In addition, cooperation is not really useful in all situations; it can even be a sign of a successful routinisation of the division of labour not to cooperate. Considering a widespread rejection of cooperation and inward-orientation at the internal training personnel in schools and companies as well as a self-obsessed dynamic of the institutions of teaching themselves, it is not surprising that areas of professional cooperation in the didactical and methodical field of training are rare. Middle-sized and small companies which conduct training see the time they have to spend on cooperation activities as a kind of burden anyway. For big companies with a highly structured training system the situation is different: they more often tend to cooperate with vocational schools in didactic-curricular and didactic-methodical dimensions than smaller firms, at least as long as the quality of the vocational-relates lessons meets their standards. Cooperation of teaching institutions is closely related to the orientation on fields of study (compare LIPSMEIER / PÄTZOLD /BUSION 2000). The orientation on subjects which so far had been predominant within the system of vocational schools has been relativised. The starting point of vocational teaching and learning is the orientation on the processes of vocational activities and on situations in various social areas. In 1996 the Conference of the Min-
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isters of Cultural Affairs (1999) agreed that from that day on the concept of orientation on fields of study formed the basis for occupation-related instruction in vocational schools. Only after the introduction of this concept it has become a topic for TVET research. Fields of study for vocational training are thematically oriented towards a formulation of goals, contents and time frames, which altogether create a unified structure for task and procedure settings. In fact, to realize the mandate of education the vocational school is free to construct tasks from a theoretical point of view, but the question is how internal work and business processes can be linked to the vocational school’s mandate of comprehensive education: “… if the empirical basis of the context of internal work and learning processes has enough validity and can therefore be the inducement and justification for the alignment of ↑ teaching and learning processes in schools” (DÖRIG 2003, 292). In addition, one can doubt if the changes in the process-orientated task fields reflect the condition of each ↑ related science (ibid., 345). Therefore, one has to agree that today’s vocational schools in fact do have a contemporary educational programmatic, but that they are lacking an all-embracing implementation of demanding didactic goals, methods and organization forms for instruction (compare EULER 1998, 137). A modernization of the work of vocational schools has therefore to follow the implementation and evaluation of this educational programmatic. The orientation on fields of study correlates with the expectation of an increasing acceptance of ↑ vocational schools on the part of companies that conduct training. At the same time this orientation allows vocational schools to become a micro-unity of the curriculum compilation. However, it can still be doubted if the main curricular principles of vocational training, that is the orientation on science, personality and situation, can be harmonized by this process. Problems which occur during the process of realisation originate in the rivalry between the concept of fields of study and the system of traditional subjects and accredited school certificates as well as in the significance of vocational knowledge necessary for the final exams which are operated by the responsible departments. Furthermore, the supporting or correspond-
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ing concept of task-based approach is so far not of great importance in vocational-related lessons in vocational schools. Predominant is still a topdown style of teaching. Task-based teaching mostly takes place just out of specific characteristics of knowledge within certain ↑ professions, e. g. in ↑ IT projects or commercial process simulations (compare NICKOLAUS 2000; MÜLLER 1998; PÄTZOLD / K LUSMEYER / WINGELS 2003). Furthermore one cannot assume that a ↑ didactical concept which combines systematic structures of subjects and taskbased structures has already been elaborated or implemented (compare LIPSMEIER 2000). This permits research which analyses the deficits in the curriculum situation from the perspective of the historical development of the vocational school, with the aim of drawing consequences for internal and external organisations (compare REINISCH 1995; PUKAS 1990; 1991; 1996; EICHLER /KÜHNLEIN 1997; FISCHER / UHLIG-SCHOENIAN 1995; HEIDEGGER / ADOLPH / LASKE 1997; RÜDEN 2000; PAHL 2001b; ZÖLLER / GERDS 2003; PÄTZOLD 2003b). Since 1998 the federal government and the governments of the Länder have supported the “BLK” (Bund-LänderKommission – Federal and State Commission for ↑ Educational Planning and Research Promotion) ↑ pilot projects which refer to the central problems and development areas, also in the vocational ↑ school system. These programmes are supposed to contribute to an increase in and an assurance of quality in development and evaluation. They combine major themes of focus and innovative approaches of the participating federal Länder and by that means offer a solid base of operations for the transfer and dissemination of the results. Meanwhile the “BLK” ↑ pilot projects “New Concepts for Learning in Dual Occupational Training” (compare DEITMER / FISCHER / GERDS ET AL. 2004), “Cooperation of Learning Institutions within Vocational Training” (KOLIBRI) (compare EULER 2003d and 2004a) and “Innovative Further Education of Teachers in Vocational Schools” (INNOVELLE-BS) (compare SCHULZ /K REUTER /K RÖNING / STAUDTE 2003; EBNER / PÄTZOLD 2003) – have contributed to the modernization of the vocational schools. ↑ Research fields of the BLK modernization program “New Concepts for Learning in Dual and Occupational Training” were among others: the
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further development of learning concepts, contents and materials as well as making the organization of construction more flexible to optimize the ↑ effectiveness of occupational learning. Furthermore it contains the development of curricula which are working-process-oriented, the improvement of coordination between educational concepts of learning and test methods as well as the evaluation of the ↑ effectiveness and quality of learning concepts and teaching methods. Research fields and goaloriented questioning within the program sponsorship KOLIBRI have been among others the development of cooperative concepts for getting more precise curricula, taking place on location which means in schools, as well as the development of instruments for the judgement of methods and social competence which accompany the training process. There were also research fields of the development of regulatory element-compatible concepts for modules in connection with vocational ↑ further education and the development of comprehensive and far-reaching supporting approaches which are related to different learning institutions in order to assure the training success of special learning groups. The aim of the BLK programme INNOVELLE-BS is the improvement of the qualification of ↑ vocational school teachers in the second and third phase of their professional training. Particularly those innovations which have been proven in these ↑ vocational school ↑ pilot projects should be transferred into the process of further education of teachers as well as into the traineeship before the second teacher’s exam. By this means theses innovations should become more widespread and better implemented. Nowadays the vocational school is in a different situation than in the 1970s (compare GRÜNER 1984, 97). Indeed, the “independent training contract” of the vocational school continues to be postulated, but there are different critical remarks which are connected with differentiated and in part empirically-founded requirements. Vocational schools face, for example, the problem of growing heterogeneity of the pupils with regards to origins and training interests. In addition, the average age of the students has risen so the students are in the average now older than 19 years. This shows
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“a picture of a relatively non-homogenous adult-training institution, whose obligatory character and teachingprogram badly need revision” (GREINERT 1998, 130).
Well-meaning critics aim with their requirements at “overcoming the deficiency in resource configuration, respectively neglect from political actors” (EULER 1998, 134). Other requirements, like for example the abolishment of the second day in vocational school, the dispensability of cross-professional subjects, the process of making vocational school teaching more consolidated or more flexible, determine in a considerable way the development of the vocational school and aim at a change of scope, organization and contents of vocational school education. Vocational school education is, against the background of a precarious situation regarding ↑ training places, not infrequently connected with a labelling of the vocational school as a “barrier to training”. Indeed a linear causality of a connection between changes in the organization of teaching in vocational schools and an increase in offers for training places can not be proved empirically (ibid., 136). Originally the vocational schools had claimed only those functions which had for al fairly long time been regarded by the companies as being urgent and which are also rarely questioned: the substantiation, explanation, consolidation, broadening as well as the systematization of the in-company goaloriented action aimed at the process of the production of goods and services. Furthermore, as a result of the change in the organization of vocational work training through the ↑ vocation has increasingly become training for the vocation, so the contents of training in companies and in schools do more and more overlap. In this respect there is talk of an “increasing erosion of the traditional mandate of education of the vocational school” (GREINERT 1998, 130). On the other hand a general harmony of goals between in-company and schoolbased training is negated, so it is “necessary to balance out business requirements, individual training expectations and social necessities in the context of the resource problematic” (NICKOLAUS 1998, 304).
The adaptation of findings which arise from the process of development of vocational school centres could open up new vistas for the internal organization of vocational schools, for example how
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to consider the individual problems of those involved. By this means self-guided processes of personal and organizational development could be gained (compare LISOP 1998; PAHL 2001b). This applies also to the newly emphasized urgency of school programmes, ↑ quality assurance and evaluation in connection with “New Public Management”. The decision which standards and which way of realization of educational action a trainer uses to back his or her quality valuation lies under his or her responsibility and proves to be inaccessible and unpredictable with regard to central guidelines (compare HEID 2000, 44). Regarding the external organization there are considerations to evolve vocational schools into “modern service centres” (compare KUTSCHA 1999) or “centres of regional competence” (compare R AUNER 1999b; AVENARIUS 2001; DOBISCHAT / ERLEWEIN 2003; KURZ 2002) which should also realize the advancement of innovation and the transfer of knowledge (compare GERDS 1992a; ALLMANNSBERGER-K LAUKE 1996; Eckert/ ROST/ BÖTTCHER ET AL. 2000). “As attractive and correct as such perspectives are, considering the current situation in the vocational schools they remain abstract and do rather raise more questions than offer medium-term realistic solutions. How should a school that today, due to personnel material resource reductions, already cannot accomplish its function, be able to accomplish the even more and bigger tasks which are inherent to a regional centre of competence and innovation? What can be realized is a new functional definition of the vocational schools within the restructuring of the entire educational system above the Secondary Level I” (BAETHGE 2003, 563).
What is now both desired and necessary is a systematic and empirical TVET research which aims at finding and clarifying problems of compatibility between ↑ vocational school programmes and everyday practice of vocational training (compare DOBISCHAT / DÜSSELDORFF / EULER ET AL. 2003).
Handbook of TVET Research
3.3.8.3 Vocational College Research: Case Studies of the USA Stephanie Riegg Cellini 3.3.8.3.1 Introduction In the ↑ United States, students pursuing vocational college education face a choice between the public and private sector. Public institutions, known as community or junior colleges, by definition offer a two-year associate’s degree as their highest degree, but they also offer an array of short-term vocational certificate programmes. Since 1901, these colleges have played a central role in the education and training of American workers and, because of a wealth of government data on these institutions, research on ↑ community colleges has been plentiful. In contrast, very little is known about private vocational colleges. These institutions, generally referred to as ↑ proprietary schools, technical institutes, or for-profit colleges, also provide a range of postsecondary vocational and technical programmes for U.S. students; but until recently, high-quality data on these institutions was lacking. This chapter reviews the literature on both types of institutions and highlights the central issues and questions that remain unresolved. In section 2, I review research on ↑ community colleges, highlighting the main lines of inquiry in recent years: schools and students, ↑ labour market effects, and ↑ educational attainment. In section 3, I turn to proprietary schools, comparing them to community colleges. Again I review what we know about schools and students, and I then address issues of convergence and competition between the private and public sectors. Next I turn to issues of financial aid and fraud in the private sector, and finally school quality. Section 4 concludes. 3.3.8.3.2 Community Colleges There are over 1,100 public community colleges in the ↑ United States serving almost six million students each year. With the exception of the District of Columbia, every state has at least one community college, with California and Texas supporting the most – at 110 and 67 community colleges,
Areas of VET Research
respectively (NCES 2003). The colleges are primarily supported by the states, with state funding sources comprising 40 per cent of total revenues (MURPHY 2004).
Schools and Students While each state’s community college system has its own mission statement, virtually all community colleges share two common goals. One goal is to promote the transfer option, where students move seamlessly into their junior year at a four-year college upon the completion of the first two years in a community college. This is the traditional role that community colleges were designed to fulfill when the first so-called “junior college” opened its doors in 1901 (BRINT/K ARABEL 1989). In the 1970s, however, community colleges sought to increase their vocational offerings to compete with the growing proprietary school sector, establish a niche for themselves outside of the four-year college market, and promote economic growth through increased worker productivity (BRINT/K ARABEL 1989; HONICK 1995). Today, a second, but equally important goal of the colleges is to provide vocational training and re-training for the state’s labour force, through an array of short-term certificate programmes. Community colleges attract a wide range of students. Compared to students in four-year colleges, community college students tend to be older and are more likely to attend classes part-time (64 per cent of community college students attend part-time, compared to just 27 per cent in four-year colleges). Moreover, a larger proportion of community college students are minorities – 35 per cent vs. 25 per cent in four-year colleges (NCES 2003). “Community college students are also more likely than four-year college students to be the first in their family to attend college and are much less likely to have parents who graduated from four-year colleges (K ANE / ROUSE 1999)”.
Since ↑ community colleges can be found in almost every city in the ↑ U.S., students often live at home. Close proximity combined with the relatively inexpensive tuition – typically one-half of tuition at four-year colleges – makes community college education and training affordable for low-income students.
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Labour Market Effects Building on a strong foundation of descriptive and ↑ historical research and following the literature on four-year college education, economists studying community colleges have focused primarily on measuring the returns to community college education. Kane and Rouse (1999) review the literature on this topic and find that each year of community colleges credit is associated with a 5 to 8 per cent increase in annual earnings. This figure is remarkably similar to findings for a year of fouryear college credit – leading some analysts to conclude that “a credit is a credit” no matter where one pursues their college education. However, work by Grubb (1995) and Jacobson, LaLonde, and Sullivan (2005), has suggested that a credit may not be a credit when comparing vocational and academic coursework in community colleges. Both studies find higher earnings gains for vocational programmes and courses. Grubb, using data from the NLS72 and SIPP in the mid1980s, finds that vocational credits and degrees in community colleges generate larger earnings gains than academic programmes, though these results vary a bit by data set, gender, completion of the program, and field of study. More recently, Jacobson, LaLonde, and Sullivan found even stronger evidence that vocational and technical coursework generate higher returns than academic coursework. Using a sample of displaced workers in Washington state and ↑ controlling for worker-specific unobserved heterogeneity, they find that a year of credits in quantitative and technical vocational courses generate earnings gains of 14 per cent for men and 29 per cent for women. In contrast, non-technical courses such as ↑ humanities and social sciences showed earnings gains of just four per cent and were not distinguishable from zero at conventional levels. Though their sample is not representative of all community college students, it does indicate that public community colleges are providing workplace-relevant skills that are valued by employers. Despite their history as transfer institutions, and a bureaucratic structure that makes it difficult to add programmes and courses to the curriculum, this line of research suggests that public community colleges are indeed successful when it comes to vocational education.
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Educational Attainment
3.3.8.3.3 Proprietary Schools
The nature of the community college, with its dual missions of transfer and training, has raised concerns over the impact of these institutions on a student’s lifetime ↑ educational attainment and therefore the overall education level of the population. Brint and Karabel (1989) and Clark (1960) argue that community college enrolment reduces a student’s chances of completing a four-year degree, even for those students who have the intention of transferring. Interestingly, both authors blame this problem on the fact that community colleges offer so many vocational education and terminal degree programmes. They suggest that students get sidetracked (either actively by counsellors – according to Clark – or perhaps on their own) into vocational programmes and are diverted away from a fouryear degree. This begs the question as to whether community colleges are diverting students who would otherwise pursue four-year college degrees, or if they are (in the words of Brint and Karabel) “democratising” education, by opening postsecondary education and training to students who would have otherwise ended their education after ↑ high school. Rouse (1995; 1998) answers this question, showing that high school graduates starting their college careers in community colleges experience no change in the probability of attaining a bachelor’s degree compared to students starting off in fouryear colleges. Still, if the argument put forward by Brint and Karabel and Clark has some merit, it may be possible for community colleges to actually increase the probability that students obtain bachelor’s degrees in the future if they offer fewer vocational and more academic programmes. As it stands, however, in California, the state with the strongest ↑ community college system, only about four per cent of all community college students in the state, or about 42,000 students, transfer from community colleges to California’s public four-year colleges each year (CPEC 2005). While there are many possible explanations for this pattern, it may indicate that students’ needs are better met with non-transferable vocational programmes and courses.
Private vocational colleges (hereafter referred to as ↑ proprietary schools) in the ↑ U.S. vary greatly in their structure, size, course offerings, and tuition – among other things. In fact, many proprietary schools offer four-year and even graduate degrees, but for the purposes of this discussion – and following recent literature – I focus on institutions that offer two-year degrees and shorter-term vocational certificates. In contrast to community colleges, there has been very little research on proprietary schools in the U.S. The main data set used by researchers to study U.S. colleges, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Survey (IPEDS) does not collect systematic data on these institutions, making even the simplest task of counting the number of these institutions difficult at best. Nonetheless, several descriptive studies based on case studies and smaller data sets document some of the unique characteristics of these schools and their students, and in recent years, causal research on these schools has begun with the introduction of new sources of data. I review these lines of research in the following sections. Before turning to research on proprietary schools, however, it is worth noting a bit about their history. Honick (1995) details the development of private vocational institutions in the U.S. Indeed, these types of institutions were among the very first institutions of learning in the new world. Small private ventures teaching navigation, business, building trades were popular in the Colonial Period and were known to have existed as early as 1636 – the same year as the founding of Harvard College (HONICK 1995). For the two centuries that followed until the establishment of public community colleges, for-profit ↑ vocational schools operated in a market with no competition – with entrepreneurs opening schools as demand for new skills evolved. Even after the introduction of community colleges, however, proprietary schools continued to grow, with the G.I. Bill of 1944 proving a boon to the forprofit sector. However, despite their popularity, allegations of fraud and abuse plagued these institutions throughout their history. Today, these schools capture the public’s attention more for their scandals than for their education, a topic I return to in the next sections.
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Schools and Students With the lack of data on proprietary schools, generating an accurate estimate of the number of schools and students nationwide is a daunting task. Until recently, most studies of U.S. proprietary schools relied on the IPEDS data (see for example, APLING 1993 and BAILEY/ BADWAY/ GUMPORT 2001). The IPEDS (and these studies) report approximately 2,500 private two-year institutions in the year 2000, enrolling just 700,000 students (NCES 2003). However, more recent research shows that the IPEDS data severely undercounts the number of for-profit institutions and students. By focusing on point-in-time fall enrolment counts and surveying only well-established financial-aid eligible institutions, the IPEDS neglects to account for a large number of proprietary schools and students (CELLINI 2005b). Drawing on a new administrative data set of California’s two-year degree and certificate-granting private colleges and reported in Cellini (2005b), I find that there are over 3,800 proprietary schools in California alone. With an average enrolment of about 350 students per school, I estimate that 1.3 million students attend proprietary schools in California every year, suggesting that researchers and the federal government are drastically underestimating the number of students who receive training in these institutions. Still, as I point out in that report, the IPEDS data is the only current source of data on students in these institutions. Though the institutions themselves are not representative of the universe of ↑ proprietary schools, the IPEDS can shed some light on patterns of student demographics, student services, and school expenditures that are not available elsewhere. Using the IPEDS for this purpose, I find similar patterns to those reported by Apling and Bailey, Badway, and Gumport. Noteably, when compared to community colleges, proprietary schools serve a slightly lower proportion of part-time students and a larger share of black and Hispanic students. Cheng and Levin (1995) also examine patterns in student demographics. They draw on data from the 1980 cohort of the ↑ High School and Beyond survey, which follows high school students six years after graduation. Though they base their results on a very small group of students who attended proprietary schools immedi-
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ately after graduation, and do not perform significance tests to validate their results, it is worth noting that Cheng and Levin find patterns of attendance similar to those reported by Apling (also for the mid-1980s) on socioeconomic status and family education: students in proprietary schools are more likely to come from low-income and less-educated families.
Convergence and Competition As is evident in the discussion of schools and students above, a dominant theme to come out of the proprietary school literature is how these institutions compare to ↑ community colleges. Questions of whether these two types of institutions are converging into one form, diverging, or competing with one another, have occupied researchers in recent years. In 1995, a volume of New Directions for Community Colleges focused exclusively on the question of whether proprietary schools and community colleges were experiencing conflict or convergence. Articles by Clowes (1995), Hittman (1995), Prager (1995), Chaloux (1995), and Hyslop and Parsons (1995) on various aspects of accreditation, missions, and policy support the idea of convergence, while Moore (1995) and Hawthorne (1995) argue that despite similarities on the surface, significant dissimilarities between the sectors do and should persist. Bailey, Badway, and Gumport and Cellini address the competition question in more detail. Both authors find that course offerings and certificate and degree programmes in community colleges and proprietary schools exhibit considerable overlap, particularly in vocational fields. However, the broader mission of community colleges encourages more general education, while proprietary schools emphasize more specific job skills. Still, despite the overlap, Bailey, Badway, and Gumport find that because of the small number of these proprietary schools and students (again, based on misleading IPEDS data), proprietary schools pose no real threat to community colleges. Their in-depth case study of a multiple-branch proprietary school and local community colleges also indicated that community college administrators generally did not consider proprietary schools competitors. The authors conclude that the existence and success of
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proprietary schools is not likely to exert a significant negative effect on community college enrolments. In Cellini (2005a), however, I find some evidence of competition. Using the California administrative data set on proprietary schools and a multivariate regression framework, I find that the number of community colleges is negatively correlated with the number of proprietary schools in a county. Each additional community college is associated with approximately ten fewer proprietary schools. Using fixed effects and regression discontinuity methods to reduce endogeneity, I further find that an exogenous shock to community college funding causes a decrease in the number of proprietary schools and a corresponding increase in enrolment in community colleges, suggesting that these two types of institutions may indeed be substitutes – at least for ↑ vocational students who can find courses and degrees to fit their needs at both types of institutions.
Financial Aid and Fraud ↑ Proprietary schools in the ↑ United States have been plagued by scandal throughout their history and today’s schools are no exception. Recent headlines include, “For-Profit College: Costly Lesson” (CBSnews.com Jan. 30., 2005), “A College is Accused of Cheating in Aid Process” (NEW YORK TIMES DEC. 6., 2005), and “New York Moves to Limit Colleges that Seek Profit” (NEW YORK TIMES JAN. 21., 2006), suggesting that financial aid fraud and abuse is a central concern for the American public. Tuition at proprietary schools varies considerably, but both Cellini and Bailey, Badway, and Gumport estimate it to be between $5,000 and $10,000 per year – making access to financial aid essential for many proprietary school students. Indeed, the news articles cited above generally report cases in which students were encouraged to take out large loans for their education, then the schools closed or students remained unemployed long after graduation. Bailey, Badway, and Gumport confirm that proprietary school students receive considerably larger amounts of financial aid than community college students from both institutional sources and other sources, such as the state and federal government. Breaking sources of aid down further, in
Handbook of TVET Research
Cellini (2005b) I find that federal Pell Grants accounts for a large part of the difference in aid between proprietary school students and ↑ community college students. It is likely that the structure of the program provides incentives for proprietary school entrepreneurs to recruit Pell Grant eligible students. Since the formula accounts for the cost of education, students attending proprietary schools are not only more likely to receive grants than their counterparts at low-cost community colleges, but they also receive larger grants. Indeed the Pell Grant may be a lifeline for many proprietary schools. In Cellini (2005a) I find that when the Pell Grant increases, proprietary schools enter the market, and the pattern is particularly strong in low-income areas. This finding supports the contention of Moore (1995) that proprietary school entrepreneurs choose to open in low-income areas, then actively recruit Pell Grant-eligible students. Others have suggested that these schools also raise their tuition to extract the maximum value of the grant (HONICK 1995), but I find no evidence of this behaviour (CELLINI 2005a).
Quality The fact that proprietary schools react to the Pell Grant might be desirable if it is the case that these institutions provide high-quality training. If there are positive economic returns from attendance, then the recruitment of low-income students may go far in increasing productivity and narrowing the wage gap between traditional four-year college-educated workers and those with less education. On the other hand, some of the students cited in the news articles above claim they received a poorquality education. Despite the importance of this question of quality, to date very little research has been done on the ↑ labour market returns to proprietary school education. Angrist (1993) found that veterans using G.I. Bill benefits for vocational, technical, or on-the-job training, experienced no earnings gains, while those identified as attending college, did. The main problem with this study, and others calculating returns to various educational pathways, is the imprecise definition and identification of community colleges and proprietary schools. For example, would a veteran who completed a one-year vocational program in electronics at a community college be identified in the
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survey as attending college or receiving vocational training? In most large-scale longitudinal surveys, it is impossible to know. A few other measures of school quality, however, have been studied. Bailey, Badway, and Gumport report that program completion rates are much higher in proprietary schools than in community colleges. Among two-year colleges in the IPEDS, for-profits enrol only 3.8 per cent of students, but they award 13 per cent of the total degrees and certificates, albeit shorter-term certificate programmes rather than two-year degrees. The authors’ case studies confirm that student retention and completion are central concerns for proprietary schools, but not very relevant for community colleges. In Cellini (2005b) I present evidence from California that suggests that both types of institutions have similar completion rates. Despite the slight differences in vocational and academic program offerings noted above, I find that similar programmes in ↑ community colleges and ↑ proprietary schools require similar courses (CELLINI 2005b). Bailey, Badway, and Gumport further find that the specific pedagogy used in classrooms is similar at both institutions, but proprietary schools tend to make greater use of labs and practical applications. Finally, both studies find that student services, such as counseling and career services, are much more developed at proprietary schools. Students may be willing to pay the higher tuition for more services and the personal attention of a proprietary school.
3.3.8.3.4 Discussion and Conclusions Whether they are attending public community colleges or private proprietary schools, millions of Americans pursue vocational college education every year. With the availability of new data sets on the private sector, researchers are starting to unravel the mysteries of private sector vocational college education and compare these institutions to their counterparts in the public sector. While students can find similar vocational certificate and degree programmes in both the private and public sector, substantial differences exist between community colleges and proprietary schools. Students at proprietary schools are charged higher tuition fees, and, for better or worse, they garner a larger amount of financial aid. Proprietary schools tend to be much smaller in size, enrol a larger proportion of minority students, and put more emphasis on program completion and student services. Despite the gains in our understanding over the past few years, however, important questions regarding vocational college education remain unanswered. Most importantly, what is the quality of a proprietary school education? Do students attending community colleges and proprietary schools see similar earnings gains for the same course of study? We must also settle questions about whether these schools compete for students, how the incentives created by financial aid programmes impact the behaviour of school and students, and whether the industry requires more or less regulation. The answers to these questions will have enormous implications for the future of vocational college education in the ↑ United States.
3.4.0 VET Planning and Development Jeroen Onstenk 3.4.0.1
New Challenges for VET Planning and Development
↑ VET planning and development is an important field of VET research. As a general observation it could be stated that relevant concepts, approaches and research issues since the1990’s have been changing in response to changes in the ↑ VET system itself (→ 2.5; → 3.3) as well as in societal
and ↑ labour market demands made to it (→ 2.4; → 3.1.5; → 3.6). This change could be summarised as a multi level transformation process of man power demand driven, reactive and reproduction oriented VET planning and ↑ curriculum design towards more open, dynamic, shaping and career oriented approaches of organisational as well as professional development in flexible VET systems (NIJHOF / HEIKKINEN / NIEUWENHUIS 2002; ON-
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2005). This transformation is prompted by changes in technology and organisation of work, resulting in growing demands on both work content related competences and ↑ work process knowledge (general competences, ↑ key qualifications, core skills) (BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002) (→ 3.6) as well as by changes in the economic structure, i.e. the rise of employment in services compared to industry. But there are also important changes in the development of the educational system itself, i.e. the rise of school based vocational trajectories or the opening up of new pathways from vocational to higher education (BRUIJN 2006). VET is expected to prepare students for life in the broadest sense; rather than preparing them for the immediate demands of the labour market at a given point. The aim for planning and development becomes to anticipate how employment will evolve and to give individuals a knowledgebase that will enable them to benefit from ↑ mobility (K IRSCH 2005). This takes the form, for example, of designing frames of reference for VET based on cutting-edge, innovative practice rather than on the demands typically made by companies (→ 3.1.4; → 3.8). This transformation process is going on in most developed countries, but gets specific characteristics depending on the presence of an elaborated specific VET system. In countries with no well established system of vocational education, like the Anglo-Saxon countries, in the strict sense there is no ↑ VET planning at all (→ 3.3). Nevertheless, questions with regard to the role of education in (re)producing a qualified labour force or to the relationship between professional and ↑ organisational development are becoming ever more important as a result of the rediscovery of ↑ human capital and competences as an economic asset in the global competitive economy. Major research areas, represented in this section, are connected to relevant problem areas in the VET planning and development process: – Analysis of labour market development and curriculum content – New insights in the development of competences and expertise – Integration of learning places STENK
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– Professional development of VET Teachers and Trainers – VET and ↑ organisational development in companies 3.4.0.2
Labour Market Development and Curriculum Content
A first relevant theme, which deals with the most important planning question for VET, is the analysis of contents of VET taking into account labour market developments as well as curriculum needs. There is an elaborated tradition of analysis of ↑ occupational profiles and trends as a source for training curricula, curricular frameworks and the related syllabuses for in-company as well as schoolbased vocational education and training. Profiles are always based on some form of investigation of qualification requirements. All countries with (e. g. Germany) or without (e. g. ↑ USA or England) advanced TVET systems have developed schemes of ↑ qualification research. Qualification typifies the ‘labour market’ facet of the relationship between training and employment. The term carries the notion of ‘skills’ but also the connotation of something that has been ‘negotiated’. In this negotiation one could be confronted with a lifetime perspective of a qualification and whether it prepares an individual in the short term for a particular job or also prepares the individual for future developments, including possible career development and/ or sideways moves into a new occupation (→ 2.1). If the occupation at which a qualification is aimed is defined too narrowly, or the curriculum is too strongly vocational, the qualified worker will not be able to progress within the education system. Conversely, a vocational qualification used to gain access to higher education can lose part of its vocational content and, hence, of its value on the ↑ labour market (MÉHAUT 1997). Rauner (→ 3.4.1) gives a short analysis of the historical development of ↑ qualification research. Vocational certificates or “qualifications” denote the knowledge, skills and attitudes that are defined as necessary for the ↑ performance of a specific set of professional tasks. Technological, organisational and economic developments call for an extended concept of qualifications, emphasizing the ability to reflect and to participate in shaping the con-
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ditions of work as well as one’s vocational career. This includes the incorporation of ↑ key qualifications and ↑ work process knowledge, but can also demand for a redefinition of the concept of occupation itself (→ 3.1.1; → 3.1.5). The analysis as well as the translation into curricula is influenced by the degree in which professional work is organised in occupations with a more or less recognised status in the economic as well as labour relations system (→ 2.3). In some countries there is a dominance of strong forms of ↑ occupational identity; in other countries this is much less developed. Wolbers (2005) identifies two labour market systems in Europe: (1) internal labour markets systems and (2) occupation based labour market systems. The systems differ in their relations to the education system. In countries with an internal labour markets system newcomers to the labour market start their career in low qualified jobs, learning on the job and following additional courses that will help them to acquire the competences needed for a career. The relation to the education system is rather loose. The United Kingdom, ↑ France, Ireland and Belgium are countries with an internal labour markets system. In countries with an occupationbased labour market system (Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark) it’s the role of the vocational education system to qualify young people for the labour market. Vocational education always needs some form of analysis of incorporated competences and occupational profiles as a foundation of educational contents and objectives with reference to the characteristic ↑ work tasks and fields of agency in a particular occupation (→ 3.1; → 3.6). Newer forms of qualification analysis have to be informed by research into expertise development, showing the need for integration and transformation of scientific knowledge into ↑ practical knowledge (→ 3.2; → 3.6). That implies taking into account qualitative changes as well as specific attention for ways to organise and support integration and connections with learning experiences. ↑ Curriculum research can no longer be seen as a straightforward translation of occupational practice into educational content. Expertise research, showing the fundamental importance of ↑ domain-specific knowledge for the transfer of professional action compe-
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tences should be related to domain-specific qualification and curriculum research (→ 3.2). The international dissemination of the results and methods of qualification research has been made difficult by highly divergent systems of vocational education and training, but can now profit form the growing involvement of vocational education and training in processes of ↑ internationalisation. The chances for a dissemination of results and methods in qualification research have become larger. On the other hand, so have the challenges. Analysis has to take into account that employment is divided both horizontally (‘families’ of occupations) and vertically (in a job hierarchy). New production regimes (→ 3.8.0) and broader changes in the economy, influence both demarcations and hence cross traditional barriers between jobs and even economic sectors. In many ways, ↑ vocations have either disappeared, or are subject to deep changes with respect to object, methods and social standing (→ 2.3). 3.4.0.3
Competence and Expertise Research
An important reference point for international debates is a common understanding of new insights with regard to competence and expertise research. Röben (→ 3.4.2) discusses the enormous variation in definitions of competence found in scientific as well as VET oriented literature (ONSTENK / BROWN 2002). The debate on competences is enriched by analysing the literature on expertise development. In comparison to a novice, an expert is characterized by a specific quality of his or her knowledge (BENNER 1984; → 4.2). Very different disciplines and theoretical structures are used as basis for defining terms like skills, vocational knowledge, competence or expertise. It should be emphasized that competence does not denote a simple set of skills, knowledge and attitudes connected to specific tasks or circumstances, but should be seen as the capacity of an individual to act effectively in a specific ↑ occupational field. Competence is complex and can only be revealed with relatively great effort. Mansfield/ Mitchell (1996) distinguish four dimensions: task, task management, contingency management and dealing with the work environment. Competence to act can be seen as the willingness and ability of
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the individual to act in an appropriately thoughtout as well as individually and socially responsible manner in a range of specific occupational, social and private situations. Competence is a multidimensional concept, including specific vocational knowledge and skills as well as ↑ work process knowledge (BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002). For example, in the Netherlands a concept of core competences was introduced in defining qualifications as ‘an individual’s abilities to tackle occupational core problems in an adequate way’. Each qualification should encompass four subtypes of competences: – Professional/craftsmanship and methodical competences; – Managerial/organisational and strategic competences; – Social-communicative and normative-cultural competences; – Learning and shaping competences (ONSTENK / BROWN 2002). Multidimensionality is characteristic for the competence concept. In meeting the nature of competences, not only should qualifications change, but also the curricula preparing students need to meet qualifications (→ 3.7). In adopting the concept of competence based education, VET should prepare its students to become a complete ‘professional’, not only mastering the skill side of an occupation, but also familiarity with the social-dynamic and cultural aspects of an occupation. From this viewpoint the responsibility of VET is to guide its students to develop an ↑ occupational identity (→ 3.6.8). Identity learning should be the essence of competence based VET. That implies a focus on the internalization of the ‘habitus’ of occupational practice, that is the ever-changing configuration of interpretations individuals attach to themselves, as related to the activities they participate in (GEIJSEL / MEIJERS 2005). 3.4.0.4
Learning Places
The complexity of competence development as well as the close relationship with developing vocational practice, necessitates the integration of different dimensions of vocational knowledge (codified and theoretical as well as tacit and practical). Going from content to delivery, an impor-
tant defining characteristic of vocational education in almost all countries is the existence of different learning places contributing to vocational development (→ 3.7). Sometimes these are part of the same system (as in ↑ dual systems), sometimes they are sequential steps, as a process of more or less organised inclusion (practical, work based learning) after a school based trajectory of theoretical learning. This makes the integration of learning experiences in different learning places a crucial aspect in ↑ VET planning and development (GUILE / GRIFFITHS 2001; 2003; ONSTENK 2003). Research on connections between different learning sites, processes and results is therefore an important aspect of VET planning and development. Walden (→ 3.4.3) gives a case study of the German situation. He sees cooperation as an overarching topic and relevant to a wide range of issues relating to vocational training. Cooperation and connection between learning sites has to include mutual references between theoretical and ↑ practical knowledge acquisition, construction and development, without reducing or subjecting one learning process to the other. This implies practical collaboration of teaching and training staff at different ↑ learning venues involved in vocational education and training in technological, organisational and educational terms. Research into ↑ cooperation between learning venues frequently focuses on the relationships between quite specific places of learning, such as companies and ↑ vocational schools or vocational schools and ↑ inter-company training centres. Alongside the analysis of the forms of cooperation practised, considerable significance should be attached to the development of approaches for extending cooperation and of suitable practice related cooperation models. In Germany these relationships are investigated in academically monitored ↑ pilot projects, representing both instruments of academic research and tools for changes in practice. In other countries as well there is a growing amount of research on improving the quality in terms of content and guidance of work based learning, as well as strengthening connections between school and work based learning. In most countries vocational training systems are becoming more important as well as more mixed (BROWN / GREEN / LAUDER 2000). Traditional bar-
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riers between vocational and general or academic education erode, sometimes by making general education more vocational (as for example, in very different ways, in England or ↑ France), sometimes by making vocational education more general (as for example in the Netherlands). In countries with a traditional strong dual system there is a strengthening of independent specialised ↑ vocational school based systems, creating competition for the apprenticeship system of training. In countries with a traditionally strong ↑ school system, new forms of apprenticeship are promoted. This implies an even bigger need for cooperation in order to deliver theoretically sound and practically relevant training. New combinations of ↑ learning venues (such as between specialised vocational schools and companies) should become a greater focus of research. 3.4.0.5
VET Teachers and Trainers
The variety of ↑ vocational curricula, demands on expertise development as well as ↑ work process knowledge make professional development of VET teachers and trainers an essential problem in VET planning and development. Growing demands on quality and quantity of VET in most countries make research into expected competences and training of VET teachers a hot issue. Professional development of VET teachers is lagging behind (ATTWELL / BROWN 1999). While focussing on the German situation with its distinction between vocational teachers in vocational schools and trainers in companies, Bauer/ Grollmann (→ 3.4.4) analyse some important issues of broader relevance. The need for professional development is augmented by the growing diversification in ↑ vocational students (e. g. immigrants) as well as declared policy objectives (Lisbon 2000 and beyond) aiming for rising enrolment in higher education, which put higher demands on professional and academic accomplishments in VET. The authors identify a great number of deficits and problems with regard to vocational teacher training and professional development. Although they mainly refer to the German situation, themes with respect to the relationship between vocational and pedagogical knowledge and expertise are relevant in all countries (→ 3.7). New insights in learning and expertise de-
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velopment require a more sophisticated and varied repertoire in didactic and pedagogical methods, tools and practices. Vocational teachers are either trained and experienced professionals in their ↑ vocation or trained in general subjects like mathematics, language or history. In the first case, especially in ↑ vocational schools, becoming a teacher implies the risk of not remaining up-to-date with respect to technological, methodical or organisational changes in vocational practice. In the second case, they often have no familiarity with the ↑ vocation, so have difficulty in connecting general subjects to vocational issues. Coming from a professional background, many vocational teachers and trainers lack proper pedagogical and didactical training, but even if they get any, questions can be raised with regard to quality and ↑ effectiveness. In most countries there is no tradition of ↑ vocational pedagogies. And if there is, actual training practices vary considerably in taking into account new insights in learning theory (i.e. cognitive, constructivist and situated approaches). The need for combining research into ↑ new didactic and pedagogical designs with research into the professional development of teachers and trainers should be stressed (ONSTENK / BROWN 2002). 3.4.0.6
VET and Organisational Development
Research on ↑ VET planning and development has a double relationship with the economy and ↑ labour market. On one level it has to deal with demands with respect to the competences and qualifications of the labour force (→ 3.1). On another level it contributes to economic and organisation development, by identifying specific sets of expertise and by developing learning and shaping competences (→ 2.4; → 3.6.3; → 3.8). The existence of an elaborated system of high quality (and high level) vocational education is important in striving for an innovative high skills economy (MAURICE / SORGE / WARNER 1980; BROWN / GREEN / LAUDER 2000). Dybowski and Dietzen (→ 3.4.5) deal with this relationship by analysing innovative and dynamic VET as a strategic resource for innovation both on the level of the economy as a whole and on the level of companies. This discussion is going on in all countries, with or without an es-
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tablished ↑ VET system. The chapter gives some lessons from Germany with regard to the role of the so-called vocational principle (Beruflichkeit), which traditionally characterised VET. Reported research findings confirm the hypothesis that “new ↑ professionalism” (neue Fachlichkeit) is emerging (ONSTENK / BROWN 2002). As work based learning is an important, necessary – and in most countries – growing – part of VET (RAIZEN 1994), an enduring system of competence development can only be achieved if there are accompanying changes in organisational structures: development of appropriate structures for cooperation and communication in companies, strategic alignment of management personnel, creation of clear recognition and reward structures, and promotion and development of working environments that foster learning (NYHAN 2002). On the other hand, competence development can be seen as a basic prerequisite of any technological, methodical or organisational innovation in the company, as it ensures that the workforce is equipped with the necessary capabilities to support such a transformation. As individuals, workers will need more ↑ work process knowledge and reflective abilities like “organisational awareness”, “↑ participation in processes of change” and the ability to “define their own role”. They need this to negotiate the compatibility of their personal interests and career development with their occupational practice and the interests of the company. The conclusion that elements of occupation-specific, process and social competence should increasingly be treated as an integrated whole is important for all countries. The analysis of content and relative importance of different components of occupational competence within the framework of existing and emerging ↑ occupational profiles is an important challenge for research in the area of ↑ VET planning and development. Mutual relationships between VET, skills development and ↑ organisational development should be centre stage in this research. This implies cooperation and communication between different and in many respects separated ↑ fields of research, i.e. management, learning organisation and organisational development, ↑ qualification research, expertise and competence development research and career research.
Handbook of TVET Research
3.4.1
Qualification and Curriculum Research Felix Rauner
3.4.1.1
Conceptual Clarification
The development of occupational profiles, training curricula, curricular frameworks and the related syllabuses for in-company and school-based vocational education and training is based on the investigation of qualification requirements. The term “qualification” comprises the knowledge, skills and attitudes that need to be transferred for the ↑ performance of professional tasks. Qualifications denote the professional actions determined by the design and organisation of work. They represent thus the objective side of professional skills and knowledge. This extension of the concept of qualification leads to certain overlaps with the concepts of competence and education. An extended concept of qualifications emphasises the ability to reflect and to participate in shaping the conditions of work. What underlies the concept of qualification is the labour studies category of the complete professional action: the connection of planning, performing and evaluating professional tasks (HELLPACH 1922; EMERY 1959; TOMASZEWSKI 1981; H ACKER 1986a; VOLPERT 1987c; BREMER 2005a). For the investigation of qualification requirements this entails the consequence that the characteristic work settings of an occupation have to be examined. Qualification research (DYBOWSKI / HAASE / RAUNER 1993, 139 ff.; K IRWAN /AINSWORTH 1999; GAEL 1988; BUCH / FRIELING 2004) is directed towards the analysis of professional work organised in occupations and the incorporated competences, the development of ↑ occupational profiles and the foundation of educational contents, objectives and structures of vocational education and training with reference to the characteristic ↑ work tasks and fields of agency in a particular occupation (BENNER 1997; BECKER / MEIFORT 2004; RAUNER 2002e). 3.4.1.2
On the Genesis of Qualification Research
All countries with advanced TVET systems normally also developed schemes of qualification re-
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search during the second half of the past century. The distinguished status of qualification research in Germany has its origins in the practice of ↑ TVET planning research that was established step by step since the beginning of the 20th century. In this field, industrial associations, the emerging TVET research as well as the public authorities responsible for vocational education and training work together. The Vocational Education and Training Act (Berufsbildungsgesetz) of 1969 additionally strengthened this tradition. Qualification research acquired a certain degree of legal validity by the allocation of the missions of occupation and ↑ curriculum development to the newly established Federal Institute for TVET Research (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildungsforschung – BBF), which was later to become the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung – BIBB). A crucial influence on curriculum development is exercised by the various ↑ task analysis methods that were developed especially in the ↑ United States as a basis for competency based training (↑ CBT). The first studies on this topic were conducted in the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army in the 1950s (cf. MILLER 1953; DAVIES 1973). Besides the application in the education and training of skilled workers, the approach of task analysis is also used in the design of work systems and the interaction between man and machine (cf. FRIELING / GROTE /K AUFFELD 2003; → 3.8.5). A more advanced type of task analysis as the basis of curriculum development is the DACUM (↑ Designing A Curriculum) method. The foundation of ↑ curriculum design is a method for occupation and task analysis. It is based on the identification of professional work tasks by so-called expert skilled workers (SPÖTTL 2005) This method that was developed by experts on Canadian TVET in the early 1960s (GLENDENNING 1995) was later improved by Robert Norton at the Center on Education and Training (CETE) at Ohio State University and introduced in many countries (NORTON 1997). The method of experts and skilled workers workshops was taken up and further developed by the Institute Technology and Education, Bremen (ITB) in the course of a design-oriented training approach (→ 5.2.4; → 3.5.1; → 2.4). This was accompanied by a fun-
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damental change of perspective, which led to the replacement of discipline-based training plans by others, based on developmental theory. This is exemplified by ↑ vocational curricula structured according to ↑ developmental logic (RAUNER /K LEINER 2004). Knowledge research was introduced into ↑ qualification research via the concept of ↑ work process knowledge. Work process knowledge includes the practical, theoretical, action-governing and explaining knowledge (RAUNER 2002a, 33 f.; BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002). In this context ↑ practical knowledge is assigned a special quality for professional ability. Regulation-oriented qualification research or, respectively, ↑ curriculum research as it is established in Germany especially at the BIBB, aims directly at the preparation of ↑ training regulations. It is based on the work-analytical studies by Frank B. Gilbreth (1868–1924) and also on the work-analytical studies of the “Verband für Arbeitsstudien – REFA e. V.” (established in 1924 as “Reichsausschuss für Arbeitszeitermittlung”, renamed “Reichsausschuss für Arbeitsstudien” in 1935, for further details see REFA 1972). The first steps towards a work-analytical qualification research had already been made by REFA and the VDI (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure) in the 1920s REFA 1972, 17 ff.). It was only with the scientific time studies of Taylor (1911) that a quick dissemination of work analytic methods began. This also included the employment of ↑ work analysis for the pedagogical concept of work instruction (RIEDEL 1956). Analyses of work were initially directed towards staff assessment and differentiation of wages and were only at a later stage directed towards work instruction, aptitude and inclination ↑ diagnostics in career advice and towards occupation analysis (MOLLE 1965). In the 1970s sociological and work analytical approaches to qualification research were developed (see PORNSCHLEGEL 1968; MICKLER / MOHR / K ADRITZKE 1977; GRÜNEWALD / DEGEN /K RICK 1979). There were, however, only few connections between curriculum research on the one hand and social scientific qualification research on the other (→ 3.1.5; → 4.4).
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Tab. 1: Six Dimensions of Practical Knowledge (Rauner 2004a based on Benner 1997)
3.4.1.3
Qualification Research as Transformation of Scientific Knowledge
A quite common method of defining the contents of vocational education and training is the transformation of the discipline-specific knowledge generated by the sciences into teaching and learning contents for vocational training. Donald Schön criticises this concept of deriving ↑ practical knowledge from science: “This concept of ‘applications’ leads to a view of professional knowledge as a hierarchy in which ‘general principles’ occupy the highest level and ‘concrete problem solving’ the lowest” (SCHÖN 1983, 24).
As this method is very common it will be discussed here although it does not, strictly speaking, belong to the methods of ↑ qualification research (SCHEIN 1973). The basic assumption of this ↑ research approach is the thesis that social knowledge is generated by the sciences, and that it is available via their textbooks for all types of education and training. Practical knowledge as it appears everywhere in professional work is interpreted from this perspective as being applied scientific knowledge. This widespread common sense theory that has always shaped the attitude and conduct of TVET
teachers and TVET planners has engendered manifold methods and rules which seek to transform theoretical knowledge into the language of users in the domains of work, to exemplify it with reference to specific contexts, and above all to transfer this knowledge by means of inductive learning methods such as action-oriented learning. “Pure mathematics” thus becomes, in the world of vocational education and training, disciplinary and occupation-specific “applied” or “professional” mathematics. Technical matters in the vocational domains of construction, ↑ mechanical engineering, computer science and electrical engineering are interpreted and presented as applied sciences. The fact that technology springs from an inextricable relationship between what is socially desirable and what is technically possible so that technology is essentially a reification of societal ends escapes from attention in this perspective. Under the applied sciences approach technology therefore remains confined to technical guidance (Techniklehre) that neglects this connection. In this respect a fundamental importance is attributed to the ↑ novice-expert paradigm (DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1986). A procedure based on this paradigm for the identification of the paradigmatic
Areas of VET Research
work situations for the vocational training of nurses was developed by Patricia Benner. In the shape of case descriptions the characteristic work situations, structured according to ↑ developmental logic, form the basis of the curriculum (BENNER 1997). In her research on the professional skills of nurses Patricia Benner distinguishes six dimensions of practical knowledge (Table 1). Unlike scientific concepts, the aspects and scope of the meaning of practical concepts are revealed on the basis of experience. The practical concepts that people subjectively possess play a central part in professional work because they predominantly shape the action-governing knowledge (HOLZKAMP 1985, 226 f.). 3.4.1.4
Qualification Research as Basis for Occupation and Curriculum Development
The development and modernisation of ↑ occupational profiles and training curricula is considered a prerogative of TVET experts in the economic sectors. The public authorities responsible for education and the economy usually trust the domain experts more than others to have the competence with which to develop training curricula. Here a division of labour has emerged between the experts of professional associations and qualification and ↑ curriculum research, according to which the cornerstones for the design of occupations and the basic structures of ↑ vocational curricula are defined by the experts of business organisations, whilst the details are delegated to the researchers. Quite often these tasks are exclusively fulfilled by the business experts, without the ↑ participation of TVET research. During the establishment of joint apprenticeship programmes in the ↑ United States, for instance, the contents of apprenticeship programmes were defined by the representatives of the involved enterprises. Wolfgang Becker and Barbara Meifort draw attention to the continuing development of qualification research in Germany since the mid-1990s (BECKER / MEIFORT 2004). They distinguish three branches of qualification research, namely, qualification state research, qualification application research and qualification development research. Qualification state research comprises the analy-
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sis of training contents and structures of vocational training programmes under the jurisdiction of the BBiG on the basis of statistical data, the relevant publications and the training curricula. “Im Zentrum der Curriculumanalyse stehen Fragen nach der Berufsspezifik, der Berufsbezogenheit und der Angemessenheit der in den einzelnen Berufen zu vermittelnden Qualifikationen [At the core of curriculum analysis there are questions of the specificity, the occupationrelatedness and the adequacy of the qualifications to be transferred in the different trades]” (ibid., 47).
Qualification application research includes above all case studies that are expected to give information about the modernisation and re-regulation of initial and continuing training programmes. Another focus of this research is the evaluation of modernisation and re-regulation projects (cf. BORCH / WEISSMANN 2002; PETERSEN / WEHMEYER 2000). The results of the evaluation are used for improving the implementation of newly regulated occupations, ↑ occupational groups and ↑ occupational fields as well as for the further development of occupations and professional regulations. It is only in rare cases that re-regulation and modernisation procedures are prepared by comprehensive ↑ qualification research projects since from the point of view of the involved social partners these are:
Fig. 1: BIBB model of the development of proposals for training curricula (BENNER 1996, 59)
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“im fein austarierten System der Kooperation von Staat und Sozialparteien in der Ordnungsarbeit als unzulässiger Eingriff der Forschung in die autonomen Aufgaben der Vertreter der Praxis zurückgewiese [rejected within the delicately balanced system of cooperation of the state and the social partners in regulation activities as an unauthorised intrusion of science into the prerogative of the representatives of practice]” (BECKER / MEIFORT 2004, 45).
Qualification development research was the reaction of ↑ qualification research towards the accelerating technological innovations and the ensuing changes in qualification requirements in the mid-1990s (ALEX / BAU 1999). A research consortium for the early ↑ diagnosis of qualification requirements was established (BULLINGER 2000; 2002). There is a deep controversy on ↑ research methods for the estimation of the future perspectives of occupation-based skilled work. From a socio-historical point of view the erosion of occupation-based work in the course of continuing rationalisation appears to be the outcome of a law of history. The research findings in occupational sociology and labour studies seem to confirm this hypothesis by empirical data. On the other hand there is a clear preference in the political debate on TVET reform in the 1990s to favour occupation-based skilled work and a related model of vocational education and training over other types of flexible work and education. This reform debate is supported by the concept of open dynamic core occupations (HEIDEGGER / RAUNER 1997a; KMK 1997; BMBF 1997). Other forms of occupation research and assessment (ORA) were developed and implemented in the ↑ United States. “The US Department of Labour developed a comprehensive system that provides information about nearly
Fig. 2: Rating Procedure for Professional Tasks
Handbook of TVET Research 1,000 occupations within the US economy: the occupational information network (O*NETTM). The basis of this procedure is a model for the description of activities (content model) that was developed by Mumford and Peterson (PETERSON / MUMFORD / BORMAN ET AL. 1999). Job incumbents from each occupation have to rate the task structure of the occupations. Each task has to be rated relating to the relevance, importance, and frequency with which occupational tasks are performed. In this context the human resources research organisation (HRRO) developed and implemented a methodology to analyse the task data. The rating methodology contains three dimensions: – relevance to the occupation. Specifically incumbents were asked to indicate whether the tasks are ‘not relevant’ to the occupation, – importance to the occupation on a five-point-scale with anchors of not important (1), somewhat important (2) important (3), very important (4) and extremely important (5). – frequency with which the tasks are performed on a seven-point-scale with anchors of once a year or less (1), two hourly or more (7)”.
This procedure is network-based. Experts from the respective domains who can give evidence of their status participate in the procedure and have the opportunity to continuously analyse ↑ occupational profiles, to evaluate them and to develop them further. Professional ↑ work tasks that have become outdated are excluded by this procedure, while new tasks, e. g. professional work tasks induced by technological innovations, are similarly integrated through this procedure. Similar rating techniques are applied in the ↑ DACUM method. After the characteristic tasks of an occupation have been identified by skilled worker-experts they are presented to a greater number of training experts and weighted according to comparable criteria. The occupation development procedure developed at the ITB includes a rating procedure that
Areas of VET Research
allows for a differentiation between core and marginal tasks (see Fig. 2). 3.4.1.5
Ergological and Sociological Qualification Research
Ergological and psychological ↑ qualification research is increasingly turning towards the subjective dimension of qualification requirements. Since its arrival it developed a multitude of activities: (1) For the analysis of job tasks: the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS), the subjective work analyses and subjective task analyses. The investigation of regulation requirements and obstacles as well as the stress related ↑ work analysis and the Task Analysis Inventory (TAI) etc. (2) For the assessment of job tasks: criteria of feasibility, tolerability, reasonableness and satisfaction; the task assessment system (Tätigkeitsbewertungssystem – TBS) with the main categories of organisational and technical conditions, degrees of responsibility, ↑ performance requirements as well as qualification and learning needs; the contrastive ↑ task analysis (Kontrastive Aufgabenanalyse – KABA) for design recommendations for the supporting application of information and telecommunication technology. (3) For the design of work tasks: criteria of personal work design with extensible leeway for flexible actions and autonomous decisions; promotion of prospective work design, e. g. in the development of programmable software systems or decentralised manufacturing systems; concepts of task extension; alternative approaches to ↑ human-centred work and technology design (cf. DYBOWSKI / HAASE / RAUNER 1993, 139 ff.). In this context Frieling points at the limited range of standardised analysis techniques as they were developed by Ernest J. McCormick (1979), Felix Frei and Eberhard Ulich (1981), Walter Volpert (1974) as well as other researchers in labour studies. These instruments might well be used as a means of structuring important aspects of the ↑ work process (FRIELING 1995b, 288), but the abstract formulation of the items is inadequate for the analysis and evaluation of concrete work contents and their meaning for the employees (LAMNEK 1988; 1989). From this perspective the estab-
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lishment of a working group dealing with technical disciplines and their respective pedagogical practices within the Gesellschaft für Arbeitswissenschaft (GfA) is a consequent step towards solving the “problem of contents” in cooperation between labour studies and technical disciplines. Sociological qualification research in its industry and work sociological versions is oriented towards the world of work under the aspect of the change of work and its subjective handling as a societal phenomenon. In the 1970s and 1980s in particular, studies on the transformation of skilled work (cf. MICKLER 1981; K ERN / SCHUMANN 1984) led to a considerable deepening of the debate on dequalification that was triggered by Harry Braverman’s publication “Labour and Monopoly Capital” (BRAVERMAN 1977). Wolfgang Littek et al. point out in their “Introduction to Industrial Sociology and Sociology of Work” that sociological qualification research has the aim “von der betrieblichen Arbeitssituation ausgehend, analytisch relevante Ebenen und Dimensionen für ein Verständnis der Komplexität des sozialen Gefüges von Arbeit in unserer Gesellschaft herauszuarbeiten [to develop, on the basis of the work situation in the enterprise, analytically relevant levels and dimensions for an understanding of the social structure of work in our society]” (LITTEK / R AMMERT / WACHTLER 1982, 102).
Sociological qualification research reaches its limits whenever the ↑ work process knowledge embedded in the work processes has to be decoded. With his ethno-methodological “↑ Studies of Work” (GARFINKEL 1986) Garfinkel attempts to overcome this barrier where sociological research with its traditional studies of occupation has failed to achieve results for vocational qualification. “The gap in the social science literature on occupations consists of all the missing descriptions of what occupational activities consist of and all the missing analyses the practitioners manage the tasks which, for them, are matters of serious and pressing significance” (HERITAGE 1984, 299).
This way the major deficiency of qualification research in the social sciences, the lack of methods for the identification of the contents that define professional work and training, is made explicit. Garfinkel’s method of the “↑ Studies of Work” therefore aims also at the solution of this methodological problem. The research interest of this approach is directed towards:
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– a detailed description of how the work is performed, – the identification of the specific knowledge and skills necessary for this work, and – the identification of the fundamental gap between the model version of a job task (theory) and its actual ↑ performance. This ↑ research approach is based on the assumption that any work can be conceived of only as practical activity and that the practitioner acquires the ability “Kontingenzen zu erkennen und sich auf sie einzustellen, Entscheidungen über den Verlauf der Arbeit nicht schematisch, sondern von Moment zu Moment zu treffen und im Umgang mit den situativen Unwägbarkeiten und lokalen Konstellationen irgendwie die beobachtbare Adäquanz und Effizienz seines Tuns zu bewerkstelligen [to become aware of contingencies and to manage, somehow, in dealing with the situative imponderabilities and local constellations, the observable adequacy and ↑ efficiency of his activity]” (BERGMANN 1995, 270).
It is this “somehow” that is put into the focus in the “Studies of Work”. This way a ↑ central question was posed for ↑ qualification research that could not be answered by the methods of empirical social ↑ research methods. The limited scope of the “Studies of Work” as a methodological approach of qualification research is due to the fact that the contents of work and training processes are in their contents essentially inaccessible for social research. 3.4.1.6
Qualification Research in Occupation Studies
Unlike qualification research in the social sciences, qualification research in occupational studies has an epistemic interest that is design-oriented. This interest is directed towards substantial and methodological design of education processes and learning in the ↑ work process. Occupation-oriented qualification research has its starting point in the attempt to achieve an interpretive access to reality, which is generated interactively through expert talks and, if necessary, through ↑ participation in the work process. In action-oriented expert talks the researcher, via his questions, suggestions and interventions as well as possible work actions, is involved in the situation to be analysed. He thus constitutes a quasi-experimental reality whose
scope reaches all the way into the work situation. This way he can participate in the work reality and shape it in such a way as to achieve a high level of interpretation and understanding. Unlike the possibilities offered by the sociological method of “thick description” (GARFINKEL 1986), the occupation researcher is familiar with the work situation and enters the situation. The interview with the skilled worker thus becomes a conversation among professionals. The professional and emotional openness of the actors towards the researcher results from the experience of a dialogue “among colleagues”. The interviewee talks to a person he experiences as professionally competent in a different way than to a researcher who is alien to the respective occupation. The researcher not only knows what the dialogue partner talks about (and what he does not talk about) and what he is doing in his work situation, but he also can interpret the statements and the actions of the interviewee with regard to their manifold objective aspects and references. The researcher perceives a statement not only in a formal sense, but also in respect of its content and sense as more or less meaningful, efficient etc. By means of intervening research methods it is possible to realise a depth of field in qualification research that cannot be achieved otherwise (→ 5.2). In this context the authors draw attention to two problems that can be mastered by qualification research only with some practice. Qualification research in occupation studies is, however, confronted at this point with the problem of self-evidence. If all actors in the research process, including the researcher, conceive of themselves as members of one and the same ↑ community of practice, those facts that are considered selfevident “among professionals” tend to be neglected or not to be made explicit. The reality to be investigated becomes the reality of insiders. This can lead to a more or less restricted research perspective if, after the taking of an internal perspective, the researcher loses the ability to maintain the ↑ distance to the study situation necessary for understanding and reflection. With a view to this problem has introduced the metaphor of the researcher as a “professional stranger” (AGAR 1980). The carrying out of action-oriented professional talks and interventions therefore must aim at constituting and cap-
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Fig. 3: Supervision Arrangement, e.g. Interdisciplinary Action-Oriented Professional Interview (R AUNER 2005, 245)
turing two realities at the same time, the reality of the outsider and the reality of the insider. This draws attention also to the different dimensions of the relationship between work and subject that have to be investigated here (Fig. 3). In a supervision arrangement the occupation researcher represents the reality of the insider, whereas an industrial sociologist, a pedagogue or ergologist represents the reality of the professional stranger. This ensures that the balance and the tension of proximity and ↑ distance as well as the consideration of the competences relevant for qualification and the carrying out of work-studies are represented in the research process. 3.4.1.7
Problems and Development Perspectives
The central problem of sociological ↑ qualification research as it emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as a research area in the sociology of industry and in the ‘work and technology’ research is the fact that its research findings could contribute to occupation and ↑ curriculum development only to a limited extent. The analytical quality of sociological research led to a broad, politically oriented discussion on the relationship between rationalisation and the level of qualification requirements imposed on skilled workers (K ERN / SCHUMANN 1984). The ethno-methodological “↑ Studies of Work” developed by Garfinkel attempted to decode the knowledge incorporated in practical professional work (BERGMANN 2005). This way a fundamental question was posed for qualification research that the methods of empirical social research were unable to answer. A similar situation can be found in expertise research, which can demonstrate the fundamental importance of ↑ domain-specific knowl-
edge for the transfer of professional action competences, but which has no methods at its disposal to establish a domain-specific qualification research. In the course of the ↑ professionalisation of TVET teachers and the establishment of study programmes for ↑ vocational disciplines at universities one can also observe the emergence of a domainspecific qualification research (RAUNER 2004d). The international dissemination of the results and methods of qualification research is impeded by a TVET landscape that is shaped by highly divergent systems of vocational education and training. In this respect vocational education is fundamentally different from higher or university education, which is largely represented by international scientific communities. However, since vocational education and training has by now started to be involved in processes of ↑ internationalisation, among other things in the course of the UNESCOUNEVOC initiative towards a Master’s degree for TVET teachers differentiated into twelve vocational disciplines, the chances for a dissemination of results and methods in qualification research have considerably improved.
3.4.2
Competence and Expertise Research Peter Röben
3.4.2.1
Explanation of Terms
The definitions of competence found in the scientific literature are enormously varied (see ELLSTRÖM 1997). On the one hand, this is due to the different disciplines and theoretical structures used as
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the basis for defining the term competence. Secondly, competence does not denote a simple set of circumstances, but a disposition of an individual, which – as still has to be shown – can be revealed only with relatively great effort. Therefore, in what follows a certain system will be chosen to approximate the meaning of the term competence (a comprehensive treatment of the various approaches and lines of discussion can be found, for example, in ARNOLD 1997a; JENEWEIN / K NAUTH / RÖBEN / ZÜLCH 2004; RÖBEN 2004a). The system applied here looks at the term from four perspectives – the demand for competence, – the supply side, – the determination and – realisation of competence. I shall begin with a definition that is very widespread especially in the field of vocational education, i.e. the definition of competence to act put forward by the German conference of ministers for the arts and culture (KMK): “[Competence to act] is viewed here as the readiness and ability of the individual to act in an appropriately thought-out as well as individually and socially responsible manner in occupational, social and private situations. Competence to act unfolds in the dimensions of specialized competence, staff competence and social competence” (KMK 2000a, 9).
This make-up of the competence to act has already been made the subject of pedagogical discussion by Heinrich Roth (1971). In this connection three areas are addressed in which competence is to come into effect: firstly, on the part of the subject who, after all, is to develop skills with respect to things and circumstances, himself and other persons. The next area encompasses the situations in which the skills of the subject are to develop, i.e. family, society and company. A third area is contained in the word “readiness” because this addresses an attitude (motivation) of the individual, i.e. his or her will to tackle challenges instead of avoiding or rejecting them: “Competence refers to the motivation and ability of a person to further develop know-how and skills in a field independently such that a high level is achieved that can be characterized as expertise” (BERGMANN / FRITSCH / GÖPFERT ET AL. 2000, 21).
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One refers to expertise if the result of competence development was successful. A professional expert as the result of successful competence development is of particular interest for vocational ↑ training research. 3.4.2.2 The Demand for Competence Who demands competence and what is expected of those possessing competence? At the top of the list here are companies with modern forms of organisation in which at the same time more has changed at a faster pace and in a more profound fashion in recent decades than ever before (see BAETHGE / SCHIERSMANN 1998, 16). These changes are found in new management concepts (e. g. lean production, business process reengineering) and organisational procedures (e. g. continuous improvement process (CIP), Total ↑ Quality Management (TQM)) by which “high quality, greater proximity to customers, more rapid innovation and more inexpensive pricing” (ibid., 21) are to be achieved simultaneously. Despite the diversity of the specific implementation of these concepts, one can assume that all of them place greater focus on professionally qualified workers (meaning skilled workers, technicians, master craftsmen as well as engineers). This means that in companies the skills of professionally qualified workers which contribute to making the company organisation able to react appropriately and quickly, also to unforeseen situations (special customer demands, altered market situations, etc.), are increasingly fostered and demanded. In the past the individual duties of professionally qualified workers were defined as separate areas of responsibility on the basis of a rather Taylorist division of labour; and unforeseen situations occurred less frequently because the inside of the company was systematically screened off from the random workings of the market. Nowadays the areas of responsibility of professionally qualified workers are less segmented and less isolated from each other as well as with respect to the customers and thus the market. As a result, a stochastic element reaches deep into company organisations and a flexible and independent response to new and unforeseen situations is required of professionally qualified workers. However, the organisational
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ability to react flexibly to new situations cannot be realised through a single ↑ organisational development measure. Instead, a permanent development process, which can be designated as ↑ organisational learning, is required (regarding the concept see ARGYRIS / SCHÖN 1978; regarding the empirical content see FISCHER / RÖBEN 2002a). Besides specialist know-how and a specialised ability to act, ↑ participation in organisational development is also demanded of the working individual. From the perspective of the requirement of companies to make use of the skills of working individuals to a much greater extent than previously, the qualification concept applied to date proves to be inadequate in that it focuses on certificates of institutional learning. However, competence does not mean having a formal final qualification, but signifies that professionally qualified workers act in an active, selfcontrolled manner that is characterised by entrepreneurial thinking in lean organisations. Therefore, competence refers to a disposition of the subject, not a status based on possession of formal requirements (ERPENBECK / ROSENSTIEL 2003a). The impacts of the described corporate developments, which certainly manifest themselves differently in the various sectors, are nevertheless statistically significant. For example, it can be seen that occupational positions are enhanced with qualified functions. The quantitative data of employment ↑ statistics indicate a growth in the significance of (a) “qualified specialised work”, (b) “specialised work with ↑ management tasks” and (c) “highly qualified work”. If one sets the value of 1985 to 100, a figure of 117 was reached for (a), 110 for (b) and 122 for (c) in the year 2000. The forecasts for 2010 assume a continuation of this trend (data from BOLDER 2002, 655). Another argument for the meaning of competence developed here is furnished by the discussion concerning ↑ lifelong learning. The conception that used to be quite common among professionally qualified workers, i.e. that the (institutional) learning process comes to an end with the acquisition of a certificate, is now vehemently rejected by companies. Social science studies show that the constant readiness to learn on the part of professionally qualified workers (based on intentional and in-
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stitutional learning) – more the exception than the rule in the past and usually bound up with the expectation of a professional career step – is increasingly specified by many enterprises as a standard for nearly all employees (BAETHGE / SCHIERSMANN 1998). 3.4.2.3 The Suppliers of Competence As a consequence of this development, professionally qualified workers today have to demonstrate competence. In companies the necessity of demonstrating competence is installed by virtue of the fact that the competence of the staff is regularly evaluated. For instance, superiors observe the professionally qualified employees working under them for a year and evaluate their observations according to a system agreed upon in the company. This does not take place in a concealed manner by any means, but on the basis of a set of tools coordinated with the works councils (an overview is provided by ERPENBECK /ROSENSTIEL 2003b) that is openly accessible to everyone and, furthermore, is also applied to everyone (also to managers who are also evaluated by their staff, e. g. by means of a socalled 360° feedback, see SCHERM 2003). Thus, the skilled workers know what is expected of them. In an employee talk, which usually takes place on an annual basis, the result of this observation is made known, discussed and an attempt is made to reach agreement on the evaluation and then, again jointly, to draw conclusions regarding further competence development. Vocational training (and this applies to initial and further training) has therefore not only concentrated on imparting know-how and methods since the reorganisation back in the 1980s, but has also worked up concepts for competence development of individuals, particularly in connection with the ↑ key qualifications debate (e. g. the concept of holistic vocational training LIPSMEIER 1989). This not only results from the requirements of companies, but only from the social (see the discussion on the impacts of ↑ globalisation) and family-related (e. g. due to the mastering of patchwork biographies) challenges, as is clearly indicated by the KMK definition of the competence to act cited at the beginning.
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A decisive prerequisite for the development of competence is an interest in the objects of the domain in which competence is to be developed and thus a readiness on the part of the individual to critically appraise the objects, problems and processes of the domain on a constant basis. If competence development is not left up to the contingent interest of an individual, a moral superstructure is needed to foster the motivation of the individual for his or her competence development. This can be initiated by the company and comes into effect, for example, through the identification of the individual with the company. This mechanism has been observed at virtually all traditional German companies (e. g. Hoechst, Siemens, VW, etc.), but an erosion of this principle due to massive dismissals and corporate restructuring measures has set in during the period of economic crisis. Another mechanism that is still important for competence development in Germany is ↑ vocational identity, which, however, is also subject to considerable erosion processes (see, among others, LIPSMEIER 1998). An attempt is made to counteract this mechanism with concepts of competence development that endeavour to impart vocational identity by conveying three concepts for mastering technology, skilled work and the rules of social organization of skilled work (BREMER 2004a). 3.4.2.4 The Determination of Competence In contrast to formal qualifications, certification of which requires that knowledge and skills be demonstrated in previously defined situations, empirical demonstration of competence is significantly more difficult. The best way to determine whether someone can solve problems or is able to cope with unfamiliar situations is by observing the person. This leads to the conclusion that competence cannot in fact be certified, but can only be evaluated (see BERNIEN 1997, 19). Therefore, in company practice, as mentioned above, many methods for evaluating the competence development of employees are tested and applied (an overview is provided by ERPENBECK / ROSENSTIEL 2003b). Since the determination of competence has to cope with the same problems as the measurement of competence, reference is made to the essay of Haasler/ Erpenbeck (→ 5.2.6) for further details.
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3.4.2.5 The Development of Competence To be able to develop the competences of an individual, a fundamental requirement must be kept in mind: “In contrast to the demand for adaptation, however, the demand for independence on the part of the worker has a fundamental restriction: independence cannot be prescribed by others. It cannot be compulsorily imposed, but depends on the willingness, voluntary nature and own actions of the worker” (BRATER / BAUER 1990, 54, quoted from ARNOLD 1997a, 266).
This means that all measures for competence development have to focus on the subject’s own actions of the subject to be developed if they want to be successful. This has far-reaching consequences for the learning culture: learners have to experience every competence-promoting measure as one that they carry out in their own interest and whose benefits are clearly perceptible for them. However, knowledge of this precondition does not constitute a basis for determining how to design measures for competence development. To be able to shape such measures, it is necessary to develop a conception of what competence entails. If one makes use of the literature for its determination, however, a problem arises: “Discussions on diverse competencies have one thing in common with the never-ending debates over key qualifications: no one knows what they ‘actually’ are” (HEYSE / ERPENBECK 1997, 8, quoted from BOLDER 2002, 651).
Without a precise definition of competence, this term faces a similar fate as that of ↑ key qualification, which degenerated into an empty word shell due to the randomness of its use. Proof for this thesis is the construction of word combinations, such as ↑ key competences, which do not coincidentally bring to mind the key qualifications with which Mertens conceived “theses for training for a modern society” in 1974. The risk of dilution of the substance of the term competence is also based on the fact that it is used to pursue a similar goal as with the term key qualification. Mertens described this goal right at the beginning of his well-known essay: “Training for existence in a modern society has three dimensions: training for coping with and unfolding one’s personality, training for establishing a vocational existence, training for social behaviour” (MERTENS 1974, 36).
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According to Mertens, the problem that was to be eliminated through the “training” was the inability of the education system to react in an appropriate manner to the growth of knowledge in the various vocational domains. Mertens infers from the correctly perceived problem a problematic solution: “The solution lies […] in the search for common third aspects of work and other environmental requirements”. This refers to higher-ranking educational goals and training elements from which one expects that they will enable the individual to develop “changing special know-how” quickly and smoothly. Instead of training a person for a certain situation, the personality was to be developed for a large number of situations through the well-known key qualifications. In the development of curricula for the development of key qualifications, however, there is a risk that as a result of an ↑ abstraction from the real challenges which an individual has to tackle, abstract skills, such as logical thinking, mathematical skills or the ability to procure information, will be promoted. In one of the most prominent company implementation examples, the PETRA concept at Siemens, in-house training concentrated on formal key qualifications that were made the yardstick for each ↑ performance of tasks on the part of the trainees, such as “organization and execution of the exercise”, “communication and cooperation”, “application of learning and mental work techniques”, “independence and responsibility” as well as “capacity to handle stress” (K LEIN 1990). The concentration on skills that could be designated as meta-skills, because they cannot be learned directly, led to a development that resulted in negating its starting point: due to the high number of key qualifications – 600 key qualifications were counted by Resse in 1995 (R ESSE 1995, cited according to BERNIEN 1997, 27) – it becomes evident that the general aspect in the many different “key qualifications” was not perceived. In view of this background, one can say that the concept of key qualifications has failed, but nevertheless the problem pointed out by Mertens remains: training of the new generation of vocational trainees must, on the one hand, guarantee that concrete skills are conveyed enabling the workers to meet the specific work requirements. Further-
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more, however, development of the so-called meta-skills is also necessary since otherwise it is not possible to keep up with the rapid change in specific requirements. In the vocational education and vocational research debate today a distinction can be made between two important principles on which modern curricula are based in order to achieve this goal: orientation to a subject-related logic and orientation to a development logic. In the concept of subject-based logic it is presumed that general technical principles can perform the function of ↑ key qualifications. In the ↑ occupational field of electrical engineering, for example, one should be able to derive the properties and modes of operation of specific components and circuits from the principles of electrophysics. Since the principles of electrophysics do not change, but the concrete components do, by learning electrophysics one has created a “basis” that is suitable for reacting to changing demands. However, this educational principle conflicts with the reality of learning in that in the given training practice learners evidently do not acquire any of the universally applicable principles, but rather “inert knowledge” (GRUBER / RENKL 2000) that is not applied in coping with the changing demands. As an alternative to this, other curriculum developers attempt to reconstruct the process of development from a beginner to an expert, examined empirically via expertise research, through the curriculum (BENNER 1995; RAUNER 1999a). Two requirements are to be met in this way. Firstly, the training period should be used for learning that contributes to building up professional competence to act. Secondly, the competence to act should be expanded to a skilled level through systematic extension of the requirements. The discussion of these two principles pursued in the literature under the heading of systematic vs. casuistic learning (e. g. BRUCHHÄUSER 2001) then misses the mark if it denies the casuistry of the first principle and the systematic framework of the second. Even if subject-based curricula are oriented to the systematic framework of the sciences on which they are based, they cannot ignore the necessity of orientation to vocational work as well. Every ↑ set of training rules and every basic curric-
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ulum are always only a compromise between a systematic framework and work requirements. On the other hand, the development logic approach also pursues a systematic framework that is only in part the framework of the science forming the basis. The results of expertise research still to be presented verify that an expert based on subject-based knowledge and ↑ empirical knowledge develops new stores of knowledge whose structure follows a different logic from that in the subject-based system (BROMME 1992, 45). So how does the competence of an expert develop? In an empirical analysis of an expert the study concentrates on the structures of the latter’s abilities and perception. The will and readiness to apply his or her skills as well as the constant endeavour to continue learning are treated as prerequisites for developing expertise. 3.4.2.6
Expertise
In comparison to a novice, an expert is characterised by a specific quality of his or her knowledge. This quality will initially be defined on the basis of the findings of expertise research on chess, but furthermore also on the basis of examples that are much more closely related to ↑ vocational competence to act than chess (GRUBER / ZIEGLER 1996; GRUBER 1999; 2001; CHI / GLASER / FARR 1988). Here chess stands for domains in which experts can easily be recognized by their outstanding ↑ performance. A chess expert, for example, beats a novice not only in the game, but also in the psychological settings that were developed to determine the special perception of experts in chess. Chess experts are thus able to reconstruct a situation that was shown to them for only a short time beforehand with significantly more pieces than novices. The explanation for this is not that the expert has a better general memory, as could be presumed, but that he or she has a better object-based memory, i.e. one for chess positions. Although the number of positions of the chess pieces is used to measure the difference between novices and experts, it is not the individual positions that make up the memory content, but the positions as a whole. After all, the superiority of an expert manifests itself only in meaningful configurations of chess pieces that may also occur in actual games. In the case of
meaningless positions, an expert does not remember significantly more than a novice. On the chessboard an expert perceives a structure that, unlike the position of the pieces involved, cannot be perceived by everyone. Only if one has the knowledge of an expert, is it possible to perceive the structure. This knowledge is obtained from different sources: on the one hand, from the knowledge of the rules and, on the other hand, from the ↑ empirical knowledge acquired in many games. The rules here have the function of boundary conditions, which cannot be violated, but they do not supply any instructions on strategy and tactics of the game. However, the sense and significance of a position result precisely from its relationship to the goal pursued by the player. The paramount goal is to win the game. But to achieve that, subgoals have to be formed, such as setting up attack and defence positions which, however, cannot come into being independent of the actions of the opponent. The significance of positions results only from the practice of pursuing, achieving or not achieving these subgoals and at the same time it points to the process of gathering experience in that knowledge of the rules (part of the expertise of chess players) is combined with experience. Action-guiding knowledge is formed in the process of combining abstract knowledge (e. g. the rules) with experience. This knowledge is applied to actually play the game (and not, for instance, to explain or comment on it) and it can be characterised by the term ↑ implicit knowledge: it is effective for taking action, but its ↑ effectiveness is based on the execution of the action and not on its verbalization. Everyone possesses implicit knowledge, for example when one recognizes faces. Usually one can recognize a face much better than describe or draw it. Here we refer to knowledge in the sense that a person knows what someone else looks like. However, his or her knowledge is not based on knowing the exact positions of eyes, nose and mouth, but their arrangement as a whole, namely as a face. This ability to integrate details into a whole is an accomplishment of the mind that also manifests itself in the integration of detailed knowledge into overall knowledge. This overall knowledge will be referred to as a concept in the following and knowledge that is based on the con-
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cept and the special relationship of the individual element of knowledge to the whole will be called conceptual knowledge. Experts are characterised by the fact that they have conceptual knowledge that not only has an effect on the perception of structures (e. g. in chess), but also on the ability to act (HACKER 1992; 1996). In psychology the acquisition of competence (here in the sense of skill or expertise) is viewed as the transformation of declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge. This process is explained in the so-called ACT model (ANDERSON 1982), for example, that declarative knowledge is transformed through processes of compilation of knowledge (composition and proceduralisation of declarative knowledge units) and fine tuning (GRUBER 2001, 313). This process can be illustrated on the basis of studies in the field of medicine. During their studies physicians acquire declarative knowledge via various examination methods. Through their experience with ↑ diagnosis in clinical or outpatient practice their knowledge is altered qualitatively: the declarative, biomedical knowledge is turned into a specific form of proceduralized knowledge (so-called “illness scripts”). This new type of knowledge enables physicians to make diagnoses quickly and effectively without calling to mind extensive biomedical knowledge. On the basis of these results of expertise research, Schmidt and Boshuizen (1993) have developed a theory that explains how experience-based learning leads to competence development. According to this theory, several phases take place. In the first phase causal, biomedical knowledge is collected regarding diseases and their consequences. Through experience this knowledge is identified and so-called “illness scripts” are built up. This knowledge is of an episodic nature and displays a narrative structure. As competence is built up, declarative knowledge does not disappear, however, but merely ceases being the centre of focus. During development of the competence of a physician the significance of the various forms of knowledge change for the making of diagnoses. The more experience a physician has, the less important the role of declarative biomedical knowledge in the ↑ diagnosis. Instead, generalized, caserelated schemas are developed into which ↑ empiri-
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cal knowledge and biomedical knowledge are integrated. Thus, biomedical knowledge exists in “encapsulated” form. In these knowledge capsules biomedical knowledge is no longer context-free, but integrated into the case-related schema. In the case of a diagnosis, these schemas are activated and examined, i.e. the diagnosis does not begin with context-free knowledge of biomedicine. However, context-free knowledge does not become superfluous by any means, but is updated case by case, especially if the application of a schema leads to a result that contradicts other knowledge about the case to be diagnosed. Furthermore, this shows us that the psychological description of the judgement and conclusion of experts in the form of scripts and schema must by no means be understood as signifying that thinking is therefore superfluous and can be replaced, for example by computers (↑ expert systems). All attempts in this regard have failed up to now and the decisive reason is that human experts assess the result of their script on the basis of content. Experts in particular are characterized by a critical attitude towards their own judgements and conclusions. The view that action-related knowledge is the result of the transformation of academic knowledge is contradicted in parts of vocational ↑ training research (RAUNER 2004b, 76 f.). Instead of a transformation of existing knowledge, the original quality of ↑ practical knowledge is pointed out here and “only minor significance is attached” to theoretical knowledge, which is dismissed as “book knowledge” (see ibid.). However, there are currently very few vocational research studies that have explicitly focused on the relationship between scientific or academic knowledge and practical knowledge (for chemistry, for instance, FISCHER / RÖBEN 2002b) and a concept of knowledge based on vocational education research that would enable a justified distinction between scientific knowledge, “book knowledge”, specialized knowledge, practical knowledge, ↑ work process knowledge (see → 3.6.; RÖBEN 2001), etc. has not been formulated yet either. Even the psychology of knowledge cannot be expected to be of assistance in this connection since a concept of knowledge based on vocational education research must primarily be oriented to the content of knowledge while psychology predomi-
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nantly focuses on the forms of organization of this knowledge (see HACKER /JILGE 1993). 3.4.2.7
Expertise and Domain
Shanteau divides domains into two categories that are distinguished on the basis of ↑ performance that is either easy or difficult to characterize. The category of performance that is easy to characterise includes the domains of chess, physics and mathematics. It is easy even for non-experts of the respective domains to distinguish experts in these domains from novices. The situation in the category of experts with performance that is difficult to characterize is different: clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, behaviourists, consultants, judges, human resources managers (for staff selection) and also medical specialists (according to the study, SHANTEAU 1992). There is evidently a relationship between domain and the extent of the expertise, though this issue hardly a subject of discussion in the field of psychology, however, because the inner structure of a domain is not a focus of interest of this discipline. By the same token, frequently a distinction is not made in psychological studies between the theoretical knowledge of the corresponding scientific discipline and the knowledge of the experts, which is criticised by Bromme (BROMME 1992). Bromme develops the concept of categorical perception based on an appraisal of a large number of studies on expertise research and on his own studies on the expertise of teachers: this refers to perception through the application of knowledge, as has already been described for the perception of chess positions. The categorical perception of an expert is determined by a more extensive stock of concepts that guide the perception (BROMME 1992, 43). In his examination of the special quality of expert knowledge Bromme comes to an interesting conclusion: “A remarkable result of expertise research is the partial failure in the search for predictors of task performance success that are independent of knowledge. It is not the number of anticipated moves in chess and not the number of illness hypotheses elaborated that distinguish experts from their comparative groups. Rather it is the content of their considerations, perception of the problem and situation and their hypotheses” (ibid., 44).
Some of the features described by researchers as special signs of expertise manifest themselves in experts only in the field of their expertise (the domain). However, experts also develop skills that help them to act in a manner superior to novices in fields that initially do not represent the core area of their expertise. Studies by Dörner show that although experts cannot solve problems not originating in their own domain at first glance, they can arrive at superior solutions because they analyze the problem better and plan their steps more meticulously and question the results of their initiated steps more critically (DÖRNER 1996). These results contradict Becker’s view (2003, 246). Against the background of an in-depth study on the diagnostic work of motor vehicle experts, he comes to the conclusion “that no meta-cognitive structures can exist”. Defining the domain proves to be one of the problems that expertise research has not been able to solve thus far. Expertise researchers assume in accordance with Bromme that expert knowledge represents a “more or less good reproduction of clearly given specialist knowledge of a scientific discipline” (BROMME 1992, 45).
However, Bromme criticises the equating of the specialized knowledge of a discipline with expert knowledge. For example, he refers to the case-specific integration of the knowledge of different disciplines, which was found in the studies and, as a special characteristic of an expert, is not absolutely identical with field-related knowledge. Nevertheless, one could view the integration of knowledge not specifically related to a discipline as an addition, though findings of medical studies contradict this assumption of addition in that they suggest that expert knowledge is a qualitatively new kind of knowledge. Knowledge from a discipline is transformed during the development into an expert, but hardly any studies are available at present on the type of transformation. In addition, the term transformation tends to suggest that it is known how experts utilise and apply their knowledge for their actions. The simple model of knowledge that guides actions has been firmly rejected by Neuweg (NEUWEG 1999). Clarification of the connection between the store of knowledge of a natural or
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↑ engineering science, the related store of knowledge of an ↑ occupational field and the knowledge of an expert acting in this occupational field is one of the original and current ↑ fields of research of the ↑ vocational sciences (e. g. occupational field of ↑ metalworking technology: BECKER 2003; HAASLER 2004; electrical engineering: DRESCHER 1996; ↑ chemical engineering: NIETHAMMER 1995b; RÖBEN / SIEBECK 2002; FISCHER / RÖBEN 2002b).
3.4.3
Cooperation between Learning Venues and Training Partnerships Günter Walden
3.4.3.1
Definition of Terms
According to Pätzold (1999b), ↑ cooperation between learning venues is defined as “the collaboration of teaching and training staff at learning venues involved in vocational education and training in technological, organisational and educational terms” (PÄTZOLD 1999b, 286).
In the view of the German Educational Council, the primary definition of learning venues is that they are “recognised institutions within the scope of the public education system” (DEUTSCHER BILDUNGSRAT 1974). As far as vocational education and training in Germany is concerned, this refers to companies, ↑ vocational schools, ↑ inter-company training centres and other training centres. These institutions themselves also house various, separably definable learning venues fulfilling different educational functions. In the case of companies, a differentiation has to be made at the very least between the workplace, the training workshop and the teaching or instruction room. The use of the term learning venue has, to some extent, been the object of explicit criticism within the vocational education and training debate (BECK 1984). It cannot be denied that this term is not defined in very clear terms and that very different legal, institutional and organisational terms of reference apply to potential learning venues. Notwithstanding this, the use of the term learning venue directs attention to the important issue of where, “under what
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conditions for which target groups with which learning aims ‘the best’ learning can take place” (MÜNCH 1995, 95). The result of this has been the establishment of the concept of the learning venue as the basis for broadly based research into learning venues, issues relating to cooperation forming a particular object of this research. Investigations into cooperation between learning venues frequently focus on the relationships between quite specific places of learning, such as companies and vocational schools or vocational schools and inter-company training centres. Cooperation between different companies providing training is the origin of the term training ↑ partnership (MEYER / SCHWIEDRZIK 1987). ↑ Training partnerships are a specific form of ↑ training alliance in which the companies involved conclude their own training contracts, but contract out to other companies those elements of training which they are not able to provide themselves (SCHLOTTAU / RASKOPP / BRANDES 2003, 2). ↑ Training partnerships are frequently referred to as training consortia, where the companies see themselves “as members of a consortium in the legal sense of a syndicate pursuing a joint and common purpose within the meaning of § 705 of the German Civil Code (BGB)” (R AUNER 2003c, 8). In view of the extent of the provision the companies need to make in terms of cooperation, the demands of this form of training are higher than is the case with other types of training alliance such as a local training initiative involving a lead company and partner companies, outsourced training or training associations. The primary aim of this paper will be to look at the cooperative relationships between individual companies in terms of training alliances rather than focussing on a general consideration of the problems relating to the support and organisation of training initiatives. Having said that, however, it is likely, in practice, that ↑ specific training alliance models cannot always be definitely allocated to one of the basic forms stated above. Cooperation between learning venues is not strictly limited to ↑ initial vocational education and training. It also applies in the case of continuing training. Vocational education and ↑ training research in Germany in recent years has largely focussed on issues relating to cooperation within initial vo-
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cational education and training. Due to the completely different nature of the terms of reference applying in continuing training, this chapter will deal exclusively with cooperation in the field of initial vocational education and training, as already indicated by the use of the terms ‘cooperation between learning venues’ and ‘training partnerships’. In line with the research work carried out in this field, cooperation between training venues will be mainly considered in relation to the various training centres and institutions involved in vocational education and training. There will be a particular focus on the cooperative relationships between companies, ↑ vocational schools (→ 3.3.8.2) and ↑ inter-company training centres and on those between companies themselves. The study is limited to the situation in Germany. 3.4.3.2 Objects and Aims of Research The objects of research in this field are usually various aspects of cooperation between individual ↑ learning venues and general functional definitions of the role of cooperation within vocational education and training. A consideration of the research aims pursued enables the following differentiation of thematic aspects: – Basic theoretical principles of cooperation The necessity of cooperation between learning venues, the tasks assigned to the process and the extent, content and form of the cooperation are identified within the scope of vocational education and ↑ training research. There is, however, no comprehensive and consistent theory relating to cooperation between learning venues. – Cooperation in practice Vocational education and training research carries out studies into the existing range of cooperation between learning venues, analyses the relevant factors influencing this cooperation and considers the issue of the effects of these cooperative activities on vocational training. This research focuses equally on identifying the differences between various areas of vocational training, determining the significance of varying initial conditions and approaches and the individual analysis of selected fields of vocational training. – Extending cooperation Normative ideas and practical findings emerging
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from cooperation projects, or deficits identified in the course of the latter, form the investigative basis of possible extension and improvement of cooperation. This process also includes the development of concrete proposals for the creation of appropriate terms of reference for an improved level of cooperation in practice. – Development of practice related models Vocational education and training research ultimately develops practice related models to produce a good level of cooperation. This process involves the consideration of the specific conditions prevailing within the various areas of vocational training. The amount of literature available relating to the individual learning venues involved in vocational training and the various aspects of ↑ cooperation between learning venues has now reached extensive proportions (see EULER 2003d). A large number of ↑ pilot projects on cooperation between learning venues have been conducted, for example, some of these tackling very specific issues (EULER, D. ET AL. 1999; HOLZ / R AU NER / WALDEN 1998). Lack of space means that this chapter can only address the most important ↑ fields of research and lines of development within the area of cooperation between learning venues. 3.4.3.3 History and Current Status of Research The following section will consider the research carried out into cooperation between learning venues and training ↑ partnerships in terms of three main thematic focuses. Firstly, a consideration of the aspects of cooperation primarily relating to cooperation between vocational schools and companies within the framework of the ↑ dual system of vocational education and training will be undertaken. This also includes cooperation between vocational schools and inter-company training centres. This will be followed by a look at cooperation between the companies themselves within ↑ training alliances. Finally, the possibilities of cooperation at the level of regional vocational training alliances will be dealt with. One thing to bear in mind is that research work conducted on cooperation cannot necessarily be automatically allocated to one of the above-mentioned ↑ research fields.
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The tendency is for there to be a considerable level of overlap. The role of vocational schools is sometimes highlighted in this way in studies of training alliances (as was the case in HOWE / HEERMEYER / HEUERMANN 1998). However, many of the research projects carried out can be allocated to one of the three fields, at least in terms of their main thrust.
Cooperation between Companies and Vocational Schools The direct necessity for cooperation on the part of the two major players within the ↑ dual system of vocational education and training results from the fact that both ↑ learning venues are pursuing a stipulated goal – the successful conclusion of training. From this can be deduced that a certain minimum level of cooperation between learning venues will be required to enable such an aim to be achieved (WALDEN 1996, 30). For this reason, the role of issues relating to cooperation between companies and ↑ vocational schools goes back to the early history of the dual system (SCHMIDT, H. W. 2003; → 3.3.3.2). Cooperation between learning venues made its first appearance as an object of research in the 1970s, at a time when the introduction of block scheduling into teaching at vocational schools was putting the idea of more intensive cooperation between learning venues on the debate agenda and the level of cooperation in vocational education and training was being subjected to empirical study (SCHWIEDRZIK 1980; FRANKE / K LEINSCHMITT 1979). The period following this saw aspects of cooperation between learning venues being expanded to include a wide range of issues (PÄTZOLD 1990), in the 1990s becoming the object of wide-ranging empirical studies (PÄTZOLD / WALDEN 1995; PÄTZOLD /DREES / THIELE 1998; PÄTZOLD / WALDEN 1999). This process involved the establishment of a systematic correlation of cooperation between learning venues and the changing requirements of vocational training and a modernisation of the system of vocational education and training (cf. PÄTZOLD 1995d; 1999c; WALDEN 1996; 1999c). Particular reference is made to the way in which the pursuit of the joint aim of professional action competence brought about a blurring of the edges between the conventional division of functions between com-
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panies and vocational schools (vocational school = theory, company = practice), necessitating a new arrangement to be established between the learning venues in the form of a greater level of cooperation. New training goals such as holistic thinking, the ability to work as part of a team and independence cannot be achieved at individual learning venues in isolation, thus rendering greater ↑ cooperation between learning venues a necessity. The rapid pace of change in working methods and procedures has also increased reliance on close contact with working practice for vocational schools wishing to provide up-to-date teaching. A range of typologies has been developed to describe the status of cooperation between learning venues achieved within vocational training practice and to identify the level of cooperation within vocational education and ↑ training research. Buschfeld and Euler (1992, 26 ff.) employ a series of intensity levels to differentiate the exchange of information on the part of teachers and trainers on expectations, experiences and problems in everyday training, the coordination of ↑ vocational training action and collaboration on jointly agreed projects. The typology developed by Pätzold (1991b) is based on the underlying understanding of cooperation on the part of the two partners involved. A differentiation is made between types of understanding which are pragmatically formal, pragmatically utilitarian, didactically based and training theory based. Only the last two named can be viewed as instrumental in the creation of cooperation projects based on vocational education practice. Berger and Walden (1995) added to these two theoretically derived cooperation typologies by developing a typology to describe identifiable patterns of cooperation within vocational education and training practice, basing their work on an empirical study focussing on the criteria of frequency of contact, scope of cooperation and content of cooperation. In ascending order of intensity of cooperation, the following five types are differentiated: no cooperative contact, sporadic cooperative activities, continuous problem induced activities, continuously advanced activities and continuously constructive activities. Studies carried out on cooperation between learning venues in practice come to the unanimous con-
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clusion that such cooperation does not in most cases meet vocational training requirements. In his critical review of the studies carried out in this area, Eckert (2003b, 113) states, “that high quality vocational training cooperation between training venues which has been thoroughly thought through in didactic and training theory terms represents very much the exception”.
Cooperation between companies and ↑ vocational schools mainly occurs when ongoing issues require clarification or difficulties within the training process need to be overcome. Methodological and didactic matters are of lesser importance on most occasions. The process is dominated by contacts which have been established with the other ↑ learning venue on an individual basis, as opposed to organised types of cooperation in the form of cross-venue committees and working groups. Although really exemplary forms of cooperation and forms of cooperation which adequately meet vocational training requirements tend to be the exception, the situation in practice is characterised by a wide range of directions and approaches, rather than the pursuit of any kind of uniform pattern (cf. WALDEN 1999b). Depending on the specific influencing factors involved, this gives rise to a wide variety of approaches being adopted in vocational education and training practice. The size of the company providing training and the regulated occupation forming the object of training are thus of considerable significance to the intensity of cooperation (WALDEN 1999b, 150). Vocational education training and research has identified considerable obstacles to intensive cooperation. A differentiation needs to be made between structural, institutional and personnel factors in this respect (WALDEN 1999a, 379). The structural component applies to the reciprocal compartmentalisation of the systems of ‘companies’ and ‘vocational schools’. The effect of this is that vocational education and training within the ↑ dual system is often structured along the lines of two parallel, autonomous systems (EULER / TWARDY 1992). In institutional terms, the working conditions of trainers and teachers are frequently not conducive to an intensive form of cooperation. Finally, factors relating to personnel need to be mentioned, such as the way in which trainers and teachers perceive their
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roles, no particular value often being accorded to cooperation with the other learning venue. The studies which have been carried out have formed the basis for a range of proposals aimed at bringing about an improvement in conditions for an intensive level of cooperation between learning venues (cf. in particular PÄTZOLD 1999a; WALDEN 1999a). Especially worthy of mention here is the establishment of general conditions to support trainers and ↑ vocational school teachers, such as the provision of resources and time. Further plans include the creation of new organisational forms (in particular, joint working groups for trainers and vocational school teachers, joint continuing training events and in-company work experience programmes for teachers). This also includes the establishment of coordinating centres for the initiation and sustained integration of processes of cooperation (WALDEN / BRANDES 1995, 142). If ↑ cooperation between learning venues is to meet vocational training needs, the development of methodological and didactic instruments to improve interaction between learning venues will ultimately also be required. Particular reference should be made here to the instrument relating to ↑ learning and working tasks (HOLZ /KOCH / SCHEMME / WITZGALL 1998). Proposals for the extension of cooperation between learning venues are largely directed towards those stakeholders responsible for vocational education and ↑ training policy. There has been some reaction from this quarter in the form of recommendations (such as the recommendations put forward by the board of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training in 1997) and initiatives aimed at improving the level of cooperation. In BadenWürttemberg, for example, the regional education authority and the chambers of commerce and industry have appointed joint cooperation advisors to take on responsibility for the organisation of information and continuing training events for trainers and teachers and for the formation of working groups. Support has been provided for a large number of ↑ pilot projects, and these have ultimately led to the development and testing of practice related concepts for an improved level of cooperation between learning venues. The “kobas” pilot project (Bau/ Stahl 2002), which was conducted in Bavaria, represented a broad based attempt to in-
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stitutionalise cooperation between learning venues, the establishment of cooperation centres being one of the steps undertaken. Reference should also be made to the programme of emphasis instigated by the Permanent Committee of the Federal Government and the Federal States on ↑ Educational Planning and Research Promotion: “Cooperation of ↑ learning venues in vocational training” (KOLIBRI)’. These ↑ pilot projects looked at cooperation between learning venues within the context of a range of important fields of vocational training (EULER 2003b, 21). The results obtained from vocational training and research referred to thus far mainly relate to the relationship between companies and ↑ vocational schools. In principle, however, these findings can equally be applied to cooperation between ↑ inter-company training centres and their respective partners (AUTSCH 1999). The following will deal with aspects of cooperation between companies themselves.
Cooperation between Companies There has been cooperation between companies providing training and their neighbouring companies in certain areas throughout the whole of the history of ↑ in-company training. The basic principle is for trainees to go to a neighbouring company to acquire training content which is stipulated within the ↑ general training plan, but which the business processes of the company actually providing training finds it difficult to provide (RAUNER 2003c, 7). Within the context of the endeavours being undertaken to eliminate the lack of ↑ incompany ↑ training places, this cooperation between companies has become the object of public interest and has been allocated the term of ↑ training alliance (MEYER / SCHWIEDRZIK 1987, 15). If other learning venues such as inter and extra company training centres or schools are also included, the training alliance is also referred to as a ↑ learning venue alliance (MEYER / SCHWIEDRZIK 1987, 19). As far back as the 1980s, there were wide-ranging endeavours on the part of public bodies to integrate training alliances more closely into company practice, with the aim of increasing in-company provision of training places (see BMBW 1984, for example). Public support for training allianc-
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es is playing a significant part in the current crisis on the training places market. One area where training alliances have been promoted is within the scope of the Federal Government’s Immediate Action Programme for Training (R ASKOPP 2002). The perceived advantages of training alliances are two-fold. Firstly, in the case of companies hitherto not capable of providing training because of a lack of the level of specialisation required, ↑ participation in a training alliance can create this very training ability. Secondly, the reduction in ↑ training costs generates a generally positive effect on companies’ willingness to provide training. Vocational education and ↑ training research has mainly focussed on the identification of a typology for training alliances, the development of practice related models and assistance and recommendations for companies, investigations into the extent to which training alliances have established themselves within vocational education and training practice and studies on the ↑ effectiveness of the use of public funds invested. It is likely that there are clear differences in the intensity of the level of cooperation between companies within individual alliance models. It is probable that the involvement of extra company institutions to deal with issues relating to coordination and certain sections of training on behalf of the companies will overshadow the actual cooperation between the companies themselves. On the other hand, in the case of a consortium of companies all with equal rights, also referred to as a training ↑ partnership, companies need to fulfil especially high requirements in respect of inter-company cooperation. Notwithstanding the fact that public interest in the further expansion of training alliances has been concentrated on the quantitative aspect of the creation of additional training places, there has also always been, since the very outset, a focus on the quality aspect. Improvement of the quality of training as an aim of training provided within training alliances has also gained more and more currency in public programmes of support (SCHLOTTAU / RASKOPP / BRANDES 2003, 7). Here it is clear that using the respective areas of specialisation provided by companies will enable quality of training to be increased. Training alliances offer the specific op-
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portunity of once again placing greater emphasis on ↑ work process related qualification (HEIDEGGER / RAUNER 1995). Rauner (2003c) in particular perceives training which takes place away from the workplace in extra company training institutions and ↑ in-company training workshops as constituting a danger to quality of training and views the intensification of ↑ cooperative training as an appropriate instrument for strengthening training within ↑ work processes. Vocational education and ↑ training research is currently conducting investigations into a wide range of aspects relating to ↑ training alliances (PAHL / SCHÜTTE / VERMEHR 2003). The positive quantitative influence of cooperative vocational education and training together with the effect it has in promoting quality have established it as an object of academic interest and have meant that it is to some extent viewed as the “standard model for the organisation of dual vocational education and training” (RAUNER 2003c). Investigations into the level of acceptance of training alliance models in company practice (SCHLOTTAU / RASKOPP / BRANDES 2003) have shown that companies which participate see clear advantages (SCHLOTTAU / RASKOPP / BRANDES 2003, 7). A major advantage in this respect is the better specialist qualification of the trainees. Nevertheless, these advantages are also accompanied by disadvantages (such as a lower level of identification with their home company on the part of trainees within a training alliance). Notwithstanding the intensive level of public support and the assistance in establishing training alliances which has been the result of vocational education and training research, such alliances still represent the exception as far as ↑ in-company training is concerned. Nevertheless, it is likely that training ↑ partnerships, which involve a partial level of cooperation by companies, below the level of that which would constitute an official training alliance, are considerably more widespread.
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ing networks’. This concept subsumes the wide range of possible relationships between the various stakeholders involved in vocational training. A vocational education and training network consists “of a group of institutions from a region dealing with training and between which there is a range of relations such as political influence, exchange of knowledge, friendship or information technology relationships” (WILBERS 2003, 417).
This represents another way of addressing the issues of cooperation between different ↑ vocational schools or between institutions promoting support for the ↑ disadvantaged to go alongside the cooperation between companies and vocational schools or between companies themselves within the ↑ dual system of vocational education and training (WILBERS 2003). The main feature of this approach is the attempt to use the development of appropriate elements of theory and the analysis of common ground (and differences) existing within individual types of network to obtain a deeper understanding of the object itself. There are theoretical points of contact particularly in terms of a consideration of the cooperation between companies in respect of business economics (BACKHAUS / PLINKE 1997). It is still too early to be in a position to judge whether this (more extensive) networking philosophy will bear fruit in comparison to conventional, more specific approaches to ↑ cooperation between learning venues. The increasing significance of information technology in vocational education and training and the possibility of establishing socalled online communities (ZINKE / FOGOLIN 2004) are likely to bring about a further increase in the complexity of cooperative relationships, however, thus raising the need for appropriate analytical instruments. The new technologies will nevertheless facilitate the formation of supraregional vocational education and training networks as well as just regionally based organisations. 3.4.3.4
Regional Vocational Education and Training Networks A wider view of aspects of ↑ cooperation between ↑ learning venues and within alliances of learning venues has recently been taken in the form of the term ‘regional ↑ vocational education and train-
Methodological Features and Forecast
The general aim of vocational education and training research is to bring about an improvement in vocational training practice rather than representing an end in itself. This particularly applies to work relating to cooperation in vocational training. Alongside the analysis of the forms of coop-
Areas of VET Research
eration practised, considerable significance is also attached to the development of approaches for extending cooperation and of suitable practice related cooperation models. Academically monitored ↑ pilot projects have a particular role to play in this process (→ 4.1). A pilot project represents both an instrument of academic research and helps bring about changes in practice. ↑ Pilot projects contain both an explication and a planning model serving as the basis for the new reality which is to be created (ZIMMER 1997, 28). A pilot project leads to a conflict of interests between realisation and results for those involved, presenting particular challenges in terms of the academic monitoring of the project. It is not usually possible for academics to make the transition to the role of an outside observer. This means that particular significance is attached to action-theoretical ↑ research approaches (→ 5.2.2). In the field of cooperation between ↑ learning venues, the aim of bringing about improvement in practice is also very closely linked to measures taken by those responsible for vocational education and ↑ training policy. This means that, as far as further extension of cooperative approaches in vocational training is concerned, there are fewer deficiencies in terms of academic findings than there are in relation to implementation (BAU / WALDEN 2002, 148). An improvement in cooperation is, therefore, in many cases dependent on the creation of suitable terms of reference. Without suitable initiatives on the part of those bodies responsible for vocational education and training policy, it is not likely that there will be any clear progress in the area of cooperation, at least not in broad-based terms. The extent to which cooperation between learning venues and training ↑ partnerships continue to form the subject of vocational education and ↑ training research (as they must) depends, therefore, on future developments in vocational training policy. In view of the slender resources, the ongoing trend towards a pluralisation of vocational training (KUTSCHA 1998), shifting the balance between individual learning venues, bringing about a strengthening of independent specialised ↑ vocational school based systems and creating competition for the ↑ dual system of training, is likely to tend to increase further the significance of is-
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sues of cooperation for good training. Vocational education and training research needs to observe these developments and evolve solutions for any problems which arise. New combinations of learning venues which are developed (such as between specialised vocational schools and companies) should become a greater focus of research. This process needs to involve close dialogue with vocational education and training practice and policymakers. Alongside such specific research into cooperation, a further task will be the integration of cooperative aspects into the treatment of various research issues within vocational training (BAU / WALDEN 2002, 148). Cooperation is an overarching topic and relevant to a wide range of issues relating to vocational training.
3.4.4
Technical and Vocational Education and Training Research for the Professionalisation of Vocational Teachers Philipp Grollmann and Waldemar Bauer
3.4.4.1
Traditions and Deficits of Vocational School Teacher Research
The recruitment, training and work of vocational teachers are core topics of research in vocational and business education and training. In view of the vast volume of literature on this subject matter, it is all the more astonishing that until today there is neither a requirements or competency profile that is sufficiently well substantiated by theory and is supported on a basis of empirical investigations or a “job description” for vocational teachers, nor have any comprehensive (empirical) audits of the current position been carried out with regard to the quality and the effects of the learning processes initiated by vocational teachers. A German bibliography with 476 entries from the years 1970–2000 that was compiled within the framework of a recently completed research project on “Concepts [sic!] of ↑ Vocational School Teacher
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Training” (BUCHMANN /K ELL 2001) compares with 11 empirical investigations: since the academisation of the training of teachers at trade schools, the greater part of the empirical studies on vocational teachers that have appeared deal mainly with the retrospective assessment of the first phase of teacher training on the part of graduated teachers. “According to current empirical findings […] this course of studies is fairly ineffective, its qualifying effect in its special field is moderate and its beneficial influence on social and pedagogical competences is slight” (LEMPERT 1998, 150).
Almost all studies identify two central points of criticism: – a relevance to practice of the specialised studies that is felt to be deficient; in almost all cases the respondent’s own practical experience as a skilled worker or engineer was seen as being of greater value for working as a teacher than studies in pedagogical sciences, and – the lack of any interlinking of the academic studies with the concrete professional and teaching situations, so that hardly any pedagogical competences relevant to working as a teacher were acquired during the studies. To what extent this criticism also still applies today is difficult to say, as the larger-scale investigations were conducted some years ago. However a German “Teacher Training” commission set up by the conference of ministers of education and cultural affairs also confirmed a large research deficit for the whole field of teaching today: “One of the big deficits within the teacher training discussion […] is the fact that there is too little detailed knowledge about its actual state and about the actual effects of teacher training” (TERHART 2000a).
Against this background, there is a challenge for future-oriented empirical vocational school teaching research to investigate the ↑ professionalisation process of vocational teachers from two points of view: – the de facto development of the ↑ professionalism and competence of ↑ vocational teachers, i.e. an examination of the working environment of vocational teachers with regard to its effect on professional knowledge and practical professional activity as well as the effects and the quality of the teachers’ work, and
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– the ↑ professionalisation process of vocational teachers is an individual biographical development in the sense of the effects of teacher training in all phases with regard to the acquisition of practically relevant technical and (vocational) pedagogical competences taking account of the different teacher training models. 3.4.4.2
Analysis of the Developed Professionalism of Vocational Teachers (Examinations of the Working Environment)
The discussion about vocational pedagogical professionalisation was for a long time reduced to the scientisation of the courses of training or more exactly of the academisation of studies to become a teacher at a trade school. Whereas the older discussion is still based on a classical professionalisation model (cf. HESSE 1972), at present a way of looking at things is gaining ground in the general theory of professionalisation which, besides the social function of the ↑ profession, stresses the innate logic of the interaction between clients and professionals (OEVERMANN 1996; FASSHAUER 1997; KURTZ 1997). According to this, professional activities are the answer to existential requirements of modern societies, which can only be performed through professional action. Thus in structural terms, the tasks of imparting and maintaining central values and standards of society that are absolutely indispensable for its reproduction have been transferred by society to the professions (relevance to central societal values). The structural location of (vocational) pedagogical activity is institutionalised (vocational) training, education and qualification. Vocational pedagogical professionalism can to this extent be described as a reflected routine of substantiated decisions and acts that are by guided by the intention of supporting processes of vocational training, qualification, socialisation and identity development and of individual personality development. Between this professional task and the de facto social selection function of teaching work the result is a professional practice that is determined by varied and contradictory requirements, standards and values, interests and wishes, hardly compatible so-
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cial roles and functional systems that are isolated from each other (cf. LEMPERT 2000, 257). The professional specialisation of these functions gives rise to two central, irreconcilably contradictory components of professional action (cf. OEVERMANN 1996; KORING 1989, 69): – the scientific competence in a narrower sense (special branch of science and educational science) of the understanding of theories and of the processes of their design as well as of the logic of their strict application, and – the hermeneutic competence of the understanding of a concrete case in the language of the case itself. What is constitutive for the general structure of professional pedagogical action is thus the contradictory unity of specialist scientific/analytical and hermeneutic competence (OEVERMANN 1996, 126). Professional action is thus not distinguished by the application of technological knowledge and the dogmatic mastery of rules, but by understanding of a particular case in the concrete pedagogical situation. Therefore scientific knowledge is primarily reflection-based knowledge to assess pedagogical practice. In particular Donald Schön concerned himself with these reflection processes in his works. With the distinction between reflectionin-action and reflection-on-action, he drew attention to the heightened importance that executing the activity in the sense of routines and habitualisations has for the development of ↑ professionalism (SCHÖN 1987). In this sense professional knowledge must be categorised on the side of practice and not of science (DEWE / FERCHHOFF / RADTKE 1992b, 83). Translated to the professional field of action of vocational teachers, who work in an area of varied diverging requirements and tasks in two subsystems (industry and education), this means that the two components of professional action are characterised by a twofold field of conflicting concerns: The poles in the area of action move between the theories, models and contents of specialist science and the specialist vocational work on the one hand as well as the concrete cases in educational and vocational practice and scientific findings and theories about learning and doctrines on the other hand.
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For this reason the objective of a task-specific theory of ↑ professionalisation should be to reconstruct the logic of vocational pedagogical action and to empirically examine typical professional action patterns on a field-specific basis (in different pedagogical fields) that are necessary to fulfil their complex requirements and that have been developed for this ↑ occupational group under the existing structural and institutional boundary conditions in a certain historical context (DEWE / FERCHHOFF / RADTKE 1992a, 15 f.). This requires an objective view of the specific tasks and requirements as well as the analysis of the subjective representation of the tasks and the translation of knowledge into pedagogical action. The expansion of empirical ↑ vocational school teaching research that this necessitates is thus aimed at examining the working reality of vocational teachers that has hitherto been left out of the picture. On the basis of such analyses it is possible not only to describe the ↑ profession of vocational teachers factually in terms of the specific tasks and fields involved but also to arrive at findings and insights for professional teacher training.
Requirements to be Fulfilled by Vocational Field Analyses Investigations of the working reality of vocational teachers should be designed as an empirical analysis of the working environment, as they are predominantly concerned with questions of content. Such analyses should fulfil at least five requirements (HOLLING / BAMMÉ 1982): (1) Relevance to reality: The conducting of empirical analyses and a description of the professional pedagogical reality of vocational teachers and its production and realisation in the area of conflicting concerns between objective requirements and tasks and subjective representation and competence. (2) ↑ Domain specificity: Data collection via the structural, organisational-institutional boundary conditions, common ground and differences as well as the manpower structures and their composition in the individual school types and vocational fields.
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(3) ↑ Triangulation of methods: Examinations of the in-depth structure of the working reality and of the teachers’ knowledge and activities make exacting demands on ↑ research methodology and would require a sensible combination of various ↑ research methods, but in particular the use of interpretative, qualitative processes. (4) Setting in relationship: The analysis is to bring the different aspects together in one context as well as to deal with the importance of the field of the examination and look at what this implies for the design of the vocational training system, of development of the ↑ profession, of the curricula and of vocational training processes and teacher training. (5) Theoretical integration: The concepts and results of a professional field analysis should theoretically be integrated into the overall social context (e. g. sociological, in terms of economic policy and in terms of educational and ↑ system theory etc.). For the whole professional field of vocational teachers this means that the function of the ↑ vocational school in the social context, the importance of training in vocational schools and of qualification as well as the role of the teacher within social reproduction must be dealt with. These demands involve a great deal of time and effort and can certainly not be satisfied in individual studies, but would on the contrary necessitate whole ↑ research programme.
Research Objects On the basis of the ↑ professionalisation models as well as of expertise research it is possible to derive the following interdependent topics for examination, which are at the heart of the professional field analyses: – the professional ethics of vocational teachers, which include a professional moral, a self-perception, an understanding of the task in hand and an understanding of education as well as a specific relevance to the clientele (self-concept), – the ↑ domain-specific knowledge of vocational teachers regarding vocational training processes (GERDS 2001), its structure, organisation and contents as well as its genesis and the reference systems of these stocks of knowledge, and
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– the activities and ability of teachers and their manifestation in professional cultures (TERHART 1996).
Professional Know-How In the historical development of vocational teacher training and the evolution of academised training the question of the ↑ knowledge base is reflected primarily in the discussion surrounding the guiding principle of “technical expert versus teacher”. The teacher know-how is in principle made up of the knowledge learnt and experienced or used in practice during formal teacher training. The special aspect in the case of vocational teachers is that as a rule they are confronted with different social, scientific and practical reference systems within the framework of their biography. For example a large number of the technical and engineering teachers on the one hand complete(d) studies in engineering and/or as a teacher in which the specialist technical knowledge was a constituent, and on the other hand as a rule they have extensive practical experience through an apprenticeship or through working as a skilled worker or an engineer (JENEWEIN 1994). Furthermore, vocational teachers work in a more complex field in comparison with teachers in general education because their subjects and thus their knowledge base are characterised by a double theory/practice problem. They work in an area that lies between specialist theory and skilled work as well as between school practice and work and/or professional practice. In the language of psychological expertise and problem-solving research, it is possible to speak of a doubly ill defined domain (GROLLMANN 2004). Ill defined domains are distinguished by the fact that not only are the rules and techniques to solve the problem that has to be dealt with by the professional not clearly defined, but the definition of the problem itself is subject to the professional. This situation exists not only with regard to pedagogical problems but also with regard to the contents of the vocational training, for there is no consensus about what competent skilled workers should be able to do (FISCHER 2002). Teacher cognition research has hitherto been able neither to analyse nor describe what elements and stocks of knowledge the actual teaching competence of vocational teachers is made up of, in other
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words how these different scientific, pedagogical and practical stocks of knowledge and experience that are related in terms of technical content amalgamate in the course of the professional development of the teacher, as well as how the knowledge that is produced in this context is cognitively organised and finally transformed into teaching activity (BROMME 1992). As teacher cognition research has not yet established itself in the field of vocational training, it is worthwhile taking a look in a context of research theory and ↑ research methodology at US American research in connection with Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). In this, a classification of areas of content of the ↑ knowledge base of teachers was presented that includes at least the following categories: content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, curricular knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge of students, knowledge of context and knowledge of educational ends, purposes, values. This approach acts on the premise that PCK represents a unique knowledge base of the teachers. According to this, PCK forms an amalgam from content-related (field-specific) and pedagogical knowledge and lies crosswise to the scientific disciplines (SHULMAN 1986; 1987). Furthermore, the PCK approach has concerned itself especially with the question of how subject-related and curricular contents are transformed by teachers in the teaching activity itself. Exactly this subjective process of transformation initiated by the activity of the teacher has hitherto been omitted in the tradition of German specialist subject didactics because the latter focuses rather on the specialist subject and/or the specialist knowledge and its objective contents as well as on its didactic reduction. In this logic, research into the knowledge base and/or into “knowledge concerning the vocational training process” can only be conducted ↑ domainspecifically by vocational teachers (GERDS / BAUER 2003; GERDS 2001 GROLLMANN 2004) and should unveil the specifics of this knowledge in comparison with the curricular specialist discipline. The examination of the teachers’ knowledge base thus requires an analysis of the following categories: – the contents of the knowledge base, their formation and genesis,
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– the reference systems of the stocks of knowledge (specialist knowledge, specialist subject didactics, specialist work, educational science/↑ vocational pedagogy etc.) and defining the relationships of the various knowledge elements in teaching practice, – the coherence and relationality of the knowledge, in other words the closer interlinking (structure and organisation) of knowledge elements (scientific systematics, close connection with experience and case-specific organisation of the knowledge), and – the factual adequacy of the knowledge (“specialist technical knowledge” versus “professional knowledge”), which requires a normative reference system against the background of the objective task assignment.
Professional Ethics ↑ Vocational school teachers practise a professional activity which they largely control and regulate themselves. The responsible and appropriate fulfilment of the tasks that have been assigned by society requires action-guiding yardsticks and a binding obligation to internalised, professional-moral maxims which must fulfil three central principles: justice, thoughtfulness and truthfulness (LEMPERT 2000; OSER 1998). However no investigations of the professional ethics of vocational school teachers are extant. A more broadly defined term within professional ethics, which concerns not only the – in a narrower sense – moral dilemmas of vocational teaching work but also the typical attitudes, modes of perception and forms of behaviour, lies at the interface between the subjective knowledge dimension of professional vocational teachers and their social integration into vocational pedagogical professional cultures (TERHART 2000b). The feedbacks between knowledge on the one hand and the social conditions on the other hand are a central topic of vocational pedagogical ↑ professionalisation research, as this is the only way to clarify the activity of teachers.
Teachers’ Knowledge and Activity The ↑ research programme Subjective Theories concerned itself with the subjective pre-conditions of the activity of teachers. This programme
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poses the question of the principles according to which the day-to-day activity of teachers comes about (GROEBEN / WAHL / SCHLEE 1988). This approach acts on the premise that subjective theories as complex aggregations of cognitions of the world view and self-perception of the subjects in relation to a phenomenon represent relative, sustained mental structures and, in exactly the same way as objective theories, fulfil the function of explanation, forecasting and technology. Some investigations substantiate the existence of subjective theories in the case of teachers and indicate that pedagogical practice is determined not through educational ↑ scientific theories but through subjective theories developed in day-to-day activities (DANN 1994; TENORTH 1997). However other approaches in research into pedagogical ↑ professionalism also pose the question of action-guiding representations and categories of knowledge. Thus in more recent research from the “Shulman School” (a critical assessment of this in BROMME 1995), it is especially substantiated that the individual representation of the corresponding “technical” knowledge cannot be separated from the procedural and declarative knowledge relating to teaching methods and competences (HILLOCKS 1998). This analytical separation narrows the insight that exactly the nature and organisation of the representation of the specialist technical knowledge considered relevant by the teachers always also entails an implicit “pedagogic theory”. These papers impressively illustrate how strongly the understanding of the specialist subject in each case influences the teaching methods and strategies used. An example for ↑ vocational pedagogy is the dispute about the question of a division of vocational pedagogical work into “subject matter theory” and “practice instruction” and the corresponding division of vocational pedagogical activity profiles into a theory teacher and a practice teacher (cf. RAUNER / DRECHSEL / GRONWALD /K RÜGER 1980). Gottfried Adolph (1980) has shown how closely such a model is connected with traditional concepts from ↑ engineering science on the “production-typical action model”. The ↑ teaching and learning processes that actually run have to do little with technical-practical instruction guided by the theory teacher and with independently con-
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ducted “theoretical” tuition. Subjective theories that have developed in the course of personal development and their professional socialisation thus possess an action-guiding function and furthermore serve for the (subsequent) explanation and justification of the teacher’s actions. In comparative investigations it was for instance possible to show that in different vocational pedagogical professional cultures, the traditional “privacy standard” (LORTHIE 1975) of the professional ethics of teachers is treated differently (GROLLMANN 2004), and that the institutional context occupies a very decisive role in the development of professional know-how (ZHAO 2003). The investigation of teaching activity should analyse at least the following dimensions: – the developments and characteristics of the subjective ↑ action theories in the professional biography in relation to contextual conditions, as well as – the representation, interpretation patterns and justifications of vocational pedagogical activities with regard to the teaching mandate and the educational objectives. When researching these interrelationships, it is in principle possible to resort to the whole stock in trade of qualitative and quantitative social research. In this context, with regard to the first complex of questions, in particular the application of methods of biographical research as well as of ethnographical ↑ research designs can be considered in order to detect and describe the professional reality. In respect of the second complex of questions, it is a case of research designs with a stronger psychological content (KÖNIG / ZEDLER 2002). The objection of Lempert (1998) that in the case of many research findings it is a question of a collection “[…], of global self-testimonies of responding students of vocational and economic pedagogics as well as of practising teachers at trade schools […]” is in this context to be taken very seriously and requires the consideration of both complexes of questions in integrative research designs. 3.4.4.3 Analysis of the Professionalisation Process of Vocational Teachers The question of the adequate training of vocational teachers has always been characterised by the changed assignments of tasks to ↑ vocational
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schools within the framework of social and vocational school policies and the resultant requirements to be fulfilled by teachers. In this process of development, not only regionally specific models of academic teacher training with different technical concepts have evolved but – at least this is occasionally implied – also different types of teachers (LIPSMEIER 1992; RAUNER 1993; BRECHMACHER / GERDS 1993; STRATMANN 1994). The present empirical findings with regard to (academic) teacher training unavoidably raise the question of what effects and/or what contribution this training makes at all to the formation and development of the teachers’ competences. With regard to the second phase of teacher training – in other words to the period spent working as a student teacher after passing the first state examination – it must also be stated that this represents the “forgotten” phase of teaching research. For this reason, the “Teacher Training” commission of the conference of education ministers in Germany recommended an intensification of research into teacher training on the basis of “broadly based evaluations of all processes and institutions of teacher training in Germany” (TERHART 2000a, 153). In the field of vocational training, the first step should be a comprehensive analytical stocktaking of all processes, institutions and phases as well as their effects on the development of the professional competence and identity of the vocational teachers. For the very controversial discussion about the design of the vocational training subjects, no empirical verification exists with regard to the superiority of a specific model. In view of the present findings however, a great deal speaks against the semiscientific engineering model and vocational pedagogics institutionally isolated from the respective subjects. Only on the basis of broadly based, systematic and comparative evaluations of the effects of the different models can the discussion about the “right” teacher training concept that is strongly swayed by conflicting interests and is in some cases ideologically tinged be objectivised. In this context the following complexes of questions need investigation:
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– The contribution and effect of the different teacher training models to the development of the above-stated categories of professional ethics, professional knowledge and teaching activity. Here it is a question on the one hand of the conceptualisation of the vocational subjects and on the other hand of the design of vocational pedagogics; – An analysis of the scientific traditions, styles of thought and of communications of the disciplines involved and the identification of integration measures and problem areas against the background of the development of professional knowledge in which at least two academic cultures must be integrated (sciences and social research); – The role of practical experience in business and industry in developing the competences of future teachers; – The effects of the second or in-service phase of teacher training in the area of conflicting concerns between the assumption of professional pedagogical tasks and functions and integration into the public service; – Socialisation effects and the evolution of professional ethics and of a ↑ professional identity at the phase of entering into the ↑ profession (“third phase”). With regard to the design of professionalised teacher training, the following structural cornerstones can be defined (cf. GERDS / BAUER 2003; TERHART 2000a). Through experimental studies and longitudinal analyses, finally the empirical verification should be furnished that such reforms do in fact also contribute to improving the quality of the training of vocational teachers; – A stronger coherence and co-operation of all phases and institutions of teacher training in a pool as an organisational prerequisite for a necessary harmonisation and agreement of joint objectives and contents as well as for the networking of the learning processes that make systematic, situative and cumulative learning possible; – An improvement of the frame of reference in terms of content of the individual elements of the courses of study and networking of the ↑ knowledge bases (specialist science, specialist subject didactics, educational science etc.) in courses of study at universities; – A stronger orientation of the vocational subjects to occupational practice. A competence consist-
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ing purely of specialist know-how supplemented by specialist subject didactics no longer fulfils the demands of ↑ professionalisation and the growing social requirements. The development of a knowledge of vocational training processes that is relevant to daily teaching activities as the cardinal point of teacher training as well as of the acquisition of action-guiding routines requires a stronger relevance to the concrete working and education processes in ↑ vocational schools and in practice in business and industry while at the same time maintaining scientific and professional standards of teacher training. A stronger accentuation of the design of situated ↑ learning environments and of reflected teaching practice and evaluation in a close-knit pool of universities, training schools and institutions of advanced and follow-on training for teachers across all phases and institutional boundaries. In this context, the professional training of vocational teachers consists in the qualification to plan, design and evaluate ↑ situated learning environments and situations in order to promote self-organised learning as the core element of knowledge of the vocational training process. This requires above all the case-related practising and application of hermeneutic methods, which make it possible to reconstruct problematical vocational work situations in an interpretative manner and in this way to promote actions and decisions that foster the learning and development processes of trainees and learners (LEMPERT 2000, 257).
3.4.5
Vocational Education and Training and Organisational Development in Companies Gisela Dybowski and Agnes Dietzen
3.4.5.1
Perspectives on Vocational Education and Training and Its Alignment with the Occupational Principle (Beruflichkeit): A Provocative Debate
Vocational education and training (VET) and ↑ organisational development in companies are two areas that have grown in prominence as strategic re-
sources for innovation, as a result of fundamental structural changes in businesses. Nevertheless they remain highly provocative issues in the current debate. Well over a decade ago, the economic crisis of 1992/93 triggered a sociological debate about Germany’s business context, centring on two key aspects: – the bureaucratic and hierarchical organisation of German industry had become somewhat inflexible; – the German ↑ occupation-based approach (Berufsprinzip) including the inherent divisions between occupations meant that the initial vocational training was tailored to discrete occupations. Both tendencies were exposed as contributory factors to the crisis, most notably in a well regarded essay by Horst Kern and Charles Sabel. Their analysis found that German industry’s problems of adaptation resulted directly from internal and external demarcation lines between occupational communities and occupational families. The persistent inertia and communicative inflexibility of the occupation-based approach (Berufskonzept) was also found to be holding back innovation in German industry (K ERN / SABEL 1994). Kern/ Sabel’s critique hinged on hierarchical and bureaucratic structures, which were upholding the distinctions between the many skilled trades in German industry, but making organisational structures inflexible. Many agreed with this analysis. All the same, controversies flared up over the wider social implications of alignment with the ↑ occupational principle (Beruflichkeit) and general conventionality of the German VET model in relation to processes of ↑ organisational development in companies. Other studies – likewise based on international comparisons – stress the importance of employment based on the occupational principle (Beruflichkeit von Erwerbsarbeit) as the vital bridge to organisational development (DREXEL 1995, 53). This analysis considers that the skilled workforce potential built up by VET offers a range of specific opportunities for structural innovation and organisational development processes in companies. This is because the key benefits of the ↑ dual system of VET include a form of occupational socialisation whereby even skilled workers “with
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backgrounds in other occupations are put in a position” to build up “↑ experiential knowledge from practical involvement in production” and an understanding of regulating, ↑ controlling, process-optimising and problem-solving functions for which they have not been formally trained (DÜLL 1995, 188). Indeed, the mid-1990s witnessed the inception of radical reorganisation processes, in companies not just in industries staffed by the classic skilled trades (particularly plant and ↑ mechanical engineering) but also in the traditional mass employment sectors (especially the automotive and chemical industry). These developments brought about the opposite of what Kern and Sabel had predicted. The achievements of these restructuring and re-engineering processes were based specifically on the utmost flexibility, flat hierarchical structures and a transfer of ↑ quality assurance and process competence responsibility directly onto the production level, to be performed by a qualified and highly skilled workforce (SCHUMANN 2003a). In spite of this, there is a continuing debate about structural transformation and its effects on employment structures, including the consequences for skills development and training needs. In the same vein as Kern/ Sabel before him, today Martin Baethge advances the hypothesis that the establishment of process-oriented principles in the organisation of companies and their work organisation is causing “erosion of the occupation” since “retreating from models of work allocation based on occupationspecific skills” is “blurring” the contours and “diluting” the distinctiveness of occupations (BAETHGE 2002, 37). Many would counter this position with the response that any blurring of boundaries associated with the new principles of ↑ organisational development and work design need not necessarily be interpreted as eroding the traditional alignment with the ↑ occupational principle (Beruflichkeit). In fact, wider process-oriented work responsibilities and closer cooperation could also open up opportunities for broadening or shifting the emphasis within the contours of an occupation, bringing new challenges for VET (SCHUMANN 2003a, 108; OLSEN 2001, 173). The GAB reform project on cooperative dual training within the ↑ work process (“Geschäfts- und arbeitsprozessorientierte, dual-
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kooperative Ausbildung in ausgewählten Industrieberufen mit optionaler Fachhochschulreife”) (BREMER /JAGLA 2000), leading to initial vocational qualifications in selected industrial occupations with the option of qualifying for entry to higher education) and proposals of a new paradigm for the design of ↑ occupational profiles (LENNARTZ 1999; SAUTER 2002) have highlighted new ways of refining and opening up the occupation-based approach (Berufskonzept), which now have to prove their worth for the future. 3.4.5.2
VET and Organisational Development in Companies as a Subject of Vocational Education Research
What these developments particularly underscore is the overriding need to venture beyond the context of sociological discourse and research on structural change, work organisation and skills development. The theme of “VET and ↑ organisational development in companies” must also be made a focus of VET and vocational education and ↑ training research (DYBOWSKI / PÜTZ / RAUNER 1995a). The following will then be the main questions requiring more complex analysis: – Are the dynamic processes of innovation and organisational development in modern companies compatible with a system of ↑ initial vocational education and training geared towards universally defined occupational profiles? Or will the latter prove to be static provisions which stand in the way of organisational development in the company? – The specific German solution is still based on skills-profiles for recognised occupations as a starting point for organisational development and structural innovation in the company. Is this a sustainable model for a new paradigm of process-oriented organisation of companies and their work, capable of withstanding conceptual reorientations in VET? In talks hosted by Volkswagen AG at the “Haus Rhode” conference centre, in concert with the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) and the Institute of Technology and Education, Bremen (ITB) (DYBOWSKI / HAASE / RAUNER 1993), a first step was taken towards dis-
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cussing these issues in greater depth with ↑ personnel development managers in large and small companies, and with VET experts, social partners and ↑ VET researchers. One point emerged very clearly: the theme of “VET and organisational development in companies” designates an aspect that academic practice has largely overlooked so far, and one which reveals the limitations of highly specialised ↑ work processes in research and development. But in practice within companies, the consistent separation of vocational education and training on the one hand and organisational development on the other remains firmly institutionalised, although the two interrelated activities are of crucial importance to boosting innovation in business and occupational terms. What contribution does vocational education and ↑ training research make to more detailed and comprehensive analysis of these relationships, and to placing the theme within a perspective which opens up new connections with other ↑ fields of research and academic disciplines? This question was increasingly being raised by academics and practitioners, and directed to research institutions such as BIBB and ITB. It prompted both institutes to consolidate the dialogue between experts from companies’ practice and academics from various disciplines, with the aims of (a) identifying research, development and regulatory needs regarding the relationship between vocational education and training and ↑ organisational development in companies, and (b) mapping out potential research and development needs which could lead to pioneering work in this field. A dossier published in 1995 by BIBB and ITB (DYBOWSKI / PÜTZ / RAUNER 1995a) presented numerous articles which resulted from a conference of experts on this theme, where the issues were discussed at length. They focus on six priorities which, on the one hand, substantially determine the practical and innovative ↑ content of VET and ↑ VET research, and on the other hand, highlight research and development needs relating to the interplay of VET and organisational development in companies from a diversity of disciplinary and methodological viewpoints. The main dimensions of these research proposals are:
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Organisational Development in Companies and VET as a Subject of International Comparisons Comparisons in various highly industrialised countries show that – as a natural outcome of very diverse traditions – a broad spectrum of vocational training is pursued. Through analysis of their specific power to motivate innovations and development processes in companies there is a prospect of deeper understanding of the outset problems in one’s own country and different ways of framing the problems. Looking towards the ↑ European dimension of vocational education and training research, it would also be interesting to enquire into common traditions in the countries of Europe which could be developed into socially-compatible yet also competitive concepts (HEIDEGGER 1995, 43).
Interplays between Organisational Development, Technology Design and Training A further necessity seems to be the pursuit of an ↑ interdisciplinary approach in vocational education and training research, closely linking analyses on the relationship between VET and organisational development in companies with studies on technological development, work design and parameters of industrial culture. The emphasis needs to be placed on structural approaches with an interdisciplinary thrust. Studies on education structures should be combined with analyses of technology and work design, in order to discern trends in participatory ↑ organisational development.
Innovation and Strategies for Training Moreover, in the continuing development of research and development priorities to shed more light on the interrelationship between ↑ innovation in companies and strategies for training, an interdisciplinary approach to vocational education and ↑ training research and pedagogy seems indispensable. From this perspective, key impulses and insights could be drawn from skills research. Unlike qualificational research (Qualifikationsforschung), however, VET and VET research must also consider forms and processes for transforming the outcomes of qualificational research (Qualifikationsforschung) into appropriate “means of standardi-
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sation” (e. g. vocational ↑ training regulations and curricula). Hence there is an urgent need for an adequate set of research and development tools capable of overcoming the limitations of traditional ↑ VET planning techniques and indicating new routes and methods for anticipatory VET planning. At the same time, in the light of a growing integration of processes within companies, increasingly urgent issues are the logic of traditional occupational/occupational-field divisions and the requirements of more complex occupational competences. Other research gaps are articulated by the need to obtain information on changes in companies’ work division, on the one hand, and the relationship of in-company and inter-company integration of skilled labour organised according to occupational categories, together with allied strategies for training.
Fundamental Questions on the Relationship of Pilot Projects and Organisational Development in Companies ↑ Pilot projects pursue a concept of quasi-experimental research and are inherently intended to produce new insights for VET, VET management and ↑ VET policy. Much is to be said, therefore, for making additional use of pilot projects as a more systematic instrument of ↑ organisational development in companies and endeavouring to strengthen cooperation with relevant research and development programmes. Further synergies and research capacities could also be created in the form of new “network projects” between these programmes, on the one hand, and pilot projects on the other (DEHNBOSTEL 1995a).
Tension in Media and Training Concepts between Learning Technologies and Job Design That Fosters Learning The potential of media as vehicles for innovation has received little attention, in relation to new training content or indeed novel technologies and innovations in the organisation of work. To attain the full potential of new media as a tool for ↑ organisational development, it is crucially important to (be able to) make more use of new learning technologies in the workplace. This will sup-
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port ↑ decentralised learning and increase the flexibility of learning schedules and venues. Even so, there are still no “integrated research approaches to the impacts of interactive media use on the organisation of work, work structures, acceptance of technology and social compatibility” (ROSS 1995, 320).
Furthermore, this sort of research and development priority offers a variety of opportunities for ↑ interdisciplinary research, particularly involving engineering and industrial sciences.
Training of Vocational Educators for Learning Organisations Finally, the inclusion of VET in organisational development processes in companies must also be reflected in certain logical consequences for the role and functions of training staff. A largely unresolved issue, however, is how to align training processes for trainers with organisational development and design them more systematically from the point of view of content and methodology (PÄTZOLD 1995c, 369). Making these aspects a priority theme of vocational education and training research promises to bring about a practical gain for VET, but only if accompanied by critical reflection on the changed role of the ↑ vocational school teacher under the system of ↑ learning venue cooperation. The existing initial and further training of vocational school teachers also needs subjecting to more extensive evaluation (GERDS 1995a, 382). 3.4.5.3 Overview of Relevant Research and Development Work by ITB and BIBB The research and ↑ development tasks defined in the early 1990s on the theme of VET and organisational development in companies (“Berufliche Bildung und betriebliche Organisationsentwicklung”) outlined a programme and made recommendations to researchers and practitioners which have lost none of their relevance with the passage of time, and have sparked off wider-ranging initiatives. Ground-breaking development work has been accomplished in VET in the last 10 years. The ↑ occupation-based approach (Berufskonzept) has been reformed and far-reaching efforts have been made to reform occupational training pro-
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files. By differentiating initial vocational training routes, integrating additional qualifications into initial training and opening out the organisation of training into a work-process-oriented structure, a dynamic and flexible structural concept of VET has been established and developed. One of the principal maxims for the modernisation of existing training occupations and the creation of new ones is to gear initial training concepts towards customer-focused, process-oriented and service-centred forms of competence development, and to follow the pedagogical principle of linking systematic job-specific (Fachsystematik) content with process-oriented practices. ↑ Process-orientation as a new guiding vision for companies restructuring and training processes takes the relationship between vocational education and training and ↑ organisational development in companies to a new level (DYBOWSKI 2002a, 5). Beyond this, both the ITB and BIBB have illuminated various facets of these relationships over the last 10 years in their research and development work, which can be outlined only briefly below. In the course of ↑ pilot projects, both institutes have endeavoured to forge stronger links between VET and organisational development in companies and to give a more systematic account of their interdependence. As part of the scientific monitoring of BLK (Federal and State Commission for ↑ Educational Planning and Research Promotion) pilot projects, the ITB pursued this theme primarily from the viewpoint of VET processes in schools and requirements in terms of ↑ organisational development in ↑ vocational schools (FISCHER / STUBER 1996; FISCHER 2000, 237). A series of pilot projects supported by BIBB on the learning organisation (“Lernende Organisation”) (BAU / SCHEMME 2001) and on work-process orientation in initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training (“Arbeitsprozessorientierung in der Aus- und Weiterbildung”) (HOLZ /KOCH / SCHEMME / WITZGALL 1998; BREMER /JAGLA 2000) highlighted innovative routes for reorientating VET in response to changing work and organisational contexts. Likewise both institutes embraced this topic in their research priorities. In the course of many studies on the relationship between organisation-
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al development, technology design and training, and particularly by establishing the ↑ research field of computer-assisted skilled work (“Rechnergestützte Facharbeit”), the ITB has exhaustively engaged with the importance of skilled workers’ experience and work-process knowledge for the design of VET, and with interaction and innovation in companies (FISCHER 2000; FISCHER / RAUNER 2002b). Topics discussed include the implications of the changing substance and form of skilled occupational practice in industry and the craft trades, brought about not only by the convergence of computer, media and network technologies, but also by new organisational forms of work and learning in companies. Considerable potential is thereby generated to restructure specific occupations and ↑ occupational fields, realigning them with the knowledge needed in and for the ↑ work process. This maps out a new dimension of research, which should also provide substantial input and guidance for VET practice. This theme will also be added to the ITB’s international ↑ comparative VET research. Within the research priority of European vocational education and ↑ training research (“Europäische Berufsbildungsforschung”), the emphasis is on analysing questions about the structure of the interaction between work and education, which turn attention to the matter of learning within the work process. Secondly, in a project on modes of ↑ organisational learning and their importance to VET (“Wege des organisationalen Lernens und ihre Bedeutung für die berufliche Bildung”) which makes reference to studies in four major European companies, analysis focuses on the importance of initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training as a precondition for organisational learning in companies, and how this in turn is influenced in its form and substance by organisational learning (ITB 2000, 158). A similar line of enquiry was taken up – this time at national level – in a BIBB research project called BILSTRAT (“Betriebliche Innovationsand Lernstrategien – Implikationen for berufliche Bildungs- and betriebliche Personalentwicklungsprozesse”) looking at companies’ innovation and ↑ learning strategies and their implications for VET and corporate ↑ personnel development processes (DYBOWSKI / TÖPFER / DEHNBOSTEL /K LING 1999). The
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study looked at ten German companies from different sectors, all of which had undergone long-term restructuring. It enquired into changes in work and learning patterns induced by restructuring processes, and their impacts on VET and company ↑ personnel development processes. Major aspects of the research project focused on challenges and strategies for handling a new interplay of changes in organisational, process and skills factors within companies. It also sought to pin down details of the environment and prior objectives in which any ongoing development of VET is rooted. This project did not confine itself to highlighting future desiderata of vocational education research. In fact it also attempted to formulate formal recommendations for the ongoing development of VET practice, which have gained considerable acclaim as fundamental guidelines for numerous BIBB ↑ pilot projects. Furthermore, this theme was offered up for broad discussion at an ↑ interdisciplinary colloquium. As a result, further insights into this complex problem area of VET were gained from the perspective of other research and scholarly disciplines (DEHNBOSTEL / DYBOWSKI 2000). Questions on the interrelationship of VET and ↑ organisational development in companies were also the subject of a BIBB research priority dealing with the early identification of skills developments. It sought to make use of the experiemental knowledge of organisational and ↑ human resources development staff, work designers and change management consultants as a window to companies skills developments. The objective was to sound out the influence and impacts of innovation and change processes on the development of ↑ skills; also to gather information on whether changes in companies and ↑ organisational development processes are coordinated with corporate training and human resources development, and the extent to which such activities are integrated in practice (DIETZEN 2002; DIETZEN / SELLE 2003; DIETZEN / SELLE / LATNIAK 2005). In the wake of organisational change and restructuring, workloads are being combined and allocated differently, giving rise to new kinds of jobs with new skills requirements. Consultants who take on organisational development and process monitoring roles play a part in shaping work procedures and organisational struc-
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tures, and thus have the opportunity to identify and evaluate processes of development. In relation to new skills requirements, the research findings confirm the hypothesis that a “new ↑ professionalisation” (neue Fachlichkeit) is emerging (SCHUMANN 2003a). It is apparent that the elements of occupation-specific, process and social competence are increasingly treated as an integrated whole. Within the framework of existing ↑ occupational profiles, this can be made explicit by changing the weightings of different components of occupational competence, giving clear expression to the interlinkages between VET, skills development and organisational development. The expertise of these experts provides an insight into the contexts in which new skills requirements are arising, as well as the conditions in which they are addressed in companies. The latter setting, in particular, makes it clear that skills development and organisational development in modern companies must be seen as two contexts which are indivisibly linked. An enduring system of skills development which sets out to put VET goals into practice can only be achieved if there are accompanying changes in organisational structures: development of appropriate structures for cooperation and communication in companies, strategic alignment of management personnel, creation of clear recognition and reward structures, and promotion and development of working environments that foster learning. By the same token, skills development is a basic prerequisite of organisational transformation in the company because it ensures that the workforce is equipped with the necessary capabilities to support such a transformation. As individuals, workers will need reflective abilities including “organisational awareness”, “↑ participation in processes of change” and the ability to “define their own role”, on which basis they can negotiate the compatibility of their personal interests with their occupational practice and the interests of the company.
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3.5.0 Costs, Benefits, and Financing VET Robert I. Lerman 3.5.0.1
Basic Concepts in Cost-Benefit Analysis
Educating all citizens is, rightly, accepted as a necessary element of a modern, humane society. Virtually no one asks whether the benefits of having an educational system are worth the costs. In contrast, funding a major VET component raises questions about whether the benefits of VET outweigh financial costs and the lost time students could have spent on general education. Demands for proof of VET’s cost-↑ effectiveness arise because spending on education for specific careers is viewed as discretionary and because the state’s responsibility for financing VET is often ambiguous. A common view is that VET is basic job training that employers and perhaps workers should fund. How one studies VET costs, benefits, and financing depends in part on the question of primary interest. Some deal with micro issues, such as: What is the ↑ rate of return on an extra year in VET relative to an extra year in an academic program? What are the average costs and benefits for students taking and completing an apprenticeship in a specific occupation? What is the average return for companies investing in VET? How do the returns vary across industries and occupations? The macro questions relate to the nature of a country’s ↑ VET system. What is the optimal size of the VET system relative to the university sector? Should countries emphasize programmes leading to occupational certification or to academic certifications and/or modular skill standards? Does a major VET program reduce youth unemployment and other social ills relative to a more academically-oriented work preparation system? This section offers an overview relevant to some of these questions, but leaves many possible approaches uncovered. General discussions about the value of VET and its costs, benefits, and financing implicitly or explicitly draw extensively on the economics of ↑ costbenefit analysis and the concept of externalities. Economic analysis emphasizes an activity’s social costs (or the resources used up) and social benefits (or the additional resources generated). Like oth-
er investments, VET costs are incurred early while a flow of benefits materializes over a number of years. To make appropriate comparisons of costs and benefits, one must discount future benefits (and costs) back to the present using a relevant interest rate. Alternatively, one can calculate the rate or return on costs that would equalize the present value of costs and benefits. Social costs and benefits may or may not differ from the monetary costs and benefits. In the case of VET, some social costs are clear, such as material costs valued properly at their price in the market. Similarly, the wage paid for the time spent by teachers equals social costs since it represents the value they could have generated in another productive activity. Less clear is the cost of the time that mentors and part-time instructors spend on VET; conceptually, the resource costs should equal the value lost by diverting them to training and away from other productive activities. Sometimes ignored is the social cost in lost production due to the time trainees spend on VET. The main VET benefits are the value of added production generated by the trainees, both during the training and in the future. Measuring both these benefits is often difficult, especially the added productivity of workers in the decades after participating in VET. The potential ↑ wider benefits, such as enhanced self-concept and self-efficacy, are even harder to estimate and to translate into dollar gains. Properly comparing costs (which largely occur during VET) and benefits (which largely occur well after VET) requires discounting future benefits and costs to determine the present values of each. While studying VET for society as a whole makes sense, it is also appropriate to examine the costs, benefits, and financing from the standpoint of the worker, the firm, and the government separately. ↑ Cost-benefit analysis can reveal whether society as a whole gains from VET, but the distribution of benefits may be uneven, depending on financing provisions. Here, the concept of externalities becomes relevant. If trainees and employers are the beneficiaries of VET, they should bear the costs.
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But often, there are external benefits to third parties, such as other workers or companies. The presence of well-trained workers in one occupation may enhance the productivity of workers in other occupations. A plentiful supply of workers in an occupation benefits not only those firms who hire in the relevant occupation but also other firms who benefit when their suppliers are more productive. Finally, to the extent trainees have more self-efficacy and less alienation, others are likely to benefit from having healthy fellow citizens and from reduced crime. Given these externalities, VET will be undersupplied if workers and employers bear all of the costs. Some support from others – support typically flowing through the government – can increase VET that is closer to the optimal level and cause many of those who benefit to share in the costs. Generalizations about costs, benefits, and financing are hazardous given the variety of structures and types of VET. In countries emphasizing school-based VET, the state usually plays a significant role in financing despite the likelihood that participants will capture most of the net benefits. Employers typically bear a substantial share of the costs of VET programmes with a heavy workbased and internship/apprenticeship element. The chapters in this section present the relevant theoretical insights and empirical evidence about the costs, benefits, financing, and broader benefits of VET based on research from a variety of countries. Despite the similarities in the mix of production across countries, training systems vary dramatically in the relative importance of VET, the involvement of employers in VET, and in the systems for financing VET. 3.5.0.2
Human Capital Theory
Theoretical work pioneered by Jacob Mincer and Gary Becker emphasizes the well-known distinction between ↑ general training (that increases skills that have value both inside and outside the firm) and ↑ specific training (that increases skills useful only to the firm). Since general skills raise the worker’s value both inside and outside the firm, competition will drive out any premium the initial firm might have gained from paying less than the worker’s productivity. If the training firm does not
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raise wages by the training-induced gain in productivity, workers will move to another firm and obtain wages equal to their higher level of productivity. Because all the productivity gains accrue to the worker, firms will be reluctant to invest in general skills. For this reason, responsibility for financing training in general skills usually lies with the individual and the state. Firms are more likely to invest in skills that raise productivity within but not outside the firm. In the case of firm-specific skills, benefits will usually accrue to the firms making the investments in the form of increases in productivity without a commensurate wage increase. However, unlike the accounting treatment of investments in capital equipment, investments in training are treated as current expenses and not as additions to the firm’s capacity and potential future productivity. Challenges to aspects of ↑ human capital theory help justify added firm investments in vocational training. Noting that employers do offer general training to workers, Acemoglu and Pischke (1999a) argue that employers have an incentive to finance general training because of transaction costs in the ↑ labour market, such as matching and search costs that make it difficult for workers to quit their jobs, and costly for firms to replace their employees. These search costs create a potential surplus that can be gained by employers and/or workers when they avoid turnover. The ability of firms to obtain some part of this surplus causes the productivity gain from added skills to rise faster than wages. This wage-productivity gap presents an opportunity for employers to profit from their investments in training, even in general training. The classification of skills into general and specific downplays the most common type of skills resulting from VET – occupation-specific skills. These skills are general in that they raise productivity outside the firm but specific in that they are applicable only to a limited number of employers. Some human capital theorists recognize that financing and liquidity constraints may limit worker investments in general training. Workers may lack the necessary cash and cannot use future earnings gains as collateral for a loan. In work-based training, workers may be able to bear part of the costs by taking a lower wage than they would have in
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a non-training position. For other forms of VET, governments typically deal with the liquidity problem by provide student grants or loans. 3.5.0.3
Relating Conceptual Issues to Studying VET Costs, Benefits, and Financing
These theoretical perspectives highlight some of the complexities of VET and point to linkages between skill enhancement strategies, financing issues, and the incidence of costs and benefits. They illustrate why studies of VET costs and benefits generally fall into two categories: (1) companybased studies, which focus on the profitability of investments in VET; and (2) worker-based studies, which deal with the ↑ rate of return to workers. For work-based VET programmes like apprenticeships, it is natural to emphasize industry studies since employers typically bear most of the costs and make the decision about whether to offer paid apprenticeships. In school-based training, the two main costs – foregone earnings of participating students and the costs of delivering courses – are faced largely by students and the state. For this reason, empirical studies of school-based VET typically do little to incorporate impacts on employers; instead, they concentrate on the returns to students and only sometimes take into account the costs to students and to the government. For example, the National Assessment of Vocational Education in the ↑ US included estimates of the student earnings gains but no information on the incremental costs of VET (SILVERBERG / WARNER / FONG / GOODWIN 2004). Few studies attempt to quantify the impact on third parties, including other employers, workers, and society at large. Conceptual and practical issues arise in trying to estimate VET costs and benefits and use the results for decision-making. The first is defining the counterfactual, or what would have taken place in the absence of vocational education. Answering this question rigorously is extremely difficult. Comparing students or workers who go through a VET program to those who do not is subject to the selection problem, since those choosing VET are potentially different than those who did not. One solution, used in evaluations of US job training programmes sponsored by the federal government, is
a social experiment, in which applicants are randomly assigned to treatment groups (with access to VET) or control groups (no access to VET). Experimental studies of this kind have been conducted in accordance with the Job ↑ Training Partnership Act (ORR / BLOOM / BELL ET AL. 1996) and the Job Corps (MCCONNELL / GLAZERMAN 2001). These studies both estimated costs and benefits from the standpoint of the participants, the government, and the society as a whole. The Job Corps study was the most comprehensive, taking account of benefits of reduced crime and other social problems. Unfortunately, experiments are expensive, take a long time to implement, and it is difficult to estimate the potential costs and benefits to employers. A second fundamental problem is the ex post character of cost-benefit studies. They show the impact of past programmes on past earnings and productivity gains. The results do not necessarily generalize for the future. A related issue involves the timing of studies. Learning about the ↑ ↑ effectiveness of VET for today’s cohort may require waiting at least 5–10 years. By that time, circumstances may change. Third, few if any studies consider the risks and uncertainties of investments in a specific VET by employers, workers, on the government (LITH 1998b). Like any investment, the costs are incurred well before the full benefits materialize. Moreover, even if VET in general generates benefits that exceed the costs, people are investing in a specific course, ↑ occupational area, or form of training. The high degree of heterogeneity in types of training, in occupational and industry fields, and in quality adds to the uncertainty and makes generalizations hazardous. Fourth, the aggregate benefits and costs are extremely difficult to document with precision. Training an additional worker for an occupation increases a nation’s capacity but achieving an increase in the worker’s productivity will depend on the demand side. Without adequate demand, the newly trained worker may supplant another trained worker. To understand the broader societal benefits for productivity, for reduced inequality, for structuring the ↑ labour market, and for the design of products and processes, the researcher must examine patterns across countries, a task requiring superb
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skills in interpreting and sythesizing trends and the research literature. 3.5.0.4
Studies of Employer-Based Programmes
The difficult evaluation questions are important but should not immobilize researchers. It is particularly important to study VET programmes sponsored by employers. A first step is to clarify the concepts of costs and benefits. Walden (→ 3.5.1) discusses these concepts and relevant empirical evidence largely from the standpoint of the company providing VET. In considering costs, one must choose whether to allocate some of the fixed costs of the business to VET or to focus on marginal costs, the added costs associated with VET. Although decisions about adopting VET should depend on its marginal costs and benefits, some studies have used costs that incorporate overhead expenditures that would be undertaken in the absence of VET. On the other hand, marginal costing sometimes ignores some resource costs directly linked to VET. Surely, some part of the wages of administrators of company training and of part-time trainers represent the using up of real resources by the VET program and thus should count as costs. The standard approach is to use payments to trainees (including mandated benefits) as a cost. Although clearly the wages paid to trainees is a cost to the firm, it may or may not capture the actual resource cost to society, which is the opportunity costs of the trainees. If VET supplants standard education, then the cost is the value of learning the trainee would have gained in regular education relative to VET. This magnitude is very difficult to determine. If VET displaces work in a regular job, then the resource cost is the lost output the trainee would have generated at his or her best alternative. Whether to consider the value of the productive work of the trainee as reducing the costs or as a benefit is somewhat arbitrary. In either case, it can substantially influence the balance of costs and benefits. Walden points to two methods for estimating the value gained from the trainee’s work. One involves measuring the time trainees are producing for the firm, their productivity relative to a normal employee, and implied wage savings from having the trainee do the work. A second is to cal-
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culate the cost of what a company would have to spend to produce the equivalent amount resulting from the trainee’s work. Additional benefits accruing to companies from VET investments include reductions in recruitment costs, higher productivity of internallytrained workers, lower turnover, increased utilization of capacity. Using data from surveys of German companies engaging in training, studies cited by Walden conclude that training benefits more than justify the marginal costs of training for the vast majority of companies. 3.5.0.5
Variations in National Financing of VET
Costs and benefits accrue not only to employers but also to workers and the rest of society. The type of VET will generally affect who bears the costs, who reaps the benefits, and, in turn, who is responsible for the financing. Timmerman (→ 3.5.2) considers the linkages in describing the types of VET and the ↑ financing of VET across countries. Systems differ in terms of philosophy (nature of qualifications, method of instruction), governance (role of state and companies), and institutional arrangements (↑ vocational schools, training centres, single enterprise training, and dual training systems). VET approaches that are the most general and unlinked to specific companies are the most likely to require funding from the state and individual workers. Thus, vocational schools are most likely to rely on state financing, usually from general revenues. Systems emphasizing decentralized, onthe-job training in specific skills require financing from the firm. The ↑ US and Canada provide training which is often tied to a job. While this training uses appropriate equipment, it is least likely to have general applicability. Asian firms finance extensive training for their workers in a range of areas related to the firm, giving long-term employees flexible skills within the company. Training centres that benefit groups of companies are often financed by a levy placed on all employers in the relevant sector. ↑ Dual systems, such as those in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, depend primarily on financing from individual companies, but the state generally finances the theoretical instruction provided in vocational schools. The extensive
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company financing in these systems for training applicability beyond the firm is puzzling because of the risk that other firms hire away workers after they are trained. In explaining the phenomenon, Timmerman points to in-training production, savings in recruitment costs, limited worker ↑ mobility, and the complementary nature of general and ↑ specific training.
National Efforts to Involve Employers in Financing VET Although national ↑ VET systems vary, most countries are eager to have employers provide substantial amounts of training to current employees and to ↑ young workers entering the work force. Brandsma and Smith (→ 3.5.3) discuss the international experience with alternative approaches to encouraging employer-based training. They group countries in four categories. Under the laissez-faire systems operating in ↑ Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the ↑ United States, employers are free to train or not based on business requirements. Even in these countries, employers do provide training but few employers offer long-term training leading to occupational certifications (OECD 1999c). The training is often short-term, highly specific, firm-related training (LERMAN / MCK ERNAN / RIEGG 2004). In addition, as of 1994, over three out of four US firms reimbursed workers for tuition at colleges and training institutes and over 70 per cent provided training in production equipment, computer literacy, teamwork, and cross training (LERMAN / SCHMIDT 1999). High employer ↑ commitment systems operate in the Scandinavian countries, with over 80 per cent of employers in Norway and Finland providing training and over 50 per cent of workers participating in a given year. In Denmark, joint union, government, and employer committees sponsor training programmes largely financed by the government. They use extensive training plans for 55 sectors in the Danish economy. Sectoral programmes operate extensively in the Netherlands as well, through public-private ↑ partnerships that make training funds available to employers. The social partners, including unions and employers, participate in the planning and management of the programmes through Collective Agreements. The
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concept of sectoral projects to structure local job training is taking hold in the US as well (BLAIR 2002). Where subsidies and other forms of encouragement are insufficient, some governments have tried to increase training by mandating employers to pay into a training fund to which they can apply for training grants. An alternative mandate is that companies spend at least a specific share of their payroll on training or pay into a training fund. Compulsory employer financing schemes have operated in several countries, but they often generate considerable resistance linked with high administrative costs and confusion over, for example, what qualifies as training. Brandsma and Smith conclude that stimulating ↑ employer training requires an institutional structure in which employers are major stakeholders and help develop ↑ training policies and programmes. 3.5.0.6
The Broader Benefits of VET for Individuals and Communities
Another way to stimulate VET is to document its significant benefits that accrue to individuals, both in careers and in their social lives, and to the general public. The literature on the impact of VET on individual earnings is extensive. The results no doubt vary with the nature of the program, but even systems with limited employer involvement appear to raise the earnings returns of participants. In the US, Bishop and Maine (2004) find that taking four advanced CTE courses instead of two academic and one personal interest course led to substantial gains in employment and earnings gains eight years after normal ↑ high school graduation. The benefits of VET extend beyond careers and productivity and actually influence an individual’s ↑ identity and ↑ social capital. Feinstein, Kirpal, and Sánchez (→ 3.5.4) discuss the mechanisms by which these effects occur and cite empirical evidence showing that VET raises self-esteem, self-confidence, social skills, social contacts, and the motivation to learn, and clarifies future career prospects. These effects, in turn, improve physical health and reduce depression, teenage pregnancy and criminal activity. Some studies have also documented benefits to the community at large, including lower rates of crime and the improved in-
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teractions between youth and the community. Certainly, the form and the quality of VET matter. Programmes that include learning in the context of a job appear most effective in improving identity and social capital.
3.5.1
The Broader Benefits of VET for Productivity
3.5.1.
In addition to its primary mission of training individuals to become productive workers with qualifications in an occupation, VET can help workers play a central role in shaping the production process and in developing innovations. Ruth (→ 3.5.5) argues that the VET is particularly important for developed countries to make a successful transition from mass production to flexible production. From this perspective, the continuing strong ↑ performance of Germany in flexible production owes much to its ↑ VET system. A body of empirical research by Steedman and Wagner (1987; 1989) has documented how the role of VET, especially apprenticeship, contributes to raising productivity in specific industries. The interactions between the skills learned through VET programmes and productivity-enhancing innovation are subtle but real.
Data relating to the costs and ↑ benefits of training is of key importance for the evaluation of the ↑ performance of a vocational education and training system (→ 3.5.2; → 5.4.1). As far as in-company vocational education and training is concerned, Germany can look back on a long tradition of cost calculation. We begin with an explanation of the relevant terms used within the scope of research into the costs and benefits of in-company vocational education and training.
Toward More Comprehensive Studies of VET Benefits, Costs, and Financing The array of available VET cost-benefit studies is valuable but is not sufficiently comprehensive to capture all the major impacts of a well-developed system. Making the job difficult are methodological and practical problems, such as the long follow-ups required to estimate career impacts, the detailed company-based research to estimate productivity gains, and the multiple interactions between companies and workers that can cause market effects to differ from the sum of individual effects. Nonetheless, research on individual impacts and on system-wide effects is vital for a thorough understanding of VET and how best to structure the opportunities VET affords an individual and a society.
Costs and Benefits of InCompany Vocational Education and Training Günter Walden Definition of Terms
Training Costs In terms of economic theory, costs are defined as the consumption of value caused by the production of company goods and services (WÖHE 2002, 1083). In order to calculate costs, quantity and value structures are required. Costs are arrived at by multiplying the quantity and value components of the consumption of goods and services. In the case of absorption costing, the deployment of persons and materials required for training is measured and evaluated. An overview of the individual cost elements which need to be taken into consideration in the case of ↑ in-company training is provided in Fig. 1. The basic model for the calculation of ↑ training costs was developed in the early 1970s by the commission of experts known as “Costs and Finance of Vocational Education and Training” (SK 1974). Since many companies do not calculate training costs on a separate basis, a uniform data collection system is used to measure the various cost-related elements, which are then combined within a cost calculation model. Using the full costing principle creates the problem that, in addition to the extra costs directly related to training, some overhead costs are allocated to training despite the fact that the company would have incurred such costs even if it did not
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Fig. 1: Cost elements of in company VET (Source Beicht/Walden/ Herget 2004a, 22)
provide training. The full costing principle does not, therefore, reflect the additional costs actually incurred. Counting this cost is, however, likely to be the crucial factor for a company deciding whether to provide training or not (BARDELEBEN / BEICHT / FEHÉR 1995, 23 ff.). Today, marginal costing is also used in addition to absorption costing. Marginal costing disregards the costs of part-time trainers, employees who are involved in training to some extent as well as carrying out their normal duties. Part-time employees in training ↑administration are also not included under the marginal costing method. The decision as to whether absorption or marginal costing is the more appropriate depends on the objectives of the cost analysis being undertaken. Particularly when drawing cost comparisons with other parts of the German training system or when making international comparisons, the focus is on adopting an overall view of consumption of resources, which is best measured using the absorption costing method. Marginal costing, on the other hand, represents an effective measure of the additional costs incurred by a company providing training (compare BEICHT / WALDEN /HERGET 2004a, 28). A particular feature of the ↑ dual system of training (based both in companies and in ↑ vocational schools) is that trainees generally also perform productive, commercially valuable work during
their in-company training. The trainees’ productive output reduces the company’s cost burden and therefore represents returns on training which can be deducted from total costs. For this reason, a differentiation is always made between gross and net costs in the case of ↑ training costs, the latter representing the balance of gross costs and returns on investment. The starting point for the calculation of returns on investment is the assumption that the productive work performed by trainees is of equal value to companies as would be the alternative of paying a normal employee to carry out the same duties (equivalence principle) (see BARDELEBEN / BEICHT/ FEHÉR 1995, 26). Measuring the periods of time in which trainees are productive and their level of performance compared to a normal employee thus forms the basis for calculating returns on training investment. An alternative method of calculating these returns is by means of the so-called substitution method. Substitution involves estimating which human resources a company would have to employ and the amount of overtime which would be incurred if no training were provided at all (BARDELEBEN / BEICHT/ FEHÉR 1995, 50 f.). This procedure is, however, less significant in empirical research.
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Benefits of Training
(and consequently for profits) and the costs which have been avoided are the primary focus of interest here. Since it is difficult to measure direct effects on labour productivity, benefits gained as a subsequent consequence of training have been formulated in indirect terms (WALDEN / HERGET 2002), providing a basis for empirical research to be carried out. This process essentially involves focussing on the costs a company would incur if it were not to provide training (opportunity costs). The following individual cost elements can be measured (WALDEN / HERGET 2002): – Recruitment costs These refer to costs incurred in seeking and employing skilled employees from outside the company (advertising costs, job interviews). Induction and qualifications involve additional costs. – Differences in the level of ↑ performance between employees trained internally and those who have obtained their qualifications outside the company It is also probable that differences in the level of performance between those employees trained incompany and those recruited via the ↑ labour market will continue to be apparent for a certain period of time beyond the induction period. The reasons for such differences in performance are the specific advantages a company’s own training provides. This means that, whilst there needs to be compliance with existing ↑ training regulations, qualifications can be geared towards specific company requirements. Trainees gain knowledge of the particular features of a company’s production procedures, service provision and ↑ work processes at an early stage. ↑ In-company training also constitutes in effect a very lengthy probationary period, affording companies the opportunity of selecting the best employees for employment on a permanent basis. – Mismatches in hiring and turnover of staff Recruitment via the external labour market also brings with it the increased risk of making mismatches in hiring, potentially raising costs caused by a higher level of staff turnover. – Idle production costs The avoidance of idle production costs, which occur when no cover for an existing skilled employee can be provided for a given period, probably represents a major element of the ↑ benefits of training,
The benefits to firms of ↑ in-company training are not directly identifiable and do not lend themselves to ready measurement. They represent a construct which requires the operationalisation of empirical methods of data collection. In general terms, the idea of benefits is viewed as having the same meaning as “returns”, this term being used to refer to the “returns on investment” from spending on training. In terms of in-company investment in training, however, the use of this terminology is the object of some controversy (TIMMERMANN 1998). Timmermann takes the view that the term “benefits” can only apply at an individual level, preferring to speak more generally of “effects” at a company level. In the absence of any widespread academic acceptance of this notion on the part of experts working in the field, however, this chapter will continue in its consistent use of the term “benefits”. Although the following deals exclusively with benefits flowing to the company, training can also produce benefits for the trainees and for society. Benefits gained from in-company training constitute positive economic effects for the company, whether they are monetary or non-monetary benefits (TIMMERMANN 1998, 82). Individual benefits accruing from training can be quantified in monetary terms to a greater or lesser extent. Those classifying ↑ benefits of training for companies (see TIMMERMANN 1998; RICHTER 2000; WALDEN / HERGET 2002) frequently differentiate between whether the training benefit occurs during the training period itself or is a subsequent consequence of training. Returns gained from productive work of trainees represent benefits during training and can be taken into account when calculating gross costs, as already described. Benefits during training further occur when a company gains advantages from training activities as such (examples of this being enhancement of reputation externally, increased level of ↑ professionalisation in the provision of in-company continuing training) (see WALDEN / HERGET 2002). Benefits gained as a subsequent consequence of training only arise for companies when trainees are actually taken on as permanent employees at the end of their apprenticeship. Implications for labour productivity
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the evaluation of the actual value of such benefits largely depending on the prevailing situation on the skilled workers labour market. Idle production costs can be very high, even potentially resulting in cessation of production in extreme cases where there is a severe shortage of skilled labour. Since they are impossible to survey directly, the measurement and evaluation of the types of benefits described above present researchers with a wide range of difficulties. A significant part of the benefit companies gain from training is, for example, distributed over an extended period of time after training has been concluded and the qualified worker has been employed on a permanent basis. For this reason, researchers have not yet succeeded in completely quantifying the benefit of training. 3.5.1.2
Objects and Aims of Research
This chapter deals with research projects, which have adopted a mainly empirical approach to the aim of measuring ↑ training costs and the extent of the benefits of training from a company’s point of view. The schools of ↑ educational economics and ↑ human capital theory have established theoretical principles for research projects relating to the cost and benefits analysis of in-company vocational education and training. Particular reference should be made to the work of Becker (1993) in this respect. As far as in-company qualification activities are concerned, he draws a distinction between the development of specific and general human capital. Companies can only internalise returns on training investments if specific human capital has been developed which can only be deployed within the company in question. General human capital, on the other hand, is transferable beyond the bounds of the company. This process involves employees who were trained in-company being recruited away by other companies which can offer higher wages and do not have to bear the costs of acquisition of qualifications. The fact that the ↑ dual system of vocational education and training in Germany operates a system of generally regulated occupations and also involves a considerable amount of investment in general ↑ human capital on the part of companies makes it difficult to reconcile the training behaviour observed in companies with the implications of this theory. How-
ever, weakening some theoretical assumptions, such as the remuneration of workers on the basis of the marginal product, opens up the possibility that company investments in general human capital may be rational for the firm. An extended theoretical approach to the explanation of in-company qualification activities has recently been presented by Acemoglu/ Pischke (1999a). The scope of this chapter does not permit a closer consideration of the ongoing debate in the field of ↑ educational economics (see BECKMANN 2002, for example). The main focus of research on costs and benefits of in-company vocational education and training under consideration here is the collection of empirical data relating to the level and structure of ↑ in-company ↑ training costs and the extent of the benefit realised (or realisable) on the part of the companies. Before the appropriate empirical surveys can be implemented, an extensive range of problems relating to technical issues of data measurement and collection need to be resolved. Training cost data can be presented in terms of the major structural features of in-company training (occupation, field of training). A further object of research is to determine the main factors which influence the extent of the costs. A final and particularly significant task is to extend the basis of the information used to provide an explanation of incompany training behaviour by establishing a link between the cost and benefit data. This can serve as the basis for the investigation of specific hypotheses and enables differences in company training structures to be measured. 3.5.1.3
History and Current Status of Research
Costs and benefit issues relating to training have by no means always been investigated jointly in the past, separate studies also having taken place. Whereas the emphasis in the past was very much on the costs aspect, recent times have seen the main focus of research increasingly centring on the benefits of in-company training.
Training Costs A whole series of relevant investigations into the costs of in-company vocational education and
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training in Germany have been carried out in the past. In 1971, the “Costs and Finance of Vocational Education and Training” expert commission (SK 1974) was the first to conduct a cost analysis based on statistically representative company surveys. The analysis conducted by this expert commission provided the theoretical and comparative basis for all ensuing empirical cost surveys relating to vocational education and training carried out in the Federal Republic of Germany. A German Parliament resolution of 14. October 1970 established the basis for the setting up of an expert commission with the task of investigating the costs and financing of vocational education and training in the Federal Republic of Germany. The starting point for the task was the complete lack of knowledge of facts concerning the provision of training within trade and industry. The results of the cost analysis carried out by the expert commission were differentiated according to regulated occupations and important structural characteristics such as field of training and size of company. The costs analysis was accompanied by an extensive investigation into the quality of in-company vocational education and training. The expert commission used the data collected as a basis for the submission of reform proposals for the financing of vocational education and training. One particular proposal made by the expert commission was for the establishment of a vocational education and training fund, a suggestion not taken on board politically and not implemented. Training costs also formed the object of two investigations which took place around 1980, instigated by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) (NOLL / BEICHT / BÖLL ET AL. 1983) and the German Institute for Business Research respectively (FALK 1982). The method of data collection used in the BIBB investigation in particular was closely based on the approach taken by the expert commission. The results of the BIBB investigation provided differentiation according to 45 regulated occupations, whereas the German Institute for Business Research survey did not provide any sub-divisions based on occupations. The cost surveys which followed the analysis carried out by the expert commission did not take the quality of vocational education and training into
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account, partly because of limited research funding and technical issues of data collection. Cost analysis questionnaires can be very extensive and result in relatively long interviews. In the 1980s, BIBB carried out an independent investigation into the quality of in-company vocational education and training instead, separating out the cost issue (DAMM-RÜGER / DEGEN / GRÜNEWALD 1988). BIBB conducted another representative investigation into ↑ training costs in 1991 (BARDELEBEN / BEICHT / FEHÉR 1995) and again in 1995 and 1997 (BARDELEBEN / BEICHT/FEHER 1997) (BARDELEBEN / BEICHT 1999). These investigations did not, however, allow for differentiation according to occupation. A further cost analysis was carried out in 1995 by the German Automobile Association, which looked at its own branch of industry (DEUTSCHES K RAFTFAHRZEUGGEWERBE 1998). There were also investigations for Austria (LASSNIGG / STEINER 1997) and Switzerland (HANHART/ SCHULZ 1998). The most recent available data on costs of ↑ incompany training relate to the year 2000 in the case of Germany (BEICHT / WALDEN / HERGET 2004a) and Switzerland (SCHWERI / MÜHLEMANN / PESCIO ET AL. 2003). The data collection instruments developed by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training for use in the German survey also formed the basis of the Swiss investigation. Both surveys were conducted in 2001. Tab. 1 presents some of the main findings of the German investigation (BEICHT / WALDEN / HERGET 2004a): Using the absorption costing method, which measures and evaluates all persons and materials deployed in the training process, the figure arrived at for average gross costs per trainee and year in Germany is € 16,435. The productive ↑ performance of trainees during training represents returns on training investment, reducing the companies’ cost burden, and is therefore deducted from gross costs. Deducting these average returns of € 7,730 leaves us with net costs of € 8,705. There are considerable cost differences between West and East Germany (see Tab. 1). Gross costs (full costs) in the East are 29 % lower than in the West, net costs being 32 % lower. The main reason
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for this is the different level of training allowances, wages and salaries. There are also considerable variations in cost between fields of training. Trade and industry have the highest gross costs, closely followed by the self-employed sector and public service occupations. By contrast, gross costs are significantly lower in agriculture and the craft trades. There is also a considerable variation in returns on training, and this produces a different picture in terms of net costs. The public service sector has relatively low returns but the highest net costs. The lowest net costs by some ↑ distance are to be found in agriculture, which also has the second highest returns. The marginal costing method does not take the cost of part-time trainers into account. This results in significantly lower costs. If marginal costing is used, gross costs are € 10,178 and net costs € 2,448. The marginal costs reflect the extra cost burden incurred by companies by providing training, including the full costs of the resources used up in the training process. With figures on the average gross and net costs (full costs), we can calculate the total cost of incompany vocational education and training to trade and industry in the year 2000. The calculations show that gross costs for all trainees in Germany as a whole was € 27.7 billion, € 23.3 for West Germany and € 4.4 billion for the East of the country. Net costs reached a total of € 14.7 billion nationwide, € 12.4 billion in the West and € 2.2 billion in East Germany. A whole range of factors, such as size of company and the occupation itself, bring about considerable variances in training costs. One occupation where costs are particularly high is the ↑ profession of mechatronics engineer, where gross full costs are € 29,335, in contrast to the equivalent costs for the occupation of legal assistant, for example, which are significantly lower at € 12,941. As described above, it is the marginal costs and, above all, the net marginal costs, which represent the actual cost burden for companies conducting their own vocational education and training. It is, therefore, important to be clear what the influencing factors determining the cost level are. Multivariate analyses have been conducted and produced the following correlations (BEICHT / WALDEN /
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HERGET 2004a, 113 ff.). Firstly, the size of a company significantly influences the level of cost; costs increase as the size of the company grows. The way in which training is organised within the company is another important factor. Training in a training workshop results in much higher levels of cost than is the case with other organisational forms of training. As far as occupations and ↑ occupational groups are concerned, technical occupations are more expensive than commercial and administrative occupations. In general terms, the highest costs are to be found in technical occupations (under the auspices of the chambers of commerce and industry) and ↑ IT occupations. Commercial chamber of commerce and industry occupations are in a mid-level position, craft trades occupations tending to produce lower costs. As already mentioned, similar data collection instruments were used in Switzerland to carry out a cost survey for the year 2000 (SCHWERI / MÜHLEMANN / PESCIO ET AL. 2003). This analysis, however, only involved calculating costs on an absorbed cost basis. Whereas the gross costs are at a similarly high level to that seen in Germany, the figures relating to net costs are significantly lower. The main reason for these differing results lies in the considerably higher level of wages and salaries paid to skilled workers in Switzerland (used as a reference criterion for the calculation of the returns on the productive work performed by trainees), whereas training allowances are comparable to those paid in Germany. The margin between training allowance and skilled workers’ wages is thus significantly higher in Switzerland than is the case in Germany.
Benefits of Training The first cost analyses only tackled the ↑ benefits of training in terms of returns to productive work during the training itself, while subsequent surveys attempted to measure other aspects of benefits from training. There was a particular focus on the benefits arising at the end of the training process, when trainees are taken on as permanent employees at the end of their apprenticeship. The cost analysis mentioned above, carried out by BIBB in 1991 (BARDELEBEN / BEICHT/ FEHÉR 1995), was the first to use a representative company sur-
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vey to include these types of benefits in the investigation. Model estimates were created to anticipate the level of the varying cost benefits of ↑ in-company training as opposed to recruiting new skilled workers on the ↑ labour market. A direct evaluation of the significance of the scope of individual benefits was also drawn up by the companies. A model calculation of savings made by an individual company in terms of recruitment costs was also drawn up by Cramer/ Müller (1994). Using data provided by AEG, an evaluation was made of the costs that would arise with regards to recruitment, employee selection procedures, induction, updating qualifications, hiring mismatches and staff turnover if the company did not provide training. Benefits were quantified in terms of various assumptions and compared with costs. Grossmann/ Meyer (2002) also calculated specific values for benefits of training using case studies as a basis. The cost analysis carried out by BIBB in 2001 focused in equal measure on both benefits and costs of training (BEICHT / WALDEN / HERGET 2004a). This was the first investigation that enabled potential recruitment cost savings to be created, by providing training which would be measured in a representative way and compared with ↑ training costs. The BIBB study also included direct evaluations of the scope of relevant benefits surveyed by the companies. In addition, the first ↑ statistical analysis of the correlation between training activity and a company’s economic success was carried out. The following will deal briefly with the most significant findings of the BIBB investigation (BEICHT/ WALDEN / HERGET 2004a). Cost savings on the recruitment of skilled workers from the external labour market created by providing training represent a major part of the benefits of training. The BIBB study surveyed the factors which make up the individual respective components of this benefit and quantified them in monetary terms. The individual costs measured were those relating to advertising and conducting job interviews, as well as the induction and qualifications costs in respect of the recruitment of skilled workers via the external labour market. Potential wage and salary differences between employees
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who had been trained in-company and skilled employees recruited externally were also measured. The average overall figure which emerges for recruitment cost savings created by providing training is approximately € 5,800 per skilled worker needing to be hired. The most significant component of this is the high induction costs of nearly € 4,000 which are incurred when an external skilled worker is recruited. All the other cost elements have a far lower impact. In addition, further aspects of ↑ benefits of training need to be considered (longer term advantages in terms of the level of ↑ performance of employees who were trained in-company, hiring mismatches and idle production costs). These savings can arise if the company provides training and enhance its image by offering training. All such benefits are probably of considerable significance, even if they cannot be quantified. The situation prevailing on the external ↑ labour market is the determining factor in determining the extent of potential idle production costs in the event of a shortage of skilled workers. The companies surveyed within the scope of the BIBB study were asked to assess the number of available skilled workers and the viability of deploying the appropriate external skilled workers for each occupation investigated. Only around one in five of the companies surveyed described the number and viability of employing workers available on the external labour market as either very good or good. This means that an overwhelming majority of companies would run the risk of high idle production costs were they to decide not to provide training. The BIBB project also undertook a direct evaluation of a whole range of benefits. The main thrust of the companies’ assessments of benefits focused on the advantages provided by ↑ in-company training in recruiting and securing new trainees. In addition, many (75 %) see training as the best way of introducing future employees to the company culture and of promoting identification with the company (68 %). Training is perceived as being of considerable economic significance. Over 70 % of the companies express the view that well qualified workers manifestly increase the value of the company, and as many as 64 % of companies believe strongly that training represents a crucial element
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Tab. 1: Average in-company training costs for 2000 as a whole and according to field of training
in a company’s future competitiveness. In addition to the positive effects of the company’s own training system in securing the skilled trainees of the future, many companies perceive that they enjoy a greater level of prestige from their customers and suppliers (49 %). A full 60 % also stress that the function of training is not merely confined to its role within individual companies but that training also represents a common duty for trade and industry as a service to society. The fact that overall approval ratings are very high for all aspects of benefits clearly goes to show that the benefits of training represent a very complex issue and a wide variety of aspects needs to be taken into consideration when viewing the picture relating to benefits as a whole. The BIBB investigation uses net costs calculated on a marginal costing basis to provide an overall view of the correlation between costs and benefits of training. The resulting figures show overall average costs incurred in the course of a three-year apprenticeship to be € 7,344, compared with quantified benefits (savings in recruitment costs) of € 5,765. Taking those elements of benefits not evaluated in monetary terms into account, the authors conclude that it is generally cheaper for a company to provide its own training than to recruit skilled workers from the external ↑ labour market (BEICHT / WALDEN / HERGET 2004a, 245).
Considering the distribution of the net marginal costs across the whole of the three years of the ↑ in-company training reveals that 38 % of companies have either negative net costs or net costs of zero. In other words, 38 % of companies incur no cost burden at all in net terms during the period of training (BEICHT / WALDEN / HERGET 2004a, 245). The BIBB survey concludes that training results in a positive cost-benefit ratio for the vast majority of companies. In the case of 13 % of the companies, however, calculations revealed an unfavourable cost-benefit ratio (BEICHT / WALDEN / HERGET 2004a, 250) 3.5.1.4
Methodological Problems and Forecast
The cost analyses carried out by BIBB involved a uniform, standardised company questionnaire, which was used to interview heads of training of larger companies – in the case of smaller companies the owners generally taking part. The surveys were all conducted in the form of personal interviews (→ 5.2.1). Some pieces of information required and on which the cost model is based have to be estimated by interviewees rather than drawn from systematically recorded data within companies, thus posing a major difficulty in estimating ↑ training costs. This issue particularly applies to the case of the amount
Areas of VET Research
of time worked by part-time trainers. Companies do not generally keep records on how many hours a skilled industrial employee, who is allocated training duties on a part-time basis, spends looking after trainees. The information tends to be based on subjective assessments on the part of interviewees and can be susceptible to being influenced by what they feel constitutes good training. The likely general tendency is for part-time trainers to err on the generous side and overstate times allocated to training. Recording and measuring productive ↑ performance by trainees is another difficult area to assess. As a rule, no company records the periods of time trainees are involved in productive activities. Estimates of the scope of productive periods and information on the level of performance of trainees is therefore based on the subjective assessment of the interview partners and is subject to a relatively high amount of evaluation at a personal level. Whereas the assumption can be made that training services provided by part-time trainers tend to be overestimated, it is more likely that too low a figure will be put on the productive performance on the part of trainees (BEICHT / WALDEN / HERGET 2004a, 30). A broadly based empirical survey of training costs does not, however, offer any other easy alternatives to existing procedures. Cost and time factors rule out the possibility of asking companies to undertake a more precise measurement of the training services of part-time trainers and the periods of trainee productive activity. Besides, the impossibility of excluding the tendency to under and overestimate information would mean that this would not constitute a guarantee of obtaining more reliable results. In principle, one way of achieving better estimates might be to interview the trainees themselves as well as those responsible for training within the company. Such a potentially control-oriented interview would, however, give rise to resistance in many companies. It could also reverse the estimation biases. Trainees might put too low a figure on the amount of support time provided by part-time trainers and overstate their own productive performance. Measurement difficulties arise in determining training costs but are even greater when evaluat-
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ing ↑ benefits of training. Companies do not keep records on aspects of training relating to benefits and indeed do not always have a clear idea of what the benefits of their own training are. Researchers have thus hitherto only succeeded in achieving a rudimentary evaluation of benefits of training in monetary terms. It is questionable whether significant progress on these measures will take place in the near future. It is, however, possible to identify and measure the indicators which are relevant to the benefits. Extrapolating from observed values would enable differentiated hypotheses regarding benefits of in-company vocational education and training to be tested. The prevailing difficulties in recording and measuring data mean that representative costs and benefits analyses inevitably involve considerable expenditure of time and money. As a result, this type of information has been collected only once every ten years or so. With the processes involved in vocational education and training subject to an increasingly rapid pace of change, requirements for valid current data will increase. It will be necessary to conduct surveys at shorter intervals. An increase in the number of cases studied would also be desirable in making differentiated evaluations possible (in respect of regional differences, for example). Only one survey has thus far made available extensive information relating to benefits of training comparative to ↑ training costs. This survey cannot constitute a basis for the evaluation of developments over a period of time. Little is known about what level of stability costs and benefits of training display in the short term or the interdependence of specific combinations of factors relating to the economy as a whole or to companies. These gaps also indicate the necessity of conducting investigations at shorter intervals. More in-depth analysis is also required to determine which other data sources contain indicators relevant to costs and benefits and how these could be incorporated into supplementary evaluations.
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3.5.2
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National Systems of Financing TVET Dieter Timmermann
3.5.2.1
The Opportunity Space of Alternative Financing Provisions
Every discussion on financing TVET should start by asking three questions. First: who are the potential financiers and what are their potential sources of liquidity? Second: must those who finance TVET also produce and offer it and must those who produce and offer it also finance TVET? Third: Must those who in the first instance sacrifice resources as well as liquidity finally bear the financing burden? Firstly: financers may be the learner or his or her family, the employee or worker, the employer or the company, any other organisation (for example employer associations or unions or parafiscal funds), and the state. For each of them it can be stated that they have basically only three sources of financing liquidity: current, past and future income, whereas the kinds of income may differ between the financers due to their economic position. The survey below will demonstrate and suggest that the space of financing alternatives is limited and can be presented transparently. The widespread impression of transparency of financing TVET has mainly five reasons. Firstly, ↑ empirical knowledge about the size of the financial streams and the contributions of the diverse financiers is highly selective. Secondly, in most countries TVET is represented by a highly diversified pluralism of institutions corresponding to the pluralism of mixed financing solutions. Thirdly, the diverse financing modes reach possible financers and their financing sources in different ways. However it seems safe to state that current income is likely to be the main source of liquidity for all. Fourthly, different financing modes have established different chains of financing streams between the financers, and the chains differ as to their lengths and structures. Fifthly, these financing chains are lengthened by the options of some of the financers to shift part or all of their financ-
ing burden to other financers if certain conditions hold. Secondly: It seems wise and necessary to distinguish between the production and offer of TVET services on the one hand and their financing on the other hand. Financing and producing TVET services by the state are usually seen as one set of a public good, and a similar view holds with respect to ↑ in-company training and employer financing. The dominant view is that the state must be the entrepreneur of TVET and owner of the system when he is the (main) financier, and that he must be financier as long as he is the owner and producer. A similar understanding is found as to the employers or companies. This view of coupling TVET financing to TVET production as well as to the respective property rights is not at all imperative. Decoupling financing and producing TVET opens up the field for a number of combinations both of which have been mostly ignored in the past. Thirdly: The question as to who finances TVET is at first glance not easily answered by pointing out those who pay. Rather, the functioning of the tax system as well as of the market and price system create specific incidence structures, i.e. structures and processes of shifting and burdening the financing contributions between the diverse actors, who are not easy to identify. Due to these processes the relationship between the incidence of the benefits of TVET (Who benefits to what extent?) and the incidence of costs and financing TVET (Who bears the costs and the financial burden?) is obscured rather than revealed. If employers or companies have to pay for TVET they will try to shift the burden to their clients, be it consumers or suppliers, by raising the product prices or by putting pressure on subscription prices. The degree of success of shifting depends on competition constellations in the markets for goods and services and on the range of the employers affected by TVET costs. Ultimately, most or all of the burden goes to the consumers. If the state is involved in financing TVET, the taxpayers are finally the ones who have to bear that burden, depending on the incidence effects of the tax system. In the case of co- or mixed financing modes requiring different financers to contribute payments to TVET, the incidence of the costs and financing burden becomes empirically
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Tab. 1: Financiers and Potential fi nancing (liquidity) sources
even more impenetrable. However, theoretically, the message seems clear: whatever financing system is chosen in any country, the consuming units, i.e. the households (as the final taxpayers and as the final buyers of goods and services) have to finance TVET. The inequality question then is not, How is that burden distributed between wages and profits or between labour and capital, rather the question is, How is that financing or cost burden distributed among the households in relation to the distribution of the benefits of TVET between the households. Another general message remains to be pointed out: As the households have to sacrifice parts of their (current, past or future) income (i.e. of their consumption) in order to finance TVET, it becomes clear that TVET is an individual as well as a societal investment. 3.5.2.2 Alternative Modes of Financing TVET: An Overview TVET arrangements and systems are characterised by a number of elements, which serve to describe the features of and differences between them. The main elements are, for example, the property rights
constellation, the allocation mechanism, the governance system, the training institutions, the learning or ↑ training places, the status of the instructor and of the learner, the pedagogical philosophy of instruction, and the financing mechanism. Depending on the focus of observation, one may distinguish between different types of TVET systems. For example, looking at the core of the qualification concept, the styles and the components of the qualification set may be centred around the functions which the qualifications will have (see the function-oriented model in England). A second perspective may be the set of qualifications that the TVET research findings recommend (as seems to be the case in ↑ France, the science-oriented model). Germany, Austria and Switzerland seem to follow a vocation-oriented TVET model; while the model in ↑ China, ↑ Japan and South Korea may be named as enterprise-oriented. Finally, the major focus in the ↑ USA or in Italy seems to be directed towards job requirements (the job-oriented model). A second approach may focus on the governance system as has been proposed by Greinert (1995b).
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Three different governance models are distinguished. One alternative is the “market system” in which the state plays no or only a marginal role. The main actors are private companies, private vocational institutions and the individual trainees and/ or their families. The allocation mechanism is given by the market and the price system: the financing of TVET happens privately, i.e. by the trainees and their families as well as by the employers or private companies. In the pure model, the state has no function at all and it is not involved in financing; the property rights are completely private ones. The second alternative assumes market failure in TVET and therefore has confidence only in the state. Property rights are public ones. And with respect to financing TVET, the state is either the only or by far the major actor in the field of TVET. Planning, organisation, financing and ↑ controlling alone are its duties. The third alternative leaves the processes of TVET to the private actors. However, the state acts in defining a governance framework of regulations aimed at clarifying the space as well as the borders of private actions. State ↑ participation in financing is not excluded (mixed system, public-private ↑ partnership). A third approach to distinguishing between TVE systems would be to focus on the learning institutions (implicitly the property rights issue may also come up here) with special implications for learning places and arrangements. According to this view, a distinction is made between ↑ vocational schools (be they public or private ones, the schooling model as it is seen for example in Sweden, in Spain or in ↑ France), training centres (like in most Latin American Countries; they are parafiscal governance institutions apart from the state, financed by levy-systems taking a certain percentage off the payroll of the employers as their financing contribution in order to run the centres), single enterprise training (either in terms of the holistic Asian approach or the job-related US approach, both with TVET financed by the employers), and dual training systems (which, in the German case, already have three institutional columns: the vocational part-time school, the single company and the supra-firm training workshop). Dual training systems may show different degrees of organisational strengths and different arrangements (for example
Handbook of TVET Research
vocational schooling combined with internships in companies with or without training ordinances on the one hand, the highly organised and refined ↑ dual system in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the other). Here, mixed financing as well as cofinancing of TVET by several actors (state, employer, learner) is likely to happen. It should be mentioned that in the literature there are even more variations of TVET systems introduced than proposed here (see, for example SCHAACK 1995). The following sections will present and discuss four basic models of TVET systems, which represent most of the concrete TVET arrangements to be found around the world. The focus of the presentation will be on the provisions. 3.5.2.3 The State Schooling Model and State Financing of TVET In this model, schooling includes TVET, either in terms of full-time vocational schools being a school-type of their own, or in terms of vocational school tracks within comprehensive secondary schools. France and Denmark, for example, have developed the first variant, Sweden the second one. The system is based on the fundamental conviction that the market would produce a number of failures and lead to a sub-optimal provision of TVET. Vocational schools are the only or by far the dominant learning place for the students as well as the trainees. In principle, the system is able to satisfy the total annual demand for TVET, however it usually requires the fullfillment of certain entrance conditions, for example, graduation certificates earned at the end of lower secondary schooling. Often, there is already a basic (preparatory) vocational learning embedded into lower secondary education for pupil orientation purposes. The governance system is created and run by the state, it may be centralised or decentralised. Instructors at the TVET schools are teachers, employed and paid by state authorities. Their education and training is also organised and controlled for by state institutions. State governance includes curricula development and ↑ controlling by state institutions as well as uniform equipment guiding lines. The financing of the schools may come from tax revenues, tuitions fees, or levy systems. Tax revenues may stem from general taxes (if the non-affecta-
Areas of VET Research
tion principle holds) or from specific taxes raised for education in general or especially for TVET. The apprenticeship tax in ↑ France whose role and impact is nearly negotiable is an example. It takes 0.5 % of employers’ payroll. However, employers may avoid the tax by proving that they have invested at least a similar amount of money in TVET on their own account. The strengths of the schooling system lie in general (state-defined and controlled) training standards and uniform training facilities as well as in a uniform instructor training and quality. Instructors are usually pedagogically trained. Whether the quality level of instruction and training is satisfying, is an empirical question. When applicants meet the formal entrance requirements, they have to be admitted by the ↑ school system. The problems perceived as to the model are manifold. Equipment, learning material and curricula may be old fashioned (as, for example, was the case in former Soviet Union republics like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan, as well as in Laos). In times of weak economic growth and low tax revenues, other societal and political fields than TVET may be given priorities in government spending. Apart from production schools, which are found in a number of Third World countries, within the schooling model no economic returns from instruction and training can be expected during the training period. The training processes, but also the instructors as well as the curricula tend to be far away from the firm and workplace, which may place a theory burden onto the education and training contents as well as onto the graduates. This burden may produce ↑ labour market risks and hamper the transition of the trained from TVET into employment on the one hand, and may produce high costs for the firm of making newly hired trained workers acquainted with the workplace requirements. These costs may induce firms to undermine the schooling model by offering their own training solutions by trainingon-the-job opportunities (which could also be observed in Laos as well as in former Soviet Union republics in the 90s after becoming independent states). Apart from these possible shortcomings of the state schooling and financing model, there may be added some critical arguments from the public choice theory (see, for example, GWARTNEY 1977,
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60–67, 376–391) which may led to assumed “state failure”. State failure may show up as the rational voter ignorance effect, the special interest and short sightedness effect, the lack of stimuli to act efficiently, as political lags in decision processes, and as informational, financial as well as legitimation restrictions. 3.5.2.4 The Training-in-the-Firm (TIF) and the Training-on-the-Job Model (TOJ) In both variants, the transition from general schooling to TVET happens directly through work organisations (firms or other private or public units) after graduation (usually after 12 years of school education). As applicants for training, the graduates build a labour queue at the entrance doors of the organisations waiting for a work contract with the employer, i.e. trainees don’t get a special status as trainees but in a formal sense they become workers or employees on the basis of a labour contract. The entrance conditions are defined by each employer, depending on the qualification levels of the workplaces in question, and on the number of applicants, their educational profile and on their quality which the application documents (in particular the schooling certificate) indicate. The training period is defined by the working-in phase, whose length and contents depend on the workplace requirements as to competence, the degree of difficulty of the tasks to be performed, the competency level the trainee imports into the firm, and the training and work philosophy of the individual firm or organisation. The workplace is the dominant ↑ training place and there may also be some some training activities at workshops inside the firm or in the form of theoretical instructions that are given there. The degree of modernity of the training depends directly on the modernity of the workplace and its equipment. The Asian (in particular Japanese) variant (the TIF variant) is firm related, i.e. the workers or employees in their role as trainees are not only trained to perform one special job at a certain workplace but they are trained at a sequence of different workplaces so that they can acquire a broader set of competences which render them flexible and mobile within the company. They are aimed at acquiring a holistic set of competences including
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↑ key qualifications so that they can rotate between different jobs and work divisions. The TOJ variant, which is the dominant training model in the ↑ USA, as well as in Canada, Italy and many other countries (often recommended by the ↑ World Bank), is narrowly tied to the single job which has to be at the allocated workplace. Nearly every change of job or workplace or of workplace technology implies new training activities, and it may well be open to discussion whether this new training is initially, or can already be considered continuing, TVET. While it can be assumed that the training equipment usually is modern and represents the actual state of the art, it must be stated that within this TVET model, the existence of a curriculum, of a systematic as well as theory-driven or theoretically-based TVET, and of pedagogically trained instructors is not very likely. Moreover, it seems highly unlikely that the move to other jobs, in particular the move to another job in another firm, can be done without substantial additional training. In both variants (TIF and TOJ), the firms or the employers enjoy economic returns as well as benefits from this type of training. Gary Becker (1993) has argued that in the case of general TVET the costs of training have to be borne by the trainee because he/she will also enjoy the returns. However, in the case of ↑ specific training he asserts that the trainee and the firm share both the cost and the return. As TIF and TOJ are specific training to a different degree, the firms will bear part of the cost of and enjoy part of the returns of training. The last feature of the two variants that needs to be mentioned is that they are located at the intersection of external and internal ↑ labour markets, i.e. in a market system of training, which is characterised by the allocation of training opportunities by supply and demand decisions which themselves depend heavily on prices and wages among other things. In other words: there is no guarantee that the training opportunities offered each year will cover the demand for them so that school leavers will forego TVET or the state has to jump in by offering additional training opportunities in its own institutions (for example ↑ vocational schools) or by subsidising additional training facilities in the employment sector.
Handbook of TVET Research
3.5.2.5 The Training Centre (Latin American) Model In almost all Latin American countries, a specific model of producing, governing and financing TVET has grown since the late 1940s (for details see DUCCI 1996). The ↑ industrialisation processes revealed a serious shortage of skilled workers and employees, in particular at operational levels. Manpower migrating from the rural areas lacked the qualifications demanded by modern industry and services, and the formal ↑ school system, including vocational and technical schools, was unable to deliver the skills required. Governments, employers associations and unions worked together to establish specialised vocational training institutions which were and still are expected to meet the qualification requirements of the developing economy. These training centres are run by national training service organisations bearing different names in the respective countries. Some are centralised, others are segregated according to economic sectors (for example in Brasil SENAI organises TVET for the industry sector, SENAC for the commercial sphere) or to regions. Further examples are SENA (Columbia), INCE (Venezuela), SENATI (Peru), INA (Costa Rica), INACAP (Chile), SECAP (Ecuador) and INTECAP (Guatemala), to name a few. The training centres run by these organisations are organised, equipped and staffed like the European ↑ vocational schools in Germany, Austria, Switzerland or ↑ France. Some of the centres have been founded and sponsored by European states. The centres train following to self-made curricula, and most instructors are full-time personnel, having been specially trained in their subjects as well as pedagogically. For a period of years the training centres behaved like vocational schools: the knowledge and skills trained were often felt to be very distant from the qualification needs of the economic sectors or of the companies. Of course, the school-like arrangements did not create returns from training, and the companies often complained of the lack of practical skills of the trained and of the focus on theoretical knowledge. This forced the companies, in addition to paying the levy for financing the centres to bear high additional costs for rather long periods of work-in ac-
Areas of VET Research
tivities for the graduates of the centres. The strong critique by companies and employers associations in the 1990s led the organisations as well as their centres to turn their attention to the actual needs of enterprises of various sizes, while the companies opened themselves to the centres and the trainees by offering internships of different lengths. The price of that strategy is that the access to TVET in these systems has become more selective, excluding early drop outs of the regular education system, and that the focus of the training programmes has switched to the immediate needs of the firms by offering tailor-made courses, neglecting the medium and long-term qualification needs. The dominant financing mode of these National Training Agency systems is the para-fiscal funds solution, i.e. the agencies also serve as collective financing mechanisms by collecting levies from their members. The members may be all the firms in a country or in a region or in a sector. The duty to pay the levy contribution comes either from national laws or from national agreements between the social partners, which are heavily involved in these sys-
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tems in any case. The levy is defined by a certain percentage of the payroll to be paid to the funds. The funds then finance the training centres. Recently, there are changes in the fund policy in that the companies are encouraged to start TVET on their own. In that case they are freed from paying the levy if they meet certain requirements as to the size and quality of the training engagement. 3.5.2.6 Cooperative TVET and the German Dual System as a Special Case The idea of cooperative TVET starts from the observation that TVET may happen away from the enterprise or within the enterprise. Away from the enterprise means either training by vocational schools (either state or privately owned and run) or by training centres (the Latin American case). As the discussion hitherto showed, that in-enterprise training and training in schools or training centres serve different pedagogical objectives within TVET, so it seems obvious to combine both training institutions in a cooperative way and to utilise the synergy effects out of that cooperation, i.e. one
Tab. 2: Components and Elements of the German Dual Training System
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can speak of a dual training system in that two institutions are involved in a cooperative way: the school (training centre) and the company. Each partner has to pay for the ↑ training costs of their activities. However, the degree to which these two institutions are involved with respect to time and money may differ considerably. Three constellations may be thought of: (i) The school or the training centre is the dominant part(ner); the enterprises offer only internships and practical work periods or add short systematic ↑ in-company training. The majority of the training time (for example two thirds) and of the training costs as well as of the financing obligation is taken by the state or the national training agency; (ii) The schools and enterprises are equally involved in TVET with respect to time (each partner fills 50 % of the total training time) and financing; (iii) The enterprise is the dominant partner with regards to time (for example two thirds of the total training time) and financing; the vocational school or the training centres then are junior partners. Generally, the training in the enterprise may be guided by training ordinances (curricula) or not; coordination between the two learning institutions may or may not be required and also realised. There are at least two financers of TVET, but three are more likely: the state (financing the public vocational schools or subsidising private schools), the learners (financing private vocational schools or paying fees at public schools) and the enterprises pay for their training activities. In other words: mixed or co-financing is the dominant financing mode. The German ↑ dual system of TVET has some peculiar characteristics, which will now be explained. The objective of all training is defined as the vocational ability to act competently in private and public areas of vocational activities. A starting point is the view that practical elements of a ↑ vocation cannot be learned in a schooling environment but only by vocational practice in the enterprise. Taking this seriously, and asking at the same time for enrichment of TVET by a solid theoretical as well as pedagogical education, a cooperative educational and training arrangement is imperative. A second aspect of the dual system is that of the concept of learning places. Within each of the learning institutions (↑ vocational school, training centre, en-
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terprise) several different learning places may exist which are defined by their geographical location within the institution as well as by their pedagogical arrangement and by their contents and learning conditions. The following survey presents the elements of the dual training system in a transparent way.
Components and Elements of the German Dual Training System Two institutional variants supplementing the dual institution system have developed over time, at least in Germany, due to the growing specialisation of producing goods and services: the supra-firm training workshop and the ↑ training alliance between enterprises. As the focus on core businesses has led to a narrowing of the range of occupations and job-related activities within most enterprises, in a number of cases the single enterprise has lost activities which are part of the vocation (Berufsbild) and of the training ordinance. These activities and training contents can be trained within a training workshop being established just to offer that training (for example in the crafts sector). Another way is the collaboration of two or more enterprises which train in the same vocation but show different specialisations. If these specialisations fit nicely together the trainees can get the training required by the curriculum. A central feature of the German dual system lies in the fact that the vocational part-time schools educate according to state-wide curricula, while the enterprises train on the basis of national curricula for each training subject, these curricula being called training ordinances. The important point of these ordinances is that they have to be applied nationwide. The reason lies in the fact that the training aims at preparing for ↑ vocations that have validity everywhere in the nation independent of the question as to who trains where. The philosophy behind that general validity is explained by the aim that every youngster who will be trained, for example as an electrician, should be able to perform his or her vocation at any place in Germany, be it Munich or Hamburg. This means that the skills acquired through training are marketable, or in the words of G. Becker: the enterprise part of German dual training is ↑ general training.
Areas of VET Research
The financing mode of the dual training system is as follows. Neither the Federal Vocational Education Law nor the Crafts Order prescribes the way in-company TVET is to be financed. In practice, single employer financing has been the dominant financing mode from the beginning. During the last thirty years, supra-firm financing modes, financing by tariff-funds in a small number of branches, co-financing of cooperatively training firms and state subsidies for training firms, mostly in the East German states, have not displaced but supplemented single employer financing. The companies can lessen their financial burden by shifting parts or all of it either to their buyers or to their suppliers or to their employees (the aspect mentioned in Section 1). Companies which train can also deduct their ↑ training costs from their sales, and thus reduce the size of profits and of the taxes on profits. Nevertheless, many German firms shy away from their own training although they do meet the training requirements as to personnel, equipment and facilities. One of the arguments for retention is the cost argument: training would be too costly. Indeed, the average cost of a trainee is all but negotiable: in 1971, the average full gross cost per year amounted to about € 3,500; in 1980 the figure had risen to around € 8,500; for 1991 the amount was given as € 14,700 (see BARDELEBEN / BEICHT/ FEHÉR 1995, 80); and in 2001 the average full gross cost had risen to € 16,435 (see BEICHT / WALDEN / HERGET 2004b, 20). The figures differ according to the fields of training, the years of training, the size of the training firms, the occupations and the distribution of learning time between the learning places. Taking only the direct average training costs per year, it amounted to € 10,178 in 2001. Deducting the returns from productive work of the trainees during training (at the workplace) leads to net full average costs per year of € 8,705 in 2001, the net direct costs amounting to only € 2,448 (see BEICHT / WALDEN / HERGET 2004b, 20, 22). Taking into consideration the alternative of recruiting labour from the external ↑ labour market instead of internal training, then internal training, being the internal recruitment alternative, avoids the costs of external recruitment. These costs saved the opportunity returns have been estimated to amount
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to € 5,765 per trainee and year (BEICHT / WALDEN / HERGET 2004b, 90). Taking these opportunity returns into account, the remaining average full costs per year end up at € 2,940, and the average direct cost per year changes into net returns of € 3,317. It should be clear that these latter figures represent calculatory sums as neither opportunity costs nor opportunity returns show up as liquidity streams. This may be the reason why enterprise representatives tend to look at the full gross cost figures. However, the puzzle of the German dual training systems then comes up: Why do companies engage in general training and risk poaching, if they bear the training costs? A number of explanations are offered in the literature (see TIMMERMANN 2006, 9–54); (i) Training fi rms already enjoy returns from general training during training; (ii) the labour market does not function perfectly, so the danger of poaching is neglectable due to an asymmetric distribution of information about the value and the quality of the qualifications produced through training; (iii) the training is a complementary mixture of general and ↑ specific training so that external employers underestimate the productivity level of the trained, and the training firm pays a higher wage, which is still below the productivity of the trained, without inducing the trained employee to leave; (iv) the productivity effects of general training only unfold in connection with specific training elements and vice versa; (v) the mixture between general and specific ↑ human capital is unique for each enterprise, therefore general ↑ human capital becomes firm-specific and less transferable to other firms; (vi) poaching is restricted due to ↑ mobility costs for the trained; (vii) the training engagement of enterprises creates reputations for firms which may raise their attractiveness for highly productive trainees as well as external workers or employees; (viii) big companies are able to develop internal ↑ labour markets which turn ↑ general training into firm-specific training. However, even if the puzzle seems to be solved by one or more of these explanations, there is no guarantee that the demand of youngsters for training will be met every year, because the system is sensitive to business cycles in that in times of recession the offer of ↑ training places usually declines independently of demand. Also the tendency of
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the companies to restrict the number of trainees to their labour needs endangers the dual training system’s function of providing the whole employment system as well as the labour market with qualified manpower (see TIMMERMANN 2000, 134/135). 3.5.2.7
Brief Summary
The construction of TVET systems around the world shows a great variety of concrete solutions, which may refer more or less to one of the basic models presented. The literature on TVET systems and their financing modes leads to the conclusion that “a best system” of finance and governance does not seem to exist, as each system has its own shortcomings. This is apart from the fact that the attempts to cope with one or other of the systems has strong limitations due to historical, cultural and societal conditions (see SCHAACK 1995). But this does not mean that national systems of TVET cannot learn from each other.
3.5.3
National Arrangements for Financing Training in Companies Andrew Smith
National arrangements for the financing of ↑ employer training are heavily influenced by each nation’s economic and social structures. Although national approaches are uniquely developed to suit economic, social and cultural circumstances, it is possible to identify common elements in policy approaches across economies – partly based on shared cultural and social values. Gasskov (2001) developed one typology of government-employerfinancing arrangements for training. He identified five different approaches: (1) Enterprises have no legal obligations for training (e. g. Canada, UK, ↑ USA, the Netherlands and Sweden). (2) Employers voluntarily take significant responsibility for the financing of training (e. g. Germany, Switzerland and ↑ Japan).
(3) Employers and unions set up training development funds under collective industrial agreements (e. g. Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands). (4) Governments offer tax exemptions to enterprises that train their workers (e. g. Belgium, Chile, Germany, South Korea, Malaysia and Pakistan). (5) Governments introduce compulsory financing of training by employers (e. g. Denmark, ↑ France, Ireland, South Korea, Malaysia and many South American countries). In this chapter we examine four mechanisms that have developed world-wide to encourage greater employer investments in training. Our categorisation is as follows: (1) Laissez-faire systems. (2) High employer ↑ commitment systems. (3) Sectoral training funds. (4) Levy schemes. 3.5.3.1
Laissez-Faire Systems
These systems apply in Anglo-Saxon economies of ↑ Australia, the UK, the ↑ USA and Canada. These systems impose few regulations on employer training activities. Employers are free to train or not in accordance with their perceived business needs. The laissez-faire approach has attracted criticism for leading to a low-skill equilibrium (FINEGOLD / SOSKICE 1988), in which skill requirements are replaced by work simplification and deskilling in a mass production environment. More recent commentary has tended to expand on this theme, citing the persistence of skills shortages in these countries as proof of market failure in training (HALL / BUCHANAN / CONSIDINE 2002; ASHTON / GREEN 1996). In the UK the laissez-faire approach is typified by The Investors in People (IiP) programme. IiP operates in a similar fashion to ISO accreditation in the area of ↑ quality management, but with a specific focus on ↑ human resource development practices in enterprises. Those enterprises meeting the IiP standard are permitted to use the IiP logo for publicity. Although slow to gain ground, in recent years the IiP programme has expanded quite rapidly. Since 1999, the number of enterprises recognised under IiP has more than doubled from 13,748 to reach 37,035 in late 2004; and the percentage of the workforce covered by the IiP standard has in-
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3.5.3.2 High Employer Commitment Systems
Tab. 1: Recognition in IiP by industry sector of employer (Source: DfEE 2001, 94)
creased from 15.5 per cent to 38 per cent over the same period (www.iipuk.co.uk). However, the take up of this initiative is uneven, being concentrated amongst large and, to a lesser extent, medium sized firms. In a survey conducted for the Department for Employment and Education in 2000, only 16 per cent of UK firms had been formally recognised in IiP (DFEE 2001). Tab. 1 shows that recognition is also concentrated in certain industry sectors – particularly the public sector. The skewed distribution of IiP recognition by size and industry, however, reflects the skewed distribution of training to be found in most developed countries. It is possible that IiP has achieved little in the improvement of access to training. This skewed distribution of training among enterprises has led commentators to remark that IiP has been used to highlight those enterprises that already invest significantly in training, rather than encouraging firms that do not invest to undertake more training of their employees (HOQUE / TAYLOR / BELL 2005). However, among enterprises that are involved with IiP, the scheme seems to exert a beneficial impact on the nature and quality of the training they undertake. An evaluation of IiP for the Institute of Employment Studies concluded that IiP had: – Spurred employers to make changes to existing practices that would not have otherwise occurred; – Delivered improved training and skills that enhance business ↑ performance; – Added value to the enterprise above the costs of the scheme (HILLAGE / MORALEE 1996). IiP appears to work in a similar fashion to ISO and other forms of quality accreditation – it improves internal processes for those already providing training, but it is not clear that it increases overall employer investments (EMBERSON / WINTERS 2000).
These systems occur in those countries covered by Gasskov’s category of systems in which employers voluntarily take a high degree of responsibility for skill formation. There is a legal obligation on employers to train, but the training systems are based on workplace-based training financed by employers. In the Scandinavian countries of Norway and Finland, governments have not adopted specific policies on ↑ employer training. Both countries report a high level of employer training through the European Union’s Continuous Vocational Training Survey. In Finland, 82 per cent of employers provided training in 1999, whereas in Norway the figure was 86 per cent. Moreover, employee ↑ participation in employer provided training is high across small, medium and large firms with over 50 per cent participation by workers in training in small and large firms and slightly less in medium sized firms. These participation rates compare with an average of 40 per cent for the European Union countries as a whole (NESTLER /K AILIS 2002). As a result of this high ongoing ↑ commitment to employer training, the Norwegian and Finnish governments have focused on other aspects of working life. Both countries have long sponsored research and innovation in the general ↑ quality of working life. Norwegian firms have also been pioneers in the introduction of autonomous team work and in the provision of employee benefits, such as family friendly workplaces, for a number of years. In Finland, the Working Life Development Programme has emphasised the importance of high quality training and development programme focussing on more productive workplaces. Thus, training plays a major role in the quality of ↑ working life programmes that operate in both countries. In general, the consensus model that exists in both countries has encouraged the development of a widely recognised right to employer training among both employers and employees. This recognition underpins the high level of training provision. In Denmark the system of VET was traditionally based on a strong apprenticeship system. Unlike the German ↑ dual system, however, the Danish apprenticeship system was based on government regulation and financing of vocational train-
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ing in a limited number of skilled trades. In the mid 1960s, the adult vocational training (AMU) system became the central feature of the Danish system of VET. Financed by government but regulated through joint government, union and employer committees, the AMU system provides work introduction courses for young people and the unemployed, as well as training for semi-skilled and skilled workers (OLESEN 1997). AMU provides training for existing workers as well as for new entrants to the ↑ labour market and the unemployed. It is an integrated system that is aimed at the continuing vocational training needs of existing employees as much as at the needs of new workers and the unemployed. AMU training is financed by government that pays the wages of those attending training in AMU programmes and is delivered through a series of AMU colleges in Denmark (NIELSEN / CORT 1999). The training programmes offered through AMU are determined by the training plans drawn up for the 55 main industry and commercial sectors on the Danish economy and the emphasis throughout the system is on joint regulation by the social partners. The notion of joint regulation operates very strongly at the firm level with the inclusion of training provisions in most collective agreements between employers and unions. Since 1991, many collective agreements have included the creation of training funds to finance employees’ continuing training at both the sectoral and the individual firm level and the right to one week training level per year for a large number of employees. Much of the CVT offered by Danish employers is firm-specific and provided through the AMU system (OLESEN 1997). It is estimated that about one third of the private sector workforce is covered by these collective provisions for training. However, the training funds in Denmark are not large. They operate on a tripartite basis, yet tend to fund only experimental and innovative training approaches. 3.5.3.3 Sectoral Training Funds Sectoral training funds cover industry sectors and allow employers to provide training with funding provided by the training funds established by employers and governments based on industrial agreements between the social partners. The
Handbook of TVET Research
Netherlands provides the clearest example of the application of sectoral training funds nationally. Following the principles of the Polder model, the Wagner Commission in 1984 recommended that the ↑ VET system should be administered through a social ↑ partnership arrangement involving government, training providers and the business community. Since that time, the VET system has been regulated through a series of tripartite committees. From the tripartite approach grew the concept of sectoral training funds established under collective industrial agreements in all the major sectors of the economy. These ↑ Training Research and Development Funds (known by their Dutch acronym as O+O Funds) have become the principal route for introducing social partnership arrangements into an area of activity that is normally the preserve of employers (ROMIJN 1999). There are some 66 O+O funds operating in the Netherlands under 134 Collective Agreements. Most of the collective agreements also specify other training provisions, particularly with reference to on-the-job training and training for target groups in the workforce. The O+O funds are managed by collective bodies with employer and union representation. The funds are based on levies of all firms covered by the collective agreement under which the fund is established. The levies vary by sector and range from 0.1 to 0.7 per cent of gross wages. Thus, the O+O funds are an expression of the collective regulation of training in the Netherlands. However, it is important not to overstate their importance in the financing of training. The firms themselves provide the bulk of funding for training in Dutch firms. In 1996, the O+O funds only accounted for less than 5 per cent of the total private expenditure on CVT. Funding from employers accounted for over 50 per cent of expenditure on CVT with individual expenditure accounting for the balance (HENDRIKS / WESTERHUIS 1997). Not all the funds placed in the O+O funds are spent on training, as administration costs sometimes consume a large portion of the funds. The proportion spent directly on training varies from 5 per cent to 100 per cent. However, overall Waterrreus (WATTEREUS 1997) estimated that an average of only 40 per cent of O+O funds are allocated directly to training.
Areas of VET Research
In other countries, the sectoral funding model has been adopted by certain industry sectors. An example of this approach is the construction industry training fund in ↑ Australia which is operated in a number of states albeit in different forms. The construction industry training funds are much smaller than their Dutch equivalents and are typically funded by a levy of around 0.1–0.2 per cent on building value. In many cases, these funds have been used to support apprenticeships in the industry and have not been used widely for training. It is difficult to argue that the construction industry levy has been very successful in raising training expenditure in that sector when repeated surveys have shown that employers in construction consistently spend less on training than employers in most other sectors (ABS 2003). 3.5.3.4
Levy Schemes
Gasskov’s category of the compulsory financing of training by employers is found mainly in co-ordinated market economies (ASHTON / SUNG / TURBIN 2000), although a few examples of these schemes exist in other countries, such as the now defunct UK levy-grant scheme. The most commonly cited methods for increasing employer investments in training are universal levy schemes. One example involves a requirement that all or most employers to pay into a training fund from which they can apply for funding to support training (i.e. levy-grant systems). Another mandates that employers pay into a fund if they do not meet a pre-determined level of training expenditure (levy-exemption systems). In Australia, the Training Guarantee Scheme (TGS) was a form of levy-exemption scheme. The TGS was not strictly a levy. Enterprises with payrolls in excess of $200,000 were required under the Act to spend at least 1.5 per cent of their payroll costs on eligible training or pay the shortfall to the Australian Taxation Office. Eligible training was defined as structured and employment-related. Specifically this meant that training must be part of a recognisable programme that was employment-related. However, the TGS proved unpopular with Australian employers. A key criticism made by employer groups was that the compliance costs of the TGS were excessive. Research by
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Velten (1990) showed that many enterprises considered that the costs of keeping records and ensuring that all eligible training was reported far outweighed the cost of paying the levy. Smaller businesses, in particular, expressed this view and there was a widespread belief that many smaller enterprises simply paid the levy rather than incur the costs associated with training. The TGS was also attacked for its focus on the quantity rather than the quality of training (NOONE 1991) and for instituting a regime based on punishment for non-compliance, rather than rewarding enterprises that increased their ↑ commitment to training. A more successful application of the levy principle and one that explicitly addresses the issue of equity in access to training opportunities is to be found in Singapore. In order to encourage employer investment in the training and development of low skilled and low wage workers, Singapore enacted the Skills Development Fund in 1982. Employers are obliged to contribute a Skills Development Levy of 1 per cent of the salary of workers they employ earning less than S$1500 per month or S$2 per hour, whichever is the greater. This ceiling has been raised since the inception of the scheme in order to bring more workers into the scheme (LOW 1998). Employers and employees can recover the costs by taking approved programmes under the scheme. These approved programmes have usually been aimed at improving the overall educational level of workers rather than at providing specific skills. Examples include the Basic Education for Skills Training (BEST) programme, aimed at bringing workers up to primary school leaving levels of education, and the Worker Improvement through Secondary Education (WISE) programme, which takes workers up to secondary school leaving standard of education (OSMAN-GANI / TAN 2000). More recently, the scope of the SDF has been expanded to encompass specific skills programmes, particularly in the high tech areas of electronics and computing. The SDF funds have also been used increasingly to train older workers. One in eight older workers were provided with an opportunity to train in 1995, compared to one in twenty-five in 1988 (LOW 1998). There is strong evidence that the highly targeted nature of the SDF levy exerted a significant impact
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of the ↑ skill levels and training activities of Singapore. National investment in training amongst employers has reached 3.6 per cent of wages and salaries and the Singaporean government aims to push this up to 4 per cent (LOW 1998). The most productive industry sectors appear to be those, such as the computer manufacturing industry, that also account for the majority of ↑ training places under the SDF scheme. 3.5.3.5 Discussion Governments have devised a plethora of arrangements to increase employer investment in training. Yet, most countries have struggled to manage the demand side of training. Most training reform programmes have focused on expanding the amount of training, trying to induce employers to take advantage of new policies and increase their training effort. Policies have included making public training institutions more responsive to employers’ needs. This approach formed a major part of training reforms undertaken in ↑ Australia and in the Netherlands (BRANDSMA 2003). Others have involved the use of competency-based training, the introduction of new vocational qualifications frameworks and reforms to entry-level training. In general, these changes have exerted little impact on employer investment levels. At the same time, government attempts to directly influence investments in training by employers have been quite limited. Governments are in a weak position to influence the behaviour of employers directly. Employers form a major stakeholder in the polity and governments are often reluctant to attempt to regulate their behaviour for fear of jeopardising future investment in the country (FENNA 2004). For this reason, the policies adopted by governments have often been sporadic or have involved the voluntary ↑ participation of employers. Where compulsion has been used, such as the British levy-grant system of the 1960s and 70s or the Australian Training Guarantee, they have often been successfully resisted by employers. No country has yet developed a mechanism that has significantly raised employer demand for high levels of worker training. It appears that the ↑ effectiveness of mechanisms to increase employer investment in training depends critically on the re-
Handbook of TVET Research
lationship that employers have to the policies. Universal and compulsory levies are unlikely to elicit much employer commitment beyond a reluctant compliance with the schemes. Thus their impact on overall skills levels in the workforce is likely to be low. On the other hand, policies that involve employers in their formulation and implementation are far more likely to gain employer ↑ commitment. While the ↑ effectiveness of such schemes to raise the overall level of workforce skills may be questioned, policies that gain active employer commitment are far more likely to have a positive impact on skills levels than those that do not. As noted above, models aimed at securing greater investment in training by enterprises are critically shaped by local factors, policy traditions and particular moments of history. Thus policy responses to the demand for training among employers differ across countries and are usually deeply rooted in local tradition and culture. Attempting to recreate the more socially-engaged policies of Scandinavian and central European countries in countries where tradition and culture favour less social regulation (such as Britain or Australia) are likely to fail. Certainly, the compulsion approach so far has limited efficacy. It is only likely to succeed in countries that have either a social charter that would tolerate these arrangements or a governance model that can effectively administer a compulsory system.
3.5.4
The Wider Benefits of Learning Leon Feinstein, Simone Kirpal and Inés Arévalo Sánchez
3.5.4.1
Introduction
Vocational education and training (VET) has the potential to fulfil a range of purposes, including immediate outcomes such as occupational qualifications, skills and the development of competences, cognitive development, psychosocial development, social inclusion, membership of professional groups and access to information. Other lists are possible and much could be added to this one. The
Areas of VET Research
list, however, makes the point that the outcomes of ↑ participation in VET are far broader than enhanced employment opportunities or a gain in income and labour productivity. This very breadth of outcomes means that conceptualising and investigating the ↑ wider benefits of vocational learning cannot be reduced to single factors or be addressed easily within any single academic discipline. Furthermore, different classifications of the ‘wider benefits’ are possible. Schuller et al. (2001), for example, set out five overlapping social domains for exploration covering health, ageing, family, crime and citizenship, while later work emphasises health, ↑ social capital and cohesion, and families. Other classifications have been used at different times, reflecting different research and policy priorities. Distinguishing between the personal resources that are gained or sustained through vocational learning and the wider benefits that follow can help to structure the field. Personal resources emerge during vocational learning or soon after it. They relate directly to an individual’s experience of schoolbased or work-based vocational learning. Technical skills attainment often function as formal ob-
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jectives and ↑ evaluation criteria of the vocational training system. The wider benefits, on the other hand, are outcomes that may result over the life course. They depend on the immediate outcomes, but also occur through complex processes that may take considerable time. These outcomes are of wider individual, but also social or policy significance, important for the economy or public welfare and for public services other than education. 3.5.4.2
A Capital Approach to the Wider Benefits
Applying a capital-based model of the immediate outcomes and wider benefits of learning, the resources gained through vocational education and training can be expressed in terms of capital, differentiating between ↑ human, social and ↑ identity capital. While the term ‘capital’ is not unproblematic (cf. SCHULLER / BYNNER / FEINSTEIN 2004), it emphasises the notion of a valuable investment that yields a flow of benefits that increase social and economic productivity. All three forms of capitals – human, identity and social capital – can be enhanced, sustained or diminished by vocational ed-
Fig. 1: Types of capital and the benefits of learning (Source: Schuller/Bynner/ Feinstein 2004)
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ucation and training throughout the life course of an individual. Fig. 1 (below) provides a simple picture of the complex life course processes involved in transforming educational experiences into benefits at the individual and social levels.
Human Capital A cornerstone of economic research on labour productivity and wage benefit of education has been the ↑ human capital revolution in economic theory. It began in the 1960s, initiated in the work of Schultz (1961), took great steps forward by Becker (1975; 1991) in microeconomic terms and Romer (1986), Lucas (1988) and Barro (BARRO / SALA-IMARTIN 1995) and others in macroeconomics, and kept moving forwards recently in the work of Cunha et al. (2006) on more sophisticated economic models of human capital formation. The key point here is that education generates a stock of human capital that raises the productivity of workers in the ↑ labour market. The added productivity, in turn, leads to a wage mark-up for the more educated and skilled workers. The parallel story at the macro level is of social benefits resulting from increases in the average level of education that lead to increased competitiveness of the economy and higher GDP growth. There are also potential spillovers at the micro level as more educated workers enhance the productivity of co-workers or generate enterprise and technological advance within firms. In this framework, the economic returns to education are understood as the result of the human capital formed in the education process. Based on a relatively firm theoretical and empirical foundation developed over the last 40 to 50 years, the human capital approach considers education an investment that leads to economic security and income gains for the individual as well as high labour market productivity and increased economic growth for the wider economy. A common view is that the process by which human capital is formed is fairly linear in years of education up to early adulthood, i.e. an extra year of education during childhood and early adulthood will almost universally lead to an increase in human capital enhancing productivity by similar amounts regardless of the stage of education. Thus, human capi-
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tal is commonly measured in terms of the number of years of schooling, without consideration of its quality (such as the curriculum, pedagogy or individual learning experience). This is an important distinction between human capital and the other forms of capital discussed further below. Research on skill-biased technological change (NICKEL / BELL 1996) has promoted the recognition of the importance of ↑ tertiary education in maintaining national competitive advantage. At the same time, there are growing concerns about skills gaps at the level of ↑ basic skills (BYNNER / PARSONS 1997). One area that is generally played down in terms of its benefits for personal income gain is ↑ adult learning. The wage returns for mature students are lower than for younger students (BLUNDELL / DEARDEN / GOODMAN / REED 1997; DALE / EGERTON 1997; DOLTON / MAKEPEACE 1990; EGERTON 2001; FIELD 2000), perhaps because a shorter number of subsequent working years and the high opportunity costs of learning for adults lower the gains in discounted lifetime earnings (COFFIELD 1997). Both reasons may partly explain why human capital is seen to be linear in years of schooling only through childhood and early adulthood. This has led to a downplaying of the lifelong development of ↑ vocational competence. We do not yet have sufficient research evidence on the importance of adult vocational learning (see below) but it is likely that taking account of the ↑ wider benefits of human capital, especially possible inter-generational advantages of adult and family learning, vocational learning may be particularly important for adults. Thus, a focus on the wider benefits of learning may change our understanding of the relative costs and benefits of learning at different ages.
Identity Capital If human capital refers to those skills that are of value in the labour market, another term is required to describe skills and attributes that are of value in negotiating the many other aspects of life that matter to individual, family and community ↑ well-being. According to Côté (2005) ↑ identity capital represents attributes associated with sets of psychosocial skills, largely cognitive in nature, that appear to be necessary for people to in-
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telligently strategise and make decisions affecting their life. In the economic literature, the distinction between human and identity capital is expressed as ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills or, alternatively, as cognitive and non-cognitive development. The wide recognition in recent years that soft skills and non-cognitive skills are also of value in the ↑ labour market (BOWLES / GINTIS / OSBORNE 2001; GOLDSMITH / VEUM / DARITY 1997; HECKMAN / RUBENSTEIN 2001) has led to the inclusion of them in some definitions of human capital (HEALY/ COTE 2001). The term ‘↑ identity capital’ more strongly reflects the view that human capital is best retained as a construct relating to the productivity gains from deliberate investment in education. Identity capital is not formed in the same way but nonetheless may be supported, enhanced or sustained by experiences of learning. Notably, it may also be diminished or damaged by negative experiences of education. An individual’s self-concepts, self-efficacy, patience and ↑ resilience are key aspects of personal resources in terms of identity capital. Self-concepts concern an individual’s perception of their own abilities and worth. They depend on the information available to the individual and the cognitive ability to process this information (MARKUS / WURF 1987). Self-concepts are multi-dimensional (SHAVELSON / HUBNER / STANTON 1976) relating, for example, to academic capabilities, social capabilities or general self-worth. A positive self-concept promotes positive health behaviours, protects mental health and helps individuals to manage chronic health conditions (SCHULLER / BRASSET-GRUNDY/ GREEN ET AL. 2002; HAMMOND / FEINSTEIN 2004). The costs of low self-worth amongst young people include symptoms of depression, suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts, eating disorders (amongst girls), victimization, teenage pregnancy and difficulties in forming and sustaining close relationships (EMLER 2001). To the extent that use or abuse of illegal drugs, drinking to excess and smoking are considered acts of defiance on the part of adolescents, high self-worth may afford protection from these behaviours. Teenagers who have high selfworth and believe that they are worth taking care of will be less likely to use drugs to excess (MODREIN-TALBOTT / P ULLEN / EHRENBERGER ET AL. 1998).
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Self-concept impacts upon and is affected by other psychosocial factors such as self-efficacy, intertemporal preferences and resilience. If an individual has a high regard for themselves generally and of their abilities in particular, they will consider themselves capable (or efficacious), be more inclined to persevere in the face of adversity (resilience), and take care of themselves not only in the here and now, but also in the future (inter-temporal preferences). Bandura (1997) describes self-efficacy as an individual’s confidence in their ability to organise and execute a given course of action to solve a problem or accomplish a task. Self-efficacy in relation to learning is an important determinant of motivation, which in turn leads to school engagement and continued ↑ participation in learning (ECCLES / LORD / ROESER ET AL. 1997). Participation in vocational education has been found to motivate students (SMITH / DALTON 2004), encourage further engagement in learning activities (MCHUGH / FULLER / LOBLEY 1993; KODZ / TACKEY/ POLLARD ET AL. 2000) and increase self-confidence (ROSENFELD 1999; SIMS / GOLDEN 1998). Parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of children’s and young peoples’ competences and likely success are important influences on their efficacy beliefs as are an environment that provides good emotional and cognitive support (ECCLES / LORD / ROESER ET AL. 1997). Inter-temporal choices (also referred to as time preference, patience or future orientation) refer to “decisions involving tradeoffs among costs and benefits occurring at different points in time” (FREDERICK / LOWENSTEIN / O’DONOGHUE 2002). Inter-temporal choices are central to economic models of decision-making about behaviours that have dynamic consequences. For example, choice about whether to smoke, whether to quit, and when to quit, are in part determined by time preference, i.e. by the extent to which later outcomes are valued at the time choices have to be taken. They are also important in relation to decisions about staying on in education or about participation in crime. A correlation exists between education (measured by years of schooling or levels of qualifications achieved) and time preference (FUCHS 1982): individuals who value future events highly are more likely to stay in school, although the causal processes here are particularly complex.
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Resilience is a construct describing positive adaptation in the face of adversity (SCHOON / BYNNER 2003). It refers to a process of positive adaptation in response to adversity or trauma (LUTHAR / CICCHETTI 2000). Socio-economic disadvantage, poor living conditions, overcrowding and lack of material resources can be major sources of adversity for children and throughout adulthood (DUNCAN / BROOKS-GUNN 1997). The experience of disadvantage early in life may, for less resilient individuals, weaken their ability to adapt to future challenges. Protective factors, on the other hand, fall into the three broad categories of attributes of children, their families and the wider social context (MASTEN / BEST/ GARMEZY 1990; GARMEZY 1985; RUTTER 1987). Thus, ↑ resilience is also understood as the phenomenon that some individuals show positive adjustment despite being exposed to adversity (LUTHAR / CICCHETTI 2000). It is associated with personality characteristics like selfworth and efficacy, but it is also influenced by external factors, such as having a supportive family and other sources of external support. Focusing on personal attributes, Howard, Dyrden and Johnson (1999) found that the following ‘internal attributes’ characterise the resilient child: autonomy, problem-solving skills, a sense of purpose and future, and social competences, some of which also relate to self-concept, self-efficacy and time preference. Furthermore, Schlossberg, Waters and Goodman (1995) suggest that the ability to draw upon social resources and networks contribute to resilience, leading to better psychological and physical health outcomes (cf. also OGDEN 1997; WILKINSON 1996 for fuller discussions).
Social Capital ↑ Social capital is one of the key resources influenced by education. While Putnam defines social capital mainly in terms of citizenship and civic ↑ participation (e. g. PUTNAM 1999), the ↑ US sociologist Coleman (1988) draws attention to social capital as reflecting community strength such as good neighbourliness, trust or reciprocity. General and vocational education can provide access to social capital for the individual or change the type of social capital to which the individual has access.
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The most basic form of social capital is bonding social capital, which coalesces around a shared identity and tends to reinforce the confidence and homogeneity of a particular social group. Bridging social capital refers to horizontal social networks that extend beyond homogenous entities. It involves cross-cutting networks amongst people of various ethnic, cultural or socio-demographic backgrounds. Linking social capital is characterised by connections with individuals and institutions with power and authority and is theorised in terms of vertical rather than horizontal networks within the social hierarchy. While individuals of lower socio-economic status and education rather have access to bonding social capital, allowing them to use their social networks as a protective factor, they tend to have more restricted access to bridging and linking social capital limiting their access to resources not available in more local environments. Individuals of higher socio-economic status, by contrast, tend to have better access to bridging and linking social capital allowing them to tap into a wide range of productive resources. The precise classification of what is bridging and what bonding capital depends on the groups and social networks formed by individuals and so is not fixed or independent of the self-classification schemes (identity) of individuals. Putnam (1999) suggests that education and learning can be a valuable source of social capital formation. At the level of primary education, learning can promote societal cohesion and strengthen citizenship when individuals of all socio-economic backgrounds are enrolled in the public education system. Learning experiences can, for example, provide opportunities to gain and practice social capital skills (such as participation and reciprocity); provide a forum for community activity and engagement; enhance opportunities to extend and deepen social networks; and support the development of shared norms and values of tolerance, understanding and respect (HEYNEMAN 1998; SCHULLER / BRASSET-GRUNDY/ GREEN ET AL. 2002; SCHULLER / BYNNER / FEINSTEIN 2004). Thus, at the individual level education brings benefits through impacts on access to social networks while also leading to possible tensions in bonding networks. Peer groups are an aspect of the way education can
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influence social capital. Education and vocational training influence the peer group memberships of individuals both directly through effects on the nature and range of social interactions and networks experienced in school, HE, or ↑ adult ↑ learning environments, and indirectly through effects on occupation. The peer groups formed through educational experience influence norms and values (→ 3.6.7) as well as providing direct network benefits. 3.5.4.3 Empirical Evidence on the Wider Benefits of Vocational Learning There is a broad if incomplete empirical literature on the economic benefits, as traditionally measured, of participating in vocational education and training programmes. Far fewer studies have attempted to evaluate the ↑ wider benefits in terms of ↑ identity and ↑ social capital. The selected six examples (below) give empirical evidence of important wider benefits of vocational learning strongly pointing at the importance of the quality of VET provisions for the benefits expected to accrue to participants. Notably, the wider benefits which may flow from academic and other forms of learning do not necessarily apply equally to VET, which typically takes place in very different contexts and with very different forms of provision. Much depends on these features of the learning experience and so universal conclusions about VET or learning per se are inappropriate. Smith and Dalton’s (2004) hypothesis that complementing vocational education with work placements increases students’ identity and social capital in their transition to adulthood was confi rmed in various ways. Based on a sample of 446 Australian students aged between 15 and 19 years, who engaged in VET as a complement to secondary schooling, they classified the outcomes along the two categories ‘dispositional outcomes’ (such as confidence building) and ‘utility outcomes’ (such as occupational outcomes) (SMITH / DALTON 2004, 9) and found that apart from job-specific skills, students also increased their self-esteem and selfconfidence, motivation to learn (participating in the work placement scheme affected their decision to continue studying) and their enjoyment of the vocational programme. Participating in the work-
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based programme had helped the students to clarify their future career prospects as well as it improved their social skills at the workplace. The work placement also helped them to establish important networks that proved useful after school: more than 30 per cent of those who participated were offered a job where they had been placed (SMITH / DALTON 2004, 8). Another Australian study also gives evidence on the wider benefits of ↑ participation in VET programmes. Based on a qualitative empirical investigation with community members who engaged in the provision of and participation in VET (training providers, employers, representatives of community organisations and learners) the study of the Centre for Research and Learning in Regional ↑ Australia (CRLRA 2000) confirms the acquisition of all three forms of capital through participation in vocational training programmes, particularly as concerns the formation of skills, self-confidence, social networks and motivation to work. In terms of social capital, participation in VET programmes positively affected individuals’ interaction with the community by enhancing mutual trust and through “raised levels of awareness and caring for other members of the community” (CRLRA 2000, 105). In a ↑ longitudinal study, Lattimore et al. (1990) tested the hypothesis that criminal behaviour remits in individuals, who participate in VET programmes. Between 1983 and 1989, they followed 591 inmates who participated in the Vocational Delivery System (VDS) programme implemented by the Department of Correction of North Carolina in the U.S. Prisoners were randomly divided into two groups, experimental (E) and control (C). The experimental group received additional support in terms of the evaluation of the individual’s vocational aptitudes and interests, monitoring activities, programme placement, job development and in the provision of the programme’s services. While both groups had access to VET with a distinction in the context in which it was provided and the match obtained between the learner and the programme, 88 per cent of the E group started a vocational programme as opposed to a 77 per cent of the C group. The comparison of the groups’ ↑ performance outcomes revealed that 35 per cent from
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the experimental group completed one or more vocational programmes against 23 per cent of the control group. Those who were arrested after release (around 40 per cent of the whole sample) were more likely to be in the control group. Defining failure as recidivism by the individual, the probability of being arrested decreased with time spent out of prison and stabilised at 0.6 and 0.5 for E’s and C’s respectively after twenty months out of prison. These findings confirmed the initial hypothesis, not just that VET brings the wider benefit of reduced criminality but also that the form of provision is crucial. Using the UK 2001 National ↑ Adult Learning Survey, La Valle and Blake (2001) also provide evidence on the ↑ wider benefits of vocational learning under consideration of taught, self-directed, vocational and non-vocational learning. Of the 6,459 people interviewed, in the previous three years (the timeframe used to define learners) 68 per cent had participated in vocational learning, while 59 and 60 per cent had undertaken taught or ↑ self-directed learning respectively. Participants in instructed vocational learning reported improved knowledge and skills (74 and 64 per cent respectively); having met new people (29 per cent); more confidence (33 per cent); encouragement to learn (23 per cent); increased self-esteem (19 per cent); and enhanced voluntary activity (4 per cent). Apart from the enhancement of ↑ social capital in terms of engagement in networks and community activities ↑ participation in these courses to a lesser degree also brought about health-related outcomes. In the German context, various empirical studies have been undertaken investigating the relation between VET programmes and the development of individuals’ moral judgement abilities. Those studies and their theoretical, practical and methodological implications are presented in chapter → 3.6.7. Though not exclusively referring to vocational education, work from the Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning (WBL) at London University (FEINSTEIN / HAMMOND / WOODS ET AL. 2003) is one of few attempts at quantifying the wider benefits of adult learning. This research used the National Child Development Study to investigate the effects of adult learning on 12 outcomes that act as proxies for health and social capital. For health the
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outcomes were smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, life satisfaction and depression. For social capital, the measures were: race tolerance, political cynicism, support for authority, political interest, civic memberships and voting. In order to minimise selection bias WBL considered changes in outcomes rather than levels. In other words, the analysis assessed the correlation of participation in adult learning with changes in adult health and social behaviours and found that adult learning played an important role in contributing to the small shifts in attitudes and behaviours that took place during mid adulthood. The results held as statistical controls were added for demographic, educational, and other background factors, as well as for changes in life circumstances during mid adulthood. However, this does not suggest a one-way causal relationship. Evidence from additional analyses rather suggests that participation in ↑ adult learning is one very important element in positive cycles of development and progression. This study highlights the problem of ascribing causality to correlational data. Another interesting feature of the study is that it reveals substantial differences in effect for different course types with far fewer positive effects for vocational courses (taken between age 33 and 42) than for academic courses, courses provided by employers and for ↑ informal learning taken primarily for pleasure or leisure. These distinctions are crucial and also complex. Vocational courses were defined in this study as those leading to a vocational qualification, not funded by employers. Yet, courses provided by employers are likely to be vocational in nature. Nonetheless, the key finding was that the wider benefits associated with most forms of learning in adulthood were much less apparent for VET. There are a number of hypotheses that may explain this finding, to do with differences in curricula, pedagogy, peer groups, advice and guidance and the selection and matching of learners to courses. The result may be due to differences in the selection processes that lead individuals into different forms of learning in mid-life rather than to differences in the actual effect of different forms of learning (the causality problem). These alternative hypotheses have not yet been tested quantitatively.
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3.5.4.4
Methodological Considerations
The outlined theory and preliminary empirical evidence indicate that there are important wider outcomes of VET, as of other forms of learning. These benefits are not yet clearly understood in terms of: (i) the mechanisms and processes that generate them, (ii) the forms of provision that are most beneficial, (iii) the evaluation and quantification of their scale and value, (iv) the national and social contexts that support or constrain them, (v) the nature of the effects of VET at different ages and for individuals undergoing different sorts of transition or life pathways. These are substantial gaps in knowledge, which further research needs to tackle. Some methodological issues and implications relevant for the further extension of this research agenda are set out in this section.
A Multi-Level Framework to the Wider Benefits ↑ Wider benefits manifest at several levels of society. In conceptualising and empirically assessing the wider benefits of learning, the London Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning (WBL) has increasingly adopted a multi-level framework considering different levels of social aggregation: the individual, families, communities and the national level. At each level the wider benefits of learning are conceptualised as ‘good functioning’ and ‘↑ well-being’. While the meaning of these items may differ at each level due to the different nature of the units of analysis, there also exist causal links and interdependencies between them. Socially cohesive societies, for example, tend to have high levels of equality at the national level, low levels of crime at the community level and high levels of tolerance and pro-social behaviour at the individual level. On the other hand low crime rates at the national level are in a sense the result of an aggregation of individual level behaviours or community characteristics, although this is an aggregation of a complex kind that is perhaps better termed “integration”. In WBL research the following indicators were identified to assess the wider benefits of learning at the individual level in terms of ‘good functioning’ and ‘well-being’: health (physical health, good health behaviours and happiness) (FEINSTEIN 2002),
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efficacy, confidence, using education in lifestyle choices, social inclusion and race tolerance. The effect of education on individual levels of race tolerance was seen as the individual level manifestation of what manifests at the social level as social cohesion and promoting community level well-being (PRESTON / FEINSTEIN /ANDERSON 2005). At the level of the family good functioning and well-being partly mirror the individual level benefits and reproduce them at a higher level of social aggregation. Further, inter-generational effects of education – the processes by which educational benefits are transferred to the next generation with major consequences for social ↑ mobility, equality, life chances and future economic productivity – play a significant role as do parental beliefs, values, aspirations, well-being and parent-child interactions (FEINSTEIN / DUCKWORTH / SABATES 2004). At the community level, outcomes that indicate good functioning and well-being include: community cohesion; low levels of crime and anti-social behaviour; trust and other aspects of ↑ social capital; and community economic success. In this context the role and functioning of social networks have been identified as an important determinant of outcomes. Finally, at the national level, the wider benefits of learning manifest as impacts on a wide range of outcomes relevant to national policies, such as crime rates, health mortality and morbidity rates, levels of social cohesion and engagement with public life.
Other Methodological Considerations While those identified indicators make it possible to empirically assess the wider benefits of learning, some unresolved methodological problems persist. (1) Conceptual problems: in some cases we are interested in estimating the effects of social level interventions (the effect of educational inequality, for example) on individual level outcomes such as personal health or we may be interested in estimating the effect of individual level learning experiences on social level outcomes such as social capital. These relationships are complex conceptually and so difficult to model statistically, requiring multi-level data often with national level varia-
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tion, i.e. across a number of countries. These issues present severe problems for empirical research. (2) Measurement problems: sometimes the outcomes that we may be interested in can be difficult to measure. Economic outcomes tend to have a well-defined cardinal metric, i.e. in monetary terms. Wider outcomes are not defined in terms of such constructs and so measurement issues become more problematic. For social and ↑ identity capital, measurement techniques are developing and have already progressed sufficiently far that, although not trivial by any means, these problems are not a barrier to research. Often more problematic is not the measurement of the outcomes, but the measurement of learning. Most studies assess education in terms of number of years of schooling or the qualifications gained. Yet for the identity and ↑ social capital effects of learning, what may matter more is the quality or appropriateness of learning, not the simple quantity of years of learning. Few large sample studies measure the relevant aspects of quality. Nevertheless, all the empirical studies reviewed in this chapter point to the importance of the quality of VET provision. Thereby, the role of structured collaborations in the implementation of VET, such as those between public VET providers and local industries, has been emphasised as key elements in successfully generating ↑ wider benefits. (3) The measurement of learning: related to the previous point, it is important to identify the different implications that different forms of learning may have for achieving wider benefits. In part this may be a distinction between vocational and academic learning, between learning at different ages and other structural or distal features of the learning experience. However, learning may also be distinguished according to more immediate or proximal factors such as in terms of who provides the learning, in what context, with what objectives, to whom with what pedagogy, assessment mechanisms, guidance and mentoring and so on. All of these features influence the wider benefits of vocational learning. (4) Estimation problems: in statistical terms, learning experiences are not exogenous, i.e. the correlation of a learning experience and an outcome is not evidence of the precise effect of the learning ex-
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perience but may be due to a wide range of third factors, often unmeasured in survey data. Having access to experimental conditions and so estimation of the precise magnitude of the wider benefits is problematic. Qualitative studies are more appropriate in addressing the key aspects of vocational learning that may impact on the outcomes of interest, but do not provide representative samples or quantitative measures of effects. To date, most of the empirical evidence is to be found in case studies, which describe people’s experiences, but do not attempt to measure and generalise findings. The best we have so far in terms of estimation of causal effects is the studies that draw on rich longitudinal data to attempt to condition out or control in statistical terms for the important confounding variables (see, for example, FEINSTEIN / HAMMOND / WOODS ET AL. 2003). The previous points make clear that quantitative research by itself will not be able to respond to the evidence gap set out above, but that qualitative and ethnographic research is also required. However, by itself such research will also be insufficient for addressing the question of the scale and value of the wider benefits of VET. Quantitative issues are vital in consideration of the development of ↑ VET systems, as policy-makers will always look for assessment of the costs and benefits of the various interventions and supports available to them in the expenditure of public funds. Therefore, alongside qualitative investigation of these questions, we will need better quality, large sample data, using longitudinal ↑ research designs that enable us to assess the wider outcomes of learning, matched into indicators of the extent and nature of ↑ participation in VET. Another complication is that wider impacts may vary, depending on the role of vocational education in the broader system of learning. Where vocational education is marginal, it may have little positive impact. However, achieving scale in vocational education may lead to large additional wider benefits for youth as a whole. 3.5.4.5 Research Challenges Theory and evidence that links education and VET to economic returns is much more developed than the links between education and training and wid-
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er outcomes. The benefits and purposes of learning, however, go beyond the enhancement of individual and national economic productivity as they generate valuable assets for the society and individuals “to enrich their lives and make them better citizens” (WEISS 1995, 151). ↑ Identity and ↑ social capital have been introduced as important mechanisms by which ↑ wider benefits are generated. Both these kinds of capital are different from ↑ human capital and are not reducible to it. Therefore, conceptual models of wider benefits are necessarily more complex and require an inter-disciplinary approach, including such disciplines or traditions as education, economics, developmental psychology and sociology. Insights and analyses from all of these disciplines are necessary to conceptualise and empirically assess the wider benefits of education in general and vocational education and training in particular. Research suggests that the wider benefits of learning are wide-ranging and multi-level, spanning health, ↑ well-being, crime, social ↑ mobility, parenting and social cohesion. This has important implications for pedagogy, curricula, selection processes, teacher training, ↑ professionalisation, advice and guidance and the interventions of different policies. Although the recognition of these wider benefits of learning is long-standing, the evidence for such benefits has been insufficiently precise to offer clear guidance to researchers and policy makers. While public expenditure and investments should, where possible, be supported by robust quantitative evidence, not all outcomes of value can be measured to the same extent. Research on the wider benefits of learning therefore needs to broaden the modelling and measurement of the benefits of learning so that the wider outcomes of education can be added to the evaluation picture. Although there is recognition that the wider benefits may be important, they have often been rather vaguely specified. Underlying the evidence gap is a conceptual gap that has severely limited the capacity for measurement and hence evaluation. The productivity benefits of education are relatively well understood and clear disciplinary foundations exist for their analysis and quantification. The research domains of the wider benefits of learning, by contrast, are less mapped out and the appropri-
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ate techniques are more inter-disciplinary and less well established. More conceptual work is therefore needed to provide and consolidate the foundations for the development of clear, testable hypotheses. On the empirical side, both quantitative and qualitative methods are useful tools to estimate the wider effects and to test conceptual frameworks.
3.5.5
The Contribution of TVET to Innovative Practices Klaus Ruth
3.5.5.1
Outlining the Scope and Defining Central Concepts
This article deals with the core concepts of innovation and technical and vocational education and training (TVET), and analyses their embeddedness in the globalization process by utilizing the industrial culture approach. Special attention is drawn to the interaction of TVET and innovation – particularly under the varying impacts of globalization on different countries and industrial cultures. TVET will be understood as a system of technical and vocational education that function to supply of a qualified and skilled workforce to the prevailing types of production of a country, region or sector – or: to equip people with the skills and competences demanded by the ↑ labour market(s) (→ 2.5). To complete this coarse-grained definition it seems important to consider that the systems quality of TVET may vary considerably from country to country, i.e. in some cases all the TVET measures contribute to a coherent system whereas in other cases the TVET “system” might be consist of a set of particular measures, which and are conflicting and thus detrimental to a coherent system (more details on the systems characteristics and the cross-national differences will be given in the subsequent chapters). Innovation, the other key concept addressed in this chapter, is nowadays understood as a process of inventing, developing and commercializing new products, services or processes, which are exploited to improve companies’ economic ↑ performance and competitiveness. Beginning with a com-
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pany-bound Schumpeterian heroic entrepreneur as a strategic actor, innovation is nowadays often organized within networks (DUSCHEK 2004), which are arenas where a wide range of people with different educational backgrounds are gathered, e. g. users and suppliers (compare HIPPEL 1988). In the course of this chapter the potential role of skilled workers and technicians as well as their possible contribution to innovative practices will be tracked down. Globalization is perhaps considered as a framing concept for analyzing and comparing different TVET practices and their interaction with innovation. It urgently raises the question as to how production is organized. And, since nowadays plenty of global outsourcing is going to countries that do not have a systematic and well-elaborated TVET system, questions arise about which requirements for vocational education and training exist in global production spots like ↑ China, and to what extent do these new production regimes challenge work and qualification/training in the industrialized countries. A specific focus of interest lies on the latest developments in TVET in the European countries. This is mainly owing to the initiatives to harmonize and establish a qualification transfer framework, and the various initiatives to accredit various forms of learning – ranging from ↑ informal learning, to several forms of ↑ e-learning and the like. The argument about the interrelatedness of TVET systems and the building of innovative capacities, which is brought to the centre in this chapter, is – among other approaches – embedded in the concept of “industrial culture” (RAUNER / RUTH 1996; RUTH 2001). Industrial culture basically is a dual concept: on the one hand the term describes a dynamic socio-economic, cultural and political object that is in rivalry with the concept of ‘nation’ – mainly because the values, the attitudes and social institutions often do not match the national borders. For the purpose of international comparisons – a key objective of the approach – an industrial culture can take shape on various interdependent levels: The macro level – in many cases inappropriately identified with the national level – the meso or regional, institutional or organisational levels, and finally, the micro or individual level.
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The second aspect of this duality identifies industrial culture as a research concept that splits up the system’s coherence and assembles a set of analytical dimensions and variables that can be utilized for international comparative empirical research. In this view the following constituents of industrial culture have proved to be significant: social institutions (covering common cultural values and attitudes as well as industrial relations, technical styles, role models, etc.), industrial organisation (the structure and organisation of industry, industrial sectors or clusters), general and vocational education, industrial (and R&D) policy, and finally psychological factors. In the analytical perspective in particular, the variables are recognized as interdependent, and furthermore they constitute a dynamic rather that static relationship. This dynamic interdependency represents the context, which interacts with individual industrial culture variables. Above all it is the interrelatedness (or interdependency) between context and variables that is the subject of comparisons (RUTH 2003). By utilizing some core elements of the industrial culture approach this chapter will explore the relationship of TVET with innovation systems; particularly the question in how far TVET measures and TVET research outcomes do impact the innovative practices in different industrial cultures. 3.5.5.2
Sensing the Pressure
During the last few decades the global production landscape as well as the modes of production have changed and, thus, it can be assumed that the forms of work and the requirements for skill and qualifications have also been affected by this general tendency. In a general view we can observe several sequential and in some cases concurrent production concepts. (This is a generalised view that does not consider the always existing differences, e. g. the special type of production to be found in the capital goods industry, e. g. machine tool sector). Mass production is the dominant mode for manufacturing standardized durable quality goods like cars and electric appliances. Second, flexible mass production partially replaces inflexible mass production (PIORE / SABEL 1984). Eventually the Toyota way of producing cars was labeled as lean pro-
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duction (WOMACK /JONES / ROOS 1990), which introduced large-scale supplier networks and was the take-off point for a far-reaching outsourcing wave. The latest stage of development can be seen in the massive shift of production to the “manufacturers of the world” – mainly ↑ China, India and a few other Asian countries. These developments – remarkable in themselves – have impacts on the production systems in developed countries, especially on the production volume and the type of production that remains in these countries instead of being “globalized”. Obviously, the manufacturing remaining in the developed countries of Europe, the ↑ U.S. and ↑ Japan can be characterized as knowledge-intensive, high-performance production. Going into the details of these production modes is beyond the scope of this chapter, but some light will be shed on the respective production modes’ implications for qualification in general and for TVET in particular. This also raises the question of the future shape of TVET, which can be assumed to be a compromise/synthesis between the demand, i.e. the requirements induced by the developments in production modes, and the direction and outcomes of TVET research. How far these outcomes of TVET research can contribute to new innovative practices in production, work and qualification will be addressed in the course of subsequent paragraphs. 3.5.5.3 First Subject Field: TVET and Its Role in Different Production Models Since innovation research deals more intensively with the driving forces for economic development, competitiveness and the like, there is an increased interest in the qualification and skill issues of human resources. Michael Porter, for example, emphasized in his “Diamond model of competitive advantages of nations” the significance of skilled labour as one important ‘factor condition’ among others such as capital and infrastructure, and alongside other advance factors like demand conditions, strategy and spatial conditions (PORTER 1990). In the “Diamond model” governments have the opportunity to pro-actively influence all conditions in order to improve the competitiveness of a sector (or nation). Particularly in countries with an existing system of technical and vocational edu-
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cation and training, discerning government policy can sustain the supply of a well-trained and skilled labour force and thus contribute to the innovativeness of sector – and eventually to the competitive advantages of nations. Evidently, Porter’s model emphasizes – in the same way as our concept of industrial culture sketched in the introductory section – the relationship between skills and qualification on the one hand, and innovation (or competitive advantages) on the other hand. This indication of a valid connection between vocational education and training and economic ↑ performance is supported by the discussions on “varieties of capitalism” (HALL / SOSKICE 2001). Based on the distinction between liberal market and coordinated market economies, Hall and Soskice emphasize the impact of the differences of various institutional and policy settings on the economic performance of countries. Particularly, in analyzing the German type of market economy (the “Rhine model”), the impact of the vocational training system/skill formation system on economic performance is highlighted. Bringing Hall and Soskice’s as well as Porter’s arguments to a broader common level, we can assume a relationship between the underlying basic economic institutions (liberal or coordinated market) and essential cultural values, and types of ↑ labour markets, skill formation systems and economic performance, innovativeness and competitiveness. If we recall the emergence of the mass production model with its two derivatives Fordism and Taylorism in the U.S., we can observe production on a semi-skilled or un-skilled level at a high degree of specialization and compartmentalization (compare for example BRAVERMAN 1974). In the context of the U.S. the mainly college-based system of vocational education and training did not “deliver” to the core sectors of mass production, but rather to other sectors such as machine tool production. Interestingly, other countries like Germany have not followed this path and did not rely so heavily on semi- or unskilled labour. Thus, in the U.S. the development of a vocational education and training system – as a nation-wide system – did not occur. While in Germany and other European countries, the ↑ VET system emerged as systems and they flourished the continuously adapted and im-
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proved VET system being able to support new production modes like flexible mass production by providing a sufficient number of well-trained and educated workers. In the case of the ↑ U.S. the lack of a distinct system of TVET must be claimed as responsible for the comparatively weak performance of flexible mass production. But every country has the capability to learn and, with that, to improve individual components of its VET system, which might contribute to a re-shaping of an existing system – or be the starting point for establishing a new system. Considering an accelerated globalization we can observe a bifurcation of the global production landscape: manufacturing and assembly of the labourintensive kind is shifted towards the low wage and low labour-standard regions, whereas high-end production remains in the developed countries. Thus, we face an advanced state of a new international division of work: on the one hand highexpertise jobs – ranging from science and knowledge-based jobs to high-performance manufacturing jobs at the shop-floor level (see APPELBAUM / BAILEY/ BERG /K ALLEBERG 2000) – in Europe and the developed economies in the West as well as in ↑ Japan. On the other hand low-end jobs based upon semi-skilled or low skilled, mainly manual, labour in ↑ China, India and other Asian ↑ developing countries. This bifurcation into high- and low-end production systems has implications for the qualification system, skill formation and thus for TVET systems. Therefore TVET is becoming ever more important as the developed countries’ sole way to secure employment through implementing a knowledge-intensive production for an increasing share of the workforce in Europe and similarly in the U.S. and Japan. In a way the current phase of globalization is the latest and strongest challenge to the innovativeness of the “old” developed and industrialized countries. Thus, TVET systems, practices, reform and research in vocational training and learning become more important in these countries. In the following section some selected efforts and achievements of mainly European countries will be presented as striking examples of the attempt to improve innovative practices through TVET reform.
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3.5.5.4
Second Subject Field: TVET and its Impact on Innovative Practices
As a general consequence of globalization the more advanced and developed countries can hardly compete on costs with the new entrants on the global arena. The obvious solution for the “old” industrialized countries lies in transforming their manufacturing and services into high value-added and knowledge-intensive sectors. This evidently requires a high ↑ skill level of the involved workforce, which can be achieved by multifarious pathways, depending on the prevailing systems of vocational education and training (VET). Independently of the ↑ VET system’s shape – broadly distinguishable into school-based and work-based systems – the challenges exerting pressure are similar and can be differentiated into path-dependent and border-crossing initiatives. Path-dependency means following the prevailing track of TVET in a given country, e. g., a school-based system. The TVET-related research and policy building based on the research recommendations accepts the given framework and tries to develop new perspectives and means within the framework or tries to incorporate research from other contexts into the existing context. A real challenge is presented by the attempts to establish common systems of accreditation and/or exchange across various countries (e. g. the European Qualification Framework). If we are reviewing the national and international research strands in TVET we find that research in TVET is allocated to various programmes which are often the responsibility of different governmental bodies – both on the national and supra-national levels. In the past this “dispersion” led to a patchwork-like pattern of TVET research with little coherence. In the case of European research, and TVET research in particular, this would be overcome by the integration of TVET into the European Framework Programme of Research. But this does not touch the transformation of research outcomes into policy, e. g. the reform of qualification and training systems. If we consider the situation in the ↑ OECD we can observe that those countries with a high level of regional independence (e. g. federal states) have more difficulties in developing effective instruments for political reforms. The
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case of the U.S. exemplifies this very convincingly: vocational education is a domain of the states and local communities, whereas the federal government focuses on general education and on inducements to encourage schools on regional and local level to provide vocational education. Consequently, the federal government has only weak influences on the contents and forms of VET, and as a result, all over the country the shape and quality of VET differs considerably (cf. STASZ / BODILLY 2004). A similar situation appears if we look at the European Union (including the acceding countries): there is a huge variety of VET systems, but there is a political will to develop, improve and “harmonize” the national TVET systems. The following remarks will focus on the recent developments in the EU, because it is typical of the systems that can be found globally, and it is furthermore a good case study of the difficulties arising when efforts are made to transform research (results) into coherent policy action on a transnational (and probably also on a federal) level.
Europe-Wide Activities in TVET Research and Policy Implementation The starting points for a review of the most recent initiatives on TVET in Europe are the socalled “Copenhagen Declaration” and the “↑ Lisbon Goals”. Even if they were not formulated before 2002 they are the basis for relating (and evaluating) the research and policy activities of the European countries during the last decade. The bottom line of the Lisbon strategy is the attempt to develop Europe by the year 2010 into “the world’s most competitive and dynamic, knowledge-based economic area”. This general goal is differentiated into a sub-set of dependent goals, such as creating more and better jobs and enhancing social cohesion within the countries. Additionally a higher level of work forces’ ↑ mobility should be achieved. On the policy level it is well accepted that education and particularly TVET will play a crucial role in attaining these goals. Probably the most prominent concept, which is discussed and brought into practice in a step-by-step way, is ↑ lifelong learning. The idea behind it is that learning should take place throughout one’s whole life – with the purpose of improving knowledge, skills and compe-
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tence. The objectives go beyond the accumulation of employment- and work-related competence, but rather aim at active citizenship. This addresses hitherto underestimated competence like entrepreneurship and a higher level of self-determination in work etc. Along with lifelong learning is the idea that many, if not all forms of learning should be recognized. Additional fields of ↑ VET policy and actions emphasize work practice as an essential skill component in order to achieve the goal of reflective practitioners that can contribute to innovative practices. And to finish this necessarily incomplete list: new forms of learning, such as ↑ selfdirected learning, ↑ eLearning and synthesizing (rather than sequentially summarizing) theoretical and practical/↑ work process knowledge (see, for more detail, LENEY/AMMERMAN / BRANDSMA ET AL. 2004). An evaluation of the policy steps taken to reach progress in TVET must consider the following criterion: to what extent do measures contribute to achieving the ↑ Lisbon goals? Evidently, it is not easy to assess the impact of certain measures on national ↑ VET systems as well as their potential contribution to a mutual adjustment of the Europewide differences in TVET systems. In order to get a clearer view of the role of various measures of reforming VET in Europe, and to make an assessment easier, a typology of different possible (national) pathways to be followed in the technical and vocational education and training is given below. When trying to draw a picture of the European VET landscape, and particularly when putting emphasis on the different types of (initial) VET, we can distinguish four fundamental types following Leney (2004): – Predominantly ↑ dual systems/apprenticeship pathways (e. g. Germany, Austria), – School-based mainly vocational systems (e. g. Finland), – School-based mainly pre-vocational systems (e. g. Ireland, Italy) and – Mixed systems of school-based and apprenticeship routes (e. g. the UK). Even if, in particular cases, it might be difficult to assign countries unambiguously to a single VET type, the typology allows for a general assessment
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of certain measures within a certain national system and furthermore an evaluation of the contribution of certain measures to the mutual adjustment of systems within the European zone. In the following, a selected action field of TVET with a number of interacting measures will serve as an example for policy measures that are taken to achieve improvements in the innovativeness of companies, regions or industrial cultures. But these measures can be implemented under varying social, political, institutional – and thus industrial cultural – circumstances. The different impacts on and interactions with the “contexts” will be emphasized when trying to evaluate and assess the efficacy of the measures.
Recognition of Non-Formal and Informal Learning In the following I will have a closer look at the recognition of non-formal and ↑ informal learning in the context of lifelong learning (BJØRNÅVOLD 2001). Most European countries face the necessity of planning and implementing a system of recognizing the qualification that individuals have acquired during their previous employments or other activities outside of the working life. Countries with a dual system of vocational training need to develop such means, because of an increasing number of people who have not run through a formal system of VET, and countries with a school-based system have the difficulty to assess the qualification and competence levels of new employees, who do not hold certificates to prove their competence. In addition, the increasing transnational ↑ mobility of the workforce requires some tools and measures to assess the competence of employees. Some prominent cases where tools for assessing competence have been developed and used in practice are the French Bilans de Compétence (DREXEL 1998a; GUTSCHOW 2003), the system of NVQs in England (ERAUT 2003), and additionally there are pilots in Finland, in the Netherlands and many other European countries (LENEY/AMMERMAN / BRANDSMA ET AL. 2004, 91). It is obvious that the developed tools differ considerably: they might range from formal examinations to prolonged communicative processes during which a joint competence profile is developed. In the latter case, which is typical for
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the French type of ↑ competence assessment, the request to assess competence is combined with ↑ career guidance and mentoring activities. During such a process a statement of the previously acquired competence can be formulated, which itself serves as the basis for career guidance. A skilled and experienced person must carry out the latter function as an advisor and mentor. These circumstances may lead to joint career planning, which can be combined with a personal training and education road map. Potentially, the sketched procedure can result in personal benefits for the employee (i.e. better career opportunities and thus better work) and also for the company, since it can raise its innovative capacities with better educated employees. Evidently, the benefits depend on the practical realization of the procedure; but in general such cooperative processual competence assessment measures are advantageous compared with those based on formal examination. In addition, the sketched procedure of a comprehensive Bilans de Compétence is more suitable to those TVET systems that do not have a ↑ career guidance implemented in the TVET system. This can be assumed for many (if not most) school-based systems. Furthermore, the recognition of non-formal and ↑ informal learning can contribute to the accessibility of higher levels of qualification and open up new formal learning options for participants who otherwise would not have been admitted to VET or higher education programmes. Consequently, the recognition of non-formal and informal learning contributes to flexibility within the ↑ VET systems, and supports the inclusion of new and hitherto not taught and acquired skills and competences into the competence portfolio of companies, sectors, regions or nations. The increasing emphasis on competence in many TVET reforms in the European Union might serve as an example. Without going into greater detail about the debate on the value and relevance of key (or core) competence, we can state that much crucial competence originates from real-life work experiences and thus cannot be taught context-independent in a school surrounding (ONSTENK 2001). In addition, such skills and competence like entrepreneurial thinking, which, for example, can be acquired by managing a family, or communicative skills and leadership skills,
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are all typical objects for an assessment of nonformal or informal learning. A crucial challenge lies in the difficulty to re-contextualize the recognized and assessed competence that was embedded in different learning contexts. With reference to the sketch of global trends described above, the emergence of new, highly knowledge-intensive production models in the “old” industrialized countries, which are thriving on an increased innovative competence, require new skills and competence or at least their re-composition into new ↑ skill and competence portfolios. 3.5.5.5 Perspectives of TVET as a Component of Innovative Practice The implementation of new TVET practices all over Europe as well as in many ↑ OECD countries is mainly founded on ↑ pilot studies and experimental reform projects. As such, these pilots are, on the one hand, embedded in the specific VET systems and practices, and at the same time they contribute to the transformation of the prevailing systems. The variety of innovative TVET practices and policies corresponds to the variety of TVET systems, innovation systems, and thus to the variety of capitalism. More specifically, a major borderline follows the distinction between the schoolbased and apprenticeship systems of VET. In order to respond to the challenge of a new knowledgeintensive production and innovation, new skills and competence need to be implemented into the
prevailing systems. Since the goals are very similar for most developed countries, particularly the European countries, in most cases attempts to reform the TVET systems are focusing on similar subjects (e. g. implementing new skills and competence like entrepreneurial thinking), but the solutions and paths followed are different. In summary, it may be said that the TVET measures for dealing with the challenges of globalization are path-dependent, therefore the variety of different national TVET systems (or approaches) is maintained. Through the implementation of new skill components, new learning approaches etc. into the TVET systems, the foundations for dealing with the challenges of globalization through achieving the goal of implementing knowledge-intensive and high-performance production systems are laid. Beyond the common finding of a growing impact of TVET on (knowledge-intensive) production and innovation in a general global perspective, we can draw the conclusion that the variety of different path-dependent measures to improve national TVET systems contributes to the improvement of different varieties of innovation and production – thus the best strategy in TVET reform is to stick to the TVET trajectory taken, and implement appropriate measures to ameliorate the system and strengthen its impacts on the innovation system, rather than trying to copy successful measures of ↑ TVET policy implemented in other national and industrial ↑ cultural contexts, but which are unsuitable to the particular system of TVET.
3.6.0 Occupational Work and Competence Development Martin Fischer and Nicholas Boreham 3.6.0.1 Conceptual Clarification and Definition of Key Issues The relationship of professional work and competence development has many different aspects. First of all there is the fact that the design of working systems entails certain demands and requirements that must be met by the workers. These requirements define the possibilities and limits of competence development. Accordingly the design of working systems plays an important part in the analysis of professional competence development.
The shaping of work is closely associated with the selection and design of the instruments the workers have to use and comprises the company’s work organisation (structural and process organisation). Concepts of ↑ organisational learning orient the latter not only towards the fulfilment of ↑ work tasks and the positioning of workers in the company, but also towards the ↑ promotion of learning in the organisation, which entails the promotion of professional competence development. Work design, technology and organisation therefore mark
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important conditions for professional competence development. Studies on competence development processes, however, show that the actual competence development of individuals cannot be inferred from the working conditions in a deterministic way. This is at least suggested by analyses which were concerned with the ↑ work process knowledge of skilled workers and which showed that individuals acquired different competences despite comparable working conditions. This result makes clear that it is important for issues of professional competence development what preconditions, attitudes, motives and interests are brought into the ↑ work process by the subjects. These preconditions, attitudes, motives and interests in some sense mark the subjective dimension of professional competence development beside the objective working conditions. They are formed in processes of vocational socialisation and differentiated in processes of professional specialisation. Ultimately they are manifested in the individual specific shape of ↑ professional identity. 3.6.0.2
Major Research Areas and Topics
In accordance with the complexity of the relationship between occupational work and competence development a multitude of scientific disciplines is concerned with the topic: labour studies, work and organisational psychology, pedagogical psychology, work and industrial sociology, ↑ vocational pedagogy etc., each with its own genesis and historical development. Labour studies and work psychology are concerned with work design. Alternative models of work design with different consequences for the question of professional competence development can be shown, for instance, in Taylor’s principles of scientific management in contrast to principles of semi-autonomous teamwork. Taylor’s scientific management led to the simplification of ↑ work tasks and to the externalisation of work supervision. An effect for professional competence development is the lowering of the level of demands for work activities – this applies above all to the intellectual level due to the reduction of decision-making options for the worker, which goes along with a new type of stress caused by the ↑ performance of
monotonous residual tasks. Unlike this, the model of semi-autonomous teamwork claims to be associated with a variety of demands and also with a variety of work tasks. Consequences for the professional competence development of the working person lie in the demand to know the factual foundations for the decisions to be made and to communicate these to the team. Depending on the type of work design one can identify tendencies either towards the diminution or towards the further development of the knowledge and skills necessary for the performance of work. Information on the current state of research is given in the chapter by Karlheinz Sonntag and Ralf Stegmaier (→ 3.6.2) in this volume. Closely related to the notion of work design are the work organisation in which the immediate working system is embedded and the technology used in this working system. Technology has a twofold relevance for issues of professional competence development: on the one hand experiences and knowledge for the adequate handling of an object are available in a reified form in the instruments of work – often workers have to decode this experience and knowledge partially in order to be able to use the instruments appropriately. On the other hand technology, particularly computerbased technology, can be designed in a learningsupportive way, i.e. by making work-relevant information available. A tutorial quality of work instruments can be achieved which in turn generates new opportunities for professional competence development. The tutorial quality of working systems is treated in the chapter by Matthias Becker (→ 3.6.5). The work organisation in which the working system including the work instruments is embedded also features the above-mentioned fundamentally different demands to competence development: lower hierarchies allow for greater discretionary power on the operative level and entail corresponding competence demands, whereas the externalisation of the knowledge present in the operative field to the domain of operational work preparation leads to the opposite effect. Actually the situation in the field of work design is not as unequivocal as a polar comparison of alternative design approaches might suggest. If one
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consults industrial sociological studies one can observe an increasing speed of corporate restructuration processes (cf. DREXEL 1998b, 53), but not as a permanent normative decision in favour of teamwork, semi-autonomous working groups etc. Meanwhile this was realised with regret by supporters of teamwork like Peter Brödner (1998, 39 ff.). In some cases – even in one and the same firm – this can mean that Taylorist forms of organisation are maintained, for instance when the issue is about the optimal utilisation of machines (cf. WEILNBÖCK-BUCK / DYBOWSKI / BUCK 1996, 265). In other projects it is crucial to enter the market with a new product as soon as possible. This means: project organisation, minimum bureaucracy, and for the employees: teamwork, cooperation across hierarchies and ↑ professions, and an allocation of tasks as agreed. The lowest common denominator in a field of different rationalisation strategies can thus be formulated as follows: in addition to the handling of work routines skilled workers are expected to cope with disruptions, unexpected events and new problems. This is the genuine starting point for professional competence development in the ↑ work process, which gains more and more importance in computer-based production. As generic term for the work situations sketched here we use the term “problem situation”, which includes disturbances in the planned workflow and in technical devices as well as any kind of new tasks for which there is as yet no action plan on the part of the worker. The cause for this lies also in the general change of skilled work in companies (cf. FRIELING 1995a) due to – the implementation of new production technologies, – the introduction of new products and materials, – the change in work organisation and work ↑ structuration, – new political conditions for business activities, which emerge for instance from the legislation of the European Union. All these reasons lead to the conclusion that companies in the productive sector are permanently exposed to problem situations that have effects down to the shop floor level.
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From a learning theoretical perspective the “problem” constitutes in some sense the primary momentum for professional competence development (SEIDEL 1976, 54 ff.). The question of what is important in this regard has been answered by Holzkamp and Seidel in the 1970s from the point of view of German critical psychology in a very similar way as Donald Schön in the ↑ USA, who had analysed the activities of professional practitioners. Schön’s result is the following: “From the perspective of Technical Rationality professional practice is a process of problem solving. Problems of choice or decision are solved through the selection, from available means, of the one best suited to established ends. But with this emphasis on problem solving, we ignore problem setting, the process by which we define the decision to be made, the ends to be achieved, the means which may be chosen. In real-world practice, problems do not present themselves to the practitioner as givens. They must be constructed from the materials of problematic situations which are puzzling, troubling and uncertain. In order to convert a problematic situation to a problem, a practitioner must do a certain kind of work. He must make sense of an uncertain situation that initially makes no sense” (SCHÖN 1983, 39 f.).
“Making sense in the workplace” (BOREHAM 1995a) is something every practitioner does, but it turns out to be difficult when computers are being used in the production process. This is due to the enormous discrepancy between the action knowledge to be used in the normal work situation and the ↑ work process knowledge to be activated in the problem situation. In the solution of problem situations a second momentum which is relevant for learning in the work process comes into play, namely, learning in social interaction. In a study conducted by Michael Eraut and his colleagues (1998) in Britain, the 120 interviewees from ↑ mechanical engineering, business and administration and from the health sector named two resources above all for learning in the work process: – First: “the challenges of work itself”, a matter that is largely identical with the emergence of problem situations as discussed here. – Second: “learning from other people”. Very often it is the collective solution of problem situations that engenders such learning opportunities. Informal conversations about the work, however, as well as opportunities and occasions for so-
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cial interaction that are deliberately created by the companies also lead to this form of learning. Such deliberately created opportunities and occasions for social interaction, which aim at the acquisition of professional competence, are frequently labelled with keywords like “↑ organisational learning” or “learning organisation”. Measures of this kind show that one wishes to stimulate competence development in the work process by means of feedback, social interaction in groups, and media support. These instruments support the ↑ performance of the work task as well as the corresponding learning process. Such measures, however, also reach beyond the support of individual learning. At the same time they are expected to strengthen the organisational ↑ knowledge base in the enterprise. It is attempted via methods of ↑ knowledge management to utilise the learning outcomes of the employees – in the ideal case: more knowledge for the solution of operational problems – for the enterprise. The chapter by Michael Dick in this volume (→ 3.6.3) presents the theoretical background and empirical results on this topic. Competence development in the context of work, however, is not only influenced by the technical and organisational conditions, but also by the subjective preconditions that individuals bring into the ↑ work process. In their above-mentioned study Eraut and his colleagues come to the following conclusion: “Adopting a learner-centred perspective showed that formal education and training provide only a small part of what is learned at work. Most of the learning described by the interviewees was non-formal, neither clearly specified nor planned. It arose naturally out of the demands and challenges of work, solving problems, improving quality and/or productivity, or coping with change – and out of social interactions in the workplace. The outcome of such ‘learning from experience’ was the development of knowledge, skills and understanding, although this was difficult to explain to others. Effective learning was, however dependent on confidence, motivation and capability – prerequisites for employees’ selfmanagement of much of their learning” (ERAUT / ALDERTON / COLE / SENKER 1998).
In the last sentence those elements of professional competence are mentioned – confidence, motivation and capability – that were identified as prerequisites for learning in the work process.
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The reasons for an actual competence development in the context of work thus do not only have an objective side, which consists of the fact that problem situations often cannot be solved without learning. They also have a subjective side. The subjective side is founded in the fact that a proportion of the skilled workers has developed a ↑ professional identity that views the autonomous solution of problematic ↑ work tasks – and not their rejection or delegation – as a part of the professional selfconcept. It has to be assumed, especially when more than one country is taken into view, that there is not just one single form of professional identity which is decisive for the question as to whether learning opportunities in the work process are perceived and taken at all. A comprehensive empirical study in Germany has identified quite different types of the shaping of professional biographies. In the context of the research project “Status Passages into Employment” Walter Heinz, Andreas Witzel and colleagues (HEINZ / WITZEL 1995; WITZEL /KÜHN 2000) conducted a ↑ longitudinal study in which approximately 2000 persons were recorded and interviewed. It became clear in the course of the longitudinal study that the situationspecific coping with the transition to employment and the stages after completing vocational training revealed some common thread of the shaping of biographies. Based on the “grounded theory” (GLASER / STRAUSS 1967) an empirically founded typology was worked out, which included six biographical shaping modes, e. g. “paid worker habit” or “personality development”. In all of these types vocational learning was accepted at least in the sense of adaptive ↑ continuing education, albeit within certain limits of reasonableness in the “paid worker habit” type. Especially those persons who had certain career aspirations or strove for a gain in autonomy viewed competence development in the context of work as an important means for shaping their biography. Occupation-related life-course research makes clear that a professional biography is not just the result of vocational learning inside and outside the work process, but does also in turn influence these learning processes as a shaping variable. With regard to the issue of competence development in
Areas of VET Research
the context of occupational work this means that an exclusive interpretation in the sense of learning psychology, which considers only the conditions of learning in the work situation itself, is certainly an overly narrow perspective. The ends, interests and attitudes that the individuals introduce into the learning process have to be taken into consideration as well. A substantial component of these ends, interests and attitudes is related to the question what the societal construct of occupation means for life planning, and accordingly, what developmental goals individuals have in mind when they view and reflect the contents of professional work. The chapters by Walter Heinz (→ 3.6.6), Sabine Raeder (→ 3.6.8) and Harald Mieg (→ 3.6.9) discuss these topics. Up to this point objective conditions and subjective prerequisites for competence development in the context of work have been discussed. But how can the process of competence development itself be described and what does it include? The process of acquiring professional competences is often modelled, following Dreyfus and Dreyfus, as a path that a beginner follows until he becomes an expert. Empirical studies on this topic used Havighurst’s concept of developmental tasks which come across a person’s path at a certain professional stage and which have to be solved by that person. Rainer Bremer’s chapter (→ 3.6.1) unfolds the methodological problem and sketches developmental steps in work and learning concepts that were practised by the test subjects on their way towards professionality. One crucial type of knowledge acquired by professional practitioners in different vocational domains were identified by a European ten-country network and labelled with the generic term ↑ work process knowledge. The concept of work process knowledge (BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002; FISCHER / BOREHAM / NYHAN 2004) is based on empirical research into the competence requirements of modernized workplaces, especially those which have undergone a transition from Taylorism (strong hierarchy, top-down decisions, segmented work roles and fixed working procedures) to more organic structures (wider ↑ participation in decision making, flexible labour processes and the involvement of all grades of employees in continu-
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ous improvement). The essential claim that underpins the theory of work process knowledge is that in the latter kind of working environment, employees need system-level understanding of the ↑ work process in the organisation as a whole in order to fulfil their responsibilities for participating in decision making, working across boundaries and contributing to continuous improvement. The reason is that their extended role requires them to understand how their own immediate tasks interconnect with operations carried out in other parts of the organisation. This claim is based on empirical studies of the ways of knowing that underpin flexible work in modernized workplaces. The results are summarised by Martin Fischer and Nicholas Boreham (→ 3.6.4) in this volume. The focus is on the question what understanding the subjects developed of the topic they learned – a question that is treated in works from learning psychology either implicitly or cursorily or not at all. This understanding achieved in the process of competence development does not only include knowledge which can be immediately used in an instrumental way. It concerns the position of the working person in the lifeworld of the company and includes moral judgements. The development of moral judgement is the topic of Wolfgang Lempert’s chapter (→ 3.6.7) in this volume. 3.6.0.3
Perspectives
As already said in the beginning, competence development in the context of occupational work is a complex process, the study of which requires that – the working systems-related, technical and organisational conditions, – the individual preconditions as a result of occupational socialisation and identity development, – and the process of competence development itself and its components are viewed in a differentiated way. From a methodological point of view it is difficult to isolate single factors as crucial for professional competence, especially because competence in professional work cannot be conceived of as a purely individual achievement. Moreover, in the measurement of professional competence the latter is in most cases not directly registered, but inferred from oral or written manifestations of the test subjects. But to
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write or talk about competence is clearly a different matter from practising it. ↑ Longitudinal studies could yield more information about the constituents of competence development processes. This kind of study might also lead to deeper insights regarding the question as to what relevance specialised knowledge, critique and personal reflection have for professional competence – a question that might easily be neglected in the demand for and the promotion of work-relevant competences.
3.6.1
Learning in Work Processes – Competence Development Peter Dehnbostel
3.6.1.1
Conceptual Clarification and Categorisation
↑ Learning in the workplace is the oldest and most common method of vocational qualification. It is a type of learning that ideally includes cognitive, affective and psycho-motor dimensions alike. The workplace is also a learning venue, and the serious character of work particularly addresses experiences, motivation and social relations. The conditions and orientations of work-based learning are, to a great degree, dependent on historical, cultural and sector-specific circumstances. In the apprenticeship of craftsmen and in the traditional bystander apprenticeship, in which the trainee is associated with one skilled worker, operational or occupation-specific work activities are, above all, learned through imitation. The same is true of trainees in adaptive forms of continuing training or in certain work-based types of semi-skilled training. Learning in the work situation in the company takes place via observing, imitating, collaborating, helping and trying or simulation of the observed activities. The learning outcome largely depends on the supervising professionals in the workplace, on the ↑ work tasks and on the disposition and motivation of the learners. Throughout history, learning at work was exemplified above all by the principle of imitatio, which is centuries old and was particularly relevant in
the age of corporatist vocational training in guilds (cf. STRATMANN 1967; BLANKERTZ 1982b; GONON 2002). A pedagogical and qualification-based view was first taken upon the development of educational systems in the 18th century and then systematically in the course of industrialisation. Since the emergence of new work and organisational concepts in the 1980s, learning at work has experienced a fundamental change, which likewise captures the aims, contents, forms and methods of learning (→ 3.7.5). Learning at work is viewed as a self-directed, process-oriented and ↑ lifelong learning that essentially contributes to personality development and ↑ professionalism, and that promotes innovations and ↑ employability (STREUMER 2001; DEHNBOSTEL 2002b; FISCHER / BOREHAM / NYHAN 2004). There is talk about “learning in the ↑ work process”. The reference to the process emphasises that modern work, holistic and processoriented work is at stake, which requires new qualifications and competence, and which renders a work-related life necessary and possible in a previously unknown way. This learning is characterised by ↑ process-orientation, subject-relatedness, selfdirection, demand-orientation, enhancing experiential learning and the combination of formal and ↑ informal learning. The delimitation and pluralism of learning contents and learning forms in corporate and other work environments increase the importance of learning at work, the issue being no longer just the preservation or widening of skills, knowledge and qualifications, but also the acquisition of a comprehensive professional competence that is necessary for modern work processes. Learning in work processes, from a methodological and conceptual point of view, increasingly turns out to be part of a competence development that strengthens technical, social and personal competence alike and offers new opportunities for work-oriented concepts of initial and continuing training. Learning at work is thus, in principle, embedded into the concept of competence development, which is internationally established, but interpreted quite differently in terms of content and concept, especially with regard to the underlying concept of competence. For instance, in the context of the development of a ↑ European Qualifi-
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cations Framework (EQF) competence is defined by the European Commission (2005a, 12) as the ability, testified by an examination, of an individual to use and combine, in a self-directed way, specific knowledge, skills and professional as well as personal behavioural dispositions in a particular context, i.e. a work or learning situation. The development from qualifications and ↑ key qualifications to competence is delineated in other treatises and definitions (cf. ARNOLD / STEINBACH 1998; STREUMER 2001, 293 ff.; DEHNBOSTEL 2001b, 76 ff.; NYHAN 2002). Generalising various definitions, the concept of competence can be understood as skills, methods, knowledge, attitudes and values whose acquisition, development and application relate to the entire lifespan of a human being. Competence development is viewed from the perspective of the subject, his or her abilities and interests, and as a subject-oriented concept it also includes the dimension of education. The development of competence as a process along the lifecourse takes place in the world of work and in the world of one’s overall life via individual learning and development processes in different types and forms of learning. The narrower concept of professional competence refers especially to skills, methods, knowledge, qualifications and attitudes that form the basis for the professional, social and human work activities of the individual. 3.6.1.2
Research Approaches to Learning in Work Processes
Even though learning at work has a historical dimension, there is no explicit ↑ historical research on this topic. Learning in the traditional apprenticeship of craftsmen and in vocational training in guilds, however, is taken into consideration in the research on learning in “↑ communities of practice”. The concept of communities of practice, which originated from ethnographic studies, (LAVE / WENGER 1991; LAVE 1993b; WENGER / SNYDER 2000) describes ↑ situated learning through activities and everyday behaviour within a community of people engaged in practical activity. This type of learning not only transfers knowledge and skills, but also habits, attitudes and values. In contrast to relevant school-oriented theories of learning and teaching the assumption is that learned and
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acquired knowledge cannot be abstracted from its genesis and from the situations of its environment. This means that the situatedness of learning is fundamental. Situated learning is clearly opposed to instructed learning, although it may well be associated with organised learning and ↑ participation at work, but not with instruction (cf. LAVE / WENGER 1991; STEIN 2001). The current ↑ research approach, which examines the reflexivity of ↑ learning in the workplace, builds on historical concepts and findings. Reflexivity was already a core category of thought in the work of John Dewey: “Reflective thought consists in the active, continuous and careful examination of something that is supposed to be true, and in the light of the reasons that support this view and of the further conclusions it is aiming at” (1951, 6).
In his fundamental approach of integrating “experience and education” reflexivity is developed theoretically and practically through experiential learning. The term “experience” refers to the immediate experience that is always preceded by an action. This experience has to be embedded into reflections, and leads to knowledge if actions are not carried out repetitively, but associated with problems and uncertainty. In changing ↑ work processes and environments this is what happens as a rule. The sequence of action – experience – reflection and its steady continuation in consideration of previous experiential and cognitive processes is conceptualised by Dewey as “evolutive progress” under the condition that the learners learn actively and, if possible, in a self-determined way. Reality is individually revealed through learning and experiential processes on the basis of activity and self-determination. Dewey’s idea of experiential learning through reflexivity is explored more deeply by Schön in his book: The Reflective Practitioner (1983). According to Schön, reflexivity is a dialogue between thought and action that enables the practitioner to cope with the complex problems associated with his tasks. With regard to problem solving through professional action Schön identifies two types of reflection: reflection in the action and reflection on the action. Reflection in the action allows the practitioner to solve, by means of reflection while the activity is carried out, those practical problems
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for which his ↑ tacit knowledge is insufficient. This type of reflection requires an awareness of one’s own knowledge, but it does not necessarily have to be verbally articulated by the practitioner. The result is a situatively-adapted action (SCHÖN 1983, 9). The second type of reflection, reflection on the action, is a step back or withdrawal from the flow of action, with the aim of reflecting upon an action already performed or actions yet to be performed. The reflective consideration takes place by conceptually or figuratively capturing, saving and analysing the activity. To this end, the knowledge around the action is explicitly formulated and thus made accessible for analysis and reorganisation. Grave problems of action that can be attributed to shortcomings or errors in knowledge about action can be fixed by a change in the knowledge in question. Moreover the knowledge becomes communicable and accordingly accessible for discussion and critique. As will be shown in the next section, this research and development approach to reflective learning in the work process is taken up and developed further in the concept of reflective action competence. 3.6.1.3
Major Topics and Development Fields
Research on learning in the ↑ work process is above all concerned with topics and development fields that focus on the dimensions of competence theory and organisation of learning. Given the current changes in learning in the work process it is clear that the relevant processes of learning and competence development still require empirical and scientific scrutiny. Nevertheless the following statements are based on far-reaching research and development activities, which, together with the analysis of new concepts of work and organization, reflect the current state of theoretical and ↑ practical knowledge about learning in modern work processes. It must be observed that the current transformation of learning in the work process can be directly attributed to the extensive reorganisation and restructurization processes in enterprises and organisations, which has been going on since the 1980s, and which are ambivalent in some aspects. On the one hand ↑ globalisation, new technologies and increased productivity are associated with massive
job cutbacks, a higher workload and an increase in more precarious employment. On the other hand measures for dehierarchisation and decentralisation as well as for the creation of holistic and participative forms of work appear to mean an actual improvement in working conditions in terms of more comprehensive tasks, greater variety, higher degrees of freedom and greater options for shaping the work environment. Whilst on the one hand the disintegration of social relationships and the diminishing of the potential for identification in one’s work are observed, new social relationships and broad competence development in modern forms of work and organisation appear, on the other hand, to become possible. In any case enhanced learning in new concepts of work and organisation is a necessary prerequisite for the optimisation of workflows, work results and services and for the realisation of adequate qualifications.
Self-Directed and Work-Process-Oriented Learning The change of learning in modern work processes alters and extends the methodological orientation of learning. In research and development it is predominantly characterised as self-directed and work process oriented (cf. inter alia ATTWELL / JENNES / TOMASSINI 1997; FISCHER / RAUNER 2002b; EULER / LANG / PÄTZOLD 2006). ↑ Self-directed learning can be understood as the independent and autonomous direction of learning processes. Learners determine the objectives and contents of the learning, within certain limits, largely on their own, and the same applies to the methods, instruments and means for the regulation of learning. The scope of action or the structural embeddedness of the learning situation in question within workflows and work processes, however, is already given or defined according to work-economic criteria. As far as the scope and the environment are concerned, self-directed learning is thus not autonomous learning, but is, instead, a targeted selection and determination of learning opportunities and learning paths (cf. WEBER 1996; DIETRICH 1999). This also marks the crucial difference between self-directed and self-organised learning: In the case of self-organised learning the institutional and organisational framework conditions of learn-
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ing are determined by the learners and are not – unlike the case of self-directed learning – imposed from outside. Learning in work processes mostly takes place in agency and work situations without a specific learning intention, which are determined with regard to their objectives and the overarching organisational structures, but which nevertheless allow for independent and self-directed learning within the given scope, especially learning through experience. In this context self-regulation can refer to the individual as well as to a group. Regardless of the learning-theoretical context, processes of self-regulation in reorganised work structures are constitutive for the functioning of participative and networked forms of work. The shaping of newly acquired rooms for manoeuvre and disposition, the carrying out of continuous improvement processes, the application of integrated ↑ quality assurance procedures as well as the fulfilment of target agreements increasingly takes place in a self-directed way. Self-regulation processes of this kind are the consequence of decentralisation and de-hierarchisation in new concepts of work and organisation. They are symptomatic for modern ↑ work processes and at the same time inseparably linked to learning processes in the context of work that are self-regulated in the sense discussed above and that for the most part take place informally. Following the introduction of so-called new methods like the guiding text method, the team method and the project method, organised learning processes outside of work increasingly feature a formal type of ↑ self-directed learning, which enters into a synthesis with ↑ informal learning processes in the learning forms discussed in the next section but one. Work process oriented learning particularly emphasises certain contexts of work such as customer orientation and business ↑ process orientation, which are becoming more and more important. This type of learning generates a ↑ work process knowledge based above all on experiences that are made by skilled workers in dealing with machines, situations and persons and which enable them to cope with complex work and problem situations in their work routine. Work process knowledge as a specific area of competence of skilled workers in-
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cludes, among other things, the following characteristics: – It is “the knowledge that is directly needed in the work process (as opposed to e. g. systematically structured professional knowledge); – It is mostly acquired in the work process itself, e. g. through experiential learning, but does not exclude the application of theoretical knowledge; – It comprises complete work processes in terms of the definition of goals, the planning, the performance and the evaluation of one’s own work in the context of operational processes” (FISCHER / STUBER / UHLIG-SCHOENIAN 2002, 157 f. [translated from the German]; cf. also R AUNER 2002b, 123 ff.; → 3.6.4).
The orientation of learning towards work-process knowledge, and the independent and self-determined regulation of learning processes marks a turning point for traditional qualification, which consists of the transition from technical systematics to action and competence systematics. Qualification turns away from narrow subject-specific learning fields to real, professional fields of action within work and business processes. Initial and continuing training with a subject-specific orientation leads to professional factual knowledge and useful working techniques, but scarcely generates a self-directed, process-oriented and reflective action-competence. The latter can ultimately be achieved only via active ↑ performance in the process of work. The actions have to be embedded into clear options concerning aims and contents in order not to fall prey to arbitrariness and randomness. Professional action-competence and competence development must be regarded as the decisive goals in this respect.
Competence Development and Reflective Action Competence Building upon the conceptual definition of competence outlined in the beginning, and combined with the reflexivity dimension of learning at work, the objectives of professional action competence and reflective action competence are becoming more and more important in modern work processes. What is crucial in this regard is the distinction between the concepts of competence and qualification. The German Council on Education (cf. DEUTSCHER BILDUNGSRAT 1974, 65) links competence as a – provisional – result of competence de-
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velopment to the individual learner and his or her ability to act autonomously and responsibly within private, professional and social situations. Qualification, on the other hand, means competence, knowledge and skills with regard to their exploitability, i.e. qualification is primarily defined from the demand side and not from the subject’s point of view. Building upon these positions the acquisition of a holistic professional action-competence has become widely accepted as a supreme goal in vocational education and in continuing vocational training in companies. More specifically, professional action competence is defined as the unity of technical, social and human competence. In the business context human competence is in most cases understood as human resource competence. Other competence concepts like methodological competence, learning competence and communicative competence are part of the three competence dimensions or cut across them. Competence development is supposed to generate the professional action competence outlined above and, beyond this, an action competence that allows for the fulfilment of ↑ work tasks in the sense of performance in the real work process. What is at stake here is a “reflective” action-competence that extends beyond professional action-competence and that makes it possible to relate the individual, self-directed application of acquired competence to actions and patterns of behaviour in a reflective way, as well as to the corresponding work and social structures. “Reflective” action competence thus addresses the quality and authority of the real ability to act. Reflexivity means the conscious, critical and responsible estimation and evaluation of actions on the basis of experience and knowledge. At work this means, firstly, a detachment from the immediate work events in order to scrutinise process organisations, courses of action and alternatives for action, and to situate them in relation to one’s own experiences and agency knowledge. Lash (1996, 203 f. [translated from the German]) explains how reflexivity is oriented in two directions: “First, there is a structural reflexivity: the agents, who are liberated from the constraints of the social structure, reflect upon the ‘rules’ and ‘resources’ of this very structure, that is, on the social conditions of the existence of
Handbook of TVET Research the agents. Second, there is a self-reflexivity, by means of which the agents reflect upon themselves. In the case of self-reflexivity the former heteronomy of the agents is replaced by autonomy”.
Self-determination and personality development are thus inseparably connected with the ability to self-reflection and the recognition of social processes through one’s own judgement. The potentials and limits of reflexivity are also determined by the real working conditions and the learning opportunities at work. This refers above all to ↑ quality criteria of work that have been worked out in recent analyses in labour studies, work and organisational psychology, and ↑ vocational pedagogy (→ 3.7.5). These factors include the culture of learning and working, the corporate and organisational culture, learning-relevant dimensions of work as well as individual development opportunities or career paths. On the whole, these preconditions and influential factors constitute a complex conditioning framework for the generation of reflective action-competence.
Fig. 1: Conditioning Framework for Reflective Action-Competence
Reflective action competence is a prerequisite for being able to examine, through learning and reflection processes, given situations and traditional views in professional action, to interpret them and to evaluate them with a view to agency. When professional action-competence is extended to actioncompetence, it is, from the very beginning, linked to the reflection of agency. Given the options of modern business and organisation concepts, re-
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flective action competence always also means the enabling of holistic professional work and of the associated innovation and shaping ability in the context of self-directed and work-process-oriented learning. Successful reflective agency in modern ↑ work processes points to the connection of learning and agency on the one hand and structures on the other. The dualism of agency and structures can be found in many social scientific propositions and studies. Especially ↑ structuration theories (cf. ORTMANN / SYDOW/ WINDELER 1997; GOLTZ 1999; WALGENBACH 2001) can help to explain the relationship between action and structure with a view to analysis, theory and application. They are based on the structuration theory by the English sociologist Anthony Giddens. According to this theory the abovementioned dualism of agency and structure need not necessarily be regarded as contradiction or opposition. Instead it is assumed that behaviour, actions and development processes in organisations are neither determined predominantly by the constraints of the organisations nor unilaterally by the will and the self-regulation of its members. Reflective action-competence and reflective agency can be situated within this theoretical framework. As the figure shows, action-competence and the structurally determined working and learning conditions are connected in professional agency. The development of competence in real work activities is working on the structures, which in turn – and this is the recursive process that is typical for ↑ structuration – work on the competence development and contribute to shaping it. From the point of view of structuration theory there is accordingly an interaction between learning activities and structures, or between action competence and working and learning conditions, which needs to be shaped deliberately. Whilst traditional concepts of ↑ vocational pedagogy unilaterally emphasise the subjects under theoretical aspects of learning and education and assign only little functional relevance to structures, adaptive qualification in companies is dominated by structural circumstances to which qualification and competence development are subordinated. In the face of the goal of “development of reflective action competence” in work-process oriented
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learning, both approaches turn out to be one-sided and reductionist, for what is at stake is their integration and the consideration of the interdependence of learning or agency and structures. Therefore the existing dualism of action and structure has to be transformed into a duality that mediates between individual learning processes for competence acquisition on the one hand and corporate working conditions and organisational structures on the other. A duality is achieved when actions and structures positively condition each other in recursive processes and have a supportive effect on each other. Concepts of linking work and learning and new forms of learning in the ↑ work process aim precisely to establish this duality.
New Forms of Learning in the Middle of Work A closer look shows that in modern work processes a distinction must be drawn between forms of learning and forms of work, and between the corresponding types of learning (cf. JONG / THIJSSEN / VERSLOOT 2001; DYBOWSKI / TÖPFER / DEHNBOSTEL / K LING 1999, 201 ff.; DEHNBOSTEL 2002b; MOORAL / SCHOENFELD /GRÜNWALD 2004). Learning forms in work contexts have emerged, to a considerable degree, only along with new work and organisation concepts. They are characterised by the combination of informal and formal learning. Among these learning forms one can name, among others: coaching, learning sites (Lernstatt), ↑ learning islands, ↑ work and learning tasks, and interactive learning. More precisely these learning forms are organisational forms of learning as they predominantly relate to the organisational and structural dimension of learning. A deliberate framework is created in work processes in order to support, demand and promote learning, for the most part within the didactic and methodological aspects Unlike this, learning in modern operational forms of work like teamwork, rotation and project work above all takes place as ↑ informal learning and not as organised, formal learning. Informal learning occurs in nearly all work situations that are associated with problems, and, in a particularly intensive way, in the context of teamwork and team meetings, for instance, or in continuous processes of improvement and optimisation. It is a non-organised form of learning, but is nevertheless registered
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with regard to its effects and indirectly scheduled via the fulfilment of arrangements, regulations and agreements on objectives. In the context of participative forms of work the decision is largely left to the individual or the group how optimisation and problem solving takes place. The crucial point is that the agreed-upon outcomes and results are met. One of the top priorities in work methodology is that work environments be designed in a learningsupportive way in order to facilitate the successful implementation of agreements on objectives and of ↑ participation processes as well as to improve work ↑ efficiency. Learning in modern work processes can thus be reduced, in principle, to two different forms of organisation: forms of learning, which deliberately and systematically integrate informal and formal learning, and forms of work in which learning takes place informally and on the basis of experience. The distinction between these forms is not always clear as the example of teamwork with integrated team meetings shows. This type of work – especially regarding the further development of teamwork concepts – is increasingly supervised by professionally educated learning process supporters like the team coach (cf. RAUEN 2000; RÜCKLE 2000). This means that by means of team coaching formal learning is deliberately introduced into work so that ↑ informal learning is supplemented. The relevance of informal learning is expressed by the fact that according to empirical studies 60– 80 % of the ↑ practical knowledge or the knowledge acquisition of a skilled worker are based on processes of informal learning (cf. DOHMEN 2001, 7; DEHNBOSTEL / MOLZBERGER / OVERWIEN 2005). This is a process of learning through experiences that are made in and through work activities. Informal learning, unlike formal learning, typically leads to a learning outcome without any prior intention to achieve this result. This does not mean that intentionality is altogether absent in the process of informal learning. The case is just that it is targeting at other objectives and ends and not at learning options as such. Informal learning is conceptualised in different ways both in national and international contexts (cf. GARRICK 1998; MARSICK 2001; OVERWIEN 2002, 14 ff.). It is often also referred to as
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“casual” or “incidental learning”, and these terms are used in a non-standardised way as well. There is at least some agreement that informal learning – Results from demands of work and activity and is not institutionalised, – Leads to a learning outcome that is the result of coping with situations, dealing with job tasks and the solution of problems, – Is in general not professionally supervised by pedagogues or learning advisers. Informal learning, unlike formal learning, hardly ever entails problems of transfer and motivation. Moreover, it causes much lower costs than formal learning in organised ↑ learning environments outside the ↑ work process. Informal learning is not associated with a high social selection as is formal learning. Nevertheless the dependence on the relevant processes of work and agency does not suggest that this type of authentic learning is always an advantage. What experiences are made at work, what sensual, cognitive, emotional and social processes take place essentially depends on the job orders and topics, the structural and process organisation, the social relationships and the corporate culture. Informal learning takes place more or less casually; it is usually confined to a one-sided company perspective if it is not embedded, via networked learning structures, into a context of learning and education. Informal learning without pedagogical arrangements, organisation and goal-orientation is in danger of remaining situative, in which case it contradicts the demands of comprehensive competence development. Learning forms in modern work processes that combine informal learning from work and from the learning place in the context of active and partially structured learning by linking it to or integrating it into formal learning do not mean that informal learning becomes formalised or loses its characteristic features as authentic learning. These forms of learning simultaneously aim at the qualification demands of work and the individual competence development. What they have in common is that workplaces and work processes are enriched under aspects of the systematics of learning and the pedagogy of work, and that targeted competence development processes are made possible under technical, social and personal aspects.
Areas of VET Research
Learning forms like ↑ learning islands, learning stations and ↑ work and learning tasks, which were introduced into initial and continuing ↑ in-company training in the 1990s and which are by now widespread, show how this combination of learning and working is successfully put into practice in the midst of the work process (cf. DYBOWSKI / TÖPFER / DEHNBOSTEL /K LING 1999, 238 ff.; DEHNBOSTEL 2001a; DEHNBOSTEL 2002b). These forms of learning – which are also referred to as ↑ decentralised learning forms – were developed and tested at the beginning of the 1990s in the course of the BIBB pilot programme “Decentralist Learning” that involved a number of small, medium-sized and large enterprises (cf. DEHNBOSTEL / MOLZBERGER 2004). The comprehensive programme of decentralist learning was based on the guiding principle of decentralisation and differentiation of vocational education and training, and on the thesis that in modern work processes, which have a sophisticated technology, integrative forms of connecting work and learning had become necessary and possible. One characteristic of the learning forms that combine working and learning is a dual infrastructure. On the one hand it corresponds, as work infrastructure, to the relevant work environment in terms of ↑ work tasks, technology, work organisation and qualification requirements. The learning infrastructure, on the other hand, provides additional spatial, temporal, material and personal resources. Learning is linked to work, but it is not confined to experience-based learning processes at work. Work activities and the associated reflections are interrelated with explicit aims and contents of ↑ in-company training. As the following figure shows, ↑ informal learning and formal learning are systematically linked on the basis of the interplay of work infrastructure and learning infrastructure.
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Fig. 2: Dual Infrastructure of New Forms of Learning
The learning stations that are now established in the German AUDI automobile factories give an example of the functioning of new forms of learning in the middle of work. They were developed in the early 1990s in the context of the above-mentioned pilot programme (cf. EHRKE / FABER / NOVAK 1992) and have, since then, been further developed as schemes of initial and continuing training directly embedded in the ↑ work process. In the beginning they served for vocational training, and they have been successfully used as a method of continuing vocational training since the mid-1990s. They have been proven as path-breaking innovations for in-company training and ↑ organisational development. By means of the integration of work and learning they make a crucial contribution to meeting the competence requirements of advanced work processes and to the systematisation of continuing training in the company. Learning stations are designed in such a way as to accommodate the increasingly holistic qualification requirements of new work and organisation concepts. For instance, the method of teamwork, which was introduced in the automotive industry on a large scale in the 1990s, was tested in certain learning stations prior to its realisation in the relevant work environment. Continuous improvement processes, a ↑ quality assurance system based on current standards and on an increasingly self-directed type of learning were introduced as key elements of work in learning stations. The development and testing of the concept have shown that learning stations in different production areas such as assembly and tool manufac-
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turing significantly contribute to meeting the criteria of a sophisticated ↑ continuing education and to implementing the concept of a learning enterprise. The ability to act and the action competence of workers are improved, and the integration of learning and work takes place on the basis of working on real professional tasks. In the course of teamwork the learners acquire, in particular, personal and social competence, such as autonomy, responsibility and mutual acceptance. The social group processes foster the awareness of one’s own skills, strong and weak points and the handling of these. Even though learning stations and new forms of learning were established in single enterprises, their dissemination and development essentially depend on the question as to whether learning for company needs cannot be organised better and in any case more cheaply by means of new forms of work such as teamwork, project work and job rotation. The reason is that these organisation models are also increasingly characterised by a systematic recourse to targeted learning in the course of operations in order to achieve problem solutions and innovations, to enforce quality and to decide on dispositional options. Nevertheless the dissemination of new forms of learning will surely continue to increase, for experience indicates that they entail some advantages in economic terms and with regard to individual development (cf. SAUTER 1999; HEIDEMANN 2001, 25 f.). 3.6.1.4
Perspectives
As shown above, learning in ↑ work processes not only takes place in an increasingly self-directed and work-process-oriented manner. It must also be regarded as constitutive for competence development and reflective action competence. The combination of learning and work that has to be put into practice points, first of all, to the existing dualism of work activities and competence development on the one hand and work structures or working conditions and conditions of agency on the other. This constitutes an area of tension whose varying degrees of intensity depend on the relevant concepts of work and organisation. In the case of Taylorist working conditions it is almost impossible to overcome this tension and the dualism of agency and structure. The latter, however, can be transformed
into a duality of agency and structure by the interplay of work infrastructure and learning infrastructure as well as the combination of formal and ↑ informal learning. This is indicated by the new forms of learning in modern work processes discussed above. In the context of competence development and reflective action competence in different work situations and processes, this duality – the mutual influence of learning activities at work and the work structures – has to be checked regularly and developed if possible. In the context of the development and design of concepts of combining work and learning, TVET research is called to analyse learning in the work process and to relate it to competence development. The analysis, evaluation, recognition and certification of competence acquired in the work process is a fundamental research and ↑ development task that to date is carried out insufficiently. What is at stake is the recognition and accreditation of competence development with regard to professional career paths as well as the connection to the educational system as a whole and thus to programmes of vocational and general education, including BA and MA programmes. This task is all the more urgent, for a comprehensive professional action competence and a reflective capacity to act are scarcely realised for business or other work-immanent reasons, but at best when learning at work is directly linked to educational programmes and certificates of ↑ continuing education. Learning at work is still shaped – even in the case of holistic ↑ work tasks – by single-company orientation, randomness and arbitrariness. A variety of systems and procedures for competence measurement and evaluation has been designed at the national and international levels. A sufficient and generally accepted systematisation of the competence analysis techniques developed and used in initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training, however, does not exist so far. Helpful categories for this systematisation might be the polar criteria of demand orientation and development orientation. According to these, procedures that focus on the individual and their personal development are distinguished from those that analyse competence from the perspective of demands or requirements. The classification between
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economically-determined work and the associated qualifications on the one hand, and subject-oriented competence development on the other, provides the basis for the evaluation of competence analyses in the context of differing interests. The outcome orientation of the projected ↑ European Qualifications Framework (EQF) responds to the demand perspective and would also, accordingly, direct learning in work processes towards a one-sided instrumental orientation. The EQF and the European Credit ↑ Transfer System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) obviously create structures and conditions that reach far beyond the widely held opinion that only a translation and recognition framework for different educational systems and standards is being provided. Surely the recognition of informally and extra-institutionally acquired competence and the transferability of qualifications in the EQF deserve approval. But the one-sided outcome orientation and the disappearance of holistic training programmes to the benefit of fragmented learning units and modules entails the danger that learning in work processes and the associated competence development cease to be based on the principle of occupations. Therefore it is all the more important to ensure that this principle is used as the basis of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) that is currently under development.
3.6.2
Work Design and Work Organization Karlheinz Sonntag and Ralf Stegmaier
3.6.2.1
Introduction
The researching of work design deals with the content and organization of employees’ day-today physical, mental and interpersonal job tasks (PARKER / TURNER 2002). Researchers in this area examine which task characteristics are affecting employees’ attitudes, personality, competence, health or ↑ performance, and identify relevant mechanisms (e. g. motivation, enhanced skills) and contingencies (e. g. environmental uncertainty) of these effects. Examples of key work de-
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sign characteristics are autonomy regarding content, timing and methods of work, variety, complexity and completeness of tasks, degree of feedback employees receive, and level of cognitive and social demands (PARKER / WALL 2001; SONNTAG / STEGMAIER 2007). Assumptions such as the need for job simplification and employee control, which often underlie contemporary approaches to work design can be traced back to views emerging around the time of the industrial revolution. It was Adam Smith (1776) who regarded the division of labour (i.e. breaking down complex into simpler jobs) as a means to enhance labour productivity and worker performance. Elaborating this idea, Charles Babbage (1835) draw attention to an advantage inherent in job simplification. Companies would need only less skilled labour, which was cheaper and could be more easily replaced. Finally Frederick Taylor’s (1911) concept of Scientific Management postulated the benefits of separating planning and execution of work, breaking down jobs into narrow tasks and removing decision-making responsibilities from the employee. Following Taylor’s ideas, engineers and managers were to enhance labour ↑ efficiency by determining the best way to execute tasks, thereby drawing on findings of detailed time and motion studies. Practices of job simplification gained wide acceptance in the industrial world and started spreading from manufacturing to other domains such as administration or service industries (PARKER / WALL / CORDERY 2001). Despite job simplification’s growing popularity with company managers, studies on the psychological consequences of simplified jobs started to reveal negative effects. Simplified jobs were found to be boring, tiring, dissatisfying, and even damaging to mental health (BERGMANN, B. 2000; ZAPF / SEMMER 2004). To counter these negative effects, measures to ‘redesign’ work such as job rotation, job enlargement, or job enrichment were put forward. These practices were based on the major theories of work design.
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3.6.2.2 Major Theories of Work Design
Job Characteristic Model Hackman and Oldham’s (1976) Job Characteristic Model proposes that positive outcomes like motivation and employees’ performance are influenced by five core job characteristics, namely: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and job feedback. These job characteristics are assumed to lead to positive outcomes via three critical psychological states: experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility, and knowledge of results. Empirical evidence strongly supported the link between work characteristics and affective outcomes such as job satisfaction or job motivation, whereas the results for the proposed link between work characteristics and work behaviour as well as for the role of critical psychological states were less consistent (FRIED / FERRIS 1987; PARKER / WALL / CORDERY 2001; PARKER / TURNER 2002). The Job Characteristic Model is particularly applicable to employees who are high in growth and need strength-appreciating challenges and opportunities for personal development at work (PARKER / TURNER 2002).
Sociotechnical Systems (STS) Approach Whereas the Two Factor Theory or the Job Characteristic Model focus on the individual job, the STS Approach considers the design of groups of jobs. The STS Approach has its roots in the research at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London during the 1950s (e. g. TRIST/ BAMFORTH 1951). A central proposition of STS theory is that the social and technical subsystems in organisations need to be designed in parallel and optimized jointly. This requires focusing on the design of tasks as central linkages of social and technical systems (EMERY/ THORSRUD 1982). Furthermore, STS has developed a set of socio-technical design principles (CHERNS 1976): work methods should only be minimally specified, variances in ↑ work processes need to be addressed at their source, and work roles ought to be multifunctional and demand multiple skills. These ideas finally resulted in the design of autonomous work groups with multi-skilled team members, autonomously managing as many aspects of their daily work as
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possible. These groups should provide opportunities not only for personality enhancement but also for ↑ performance improvements due to multiskilled employees’ enhanced flexibility (PARKER / TURNER 2002).
Psychological Empowerment Psychological Empowerment Theory (CONGER / K ANUNGO 1988; SPREITZER 1995; THOMAS / VELTHOUSE 1990) shifts the focus from the objective features of the job towards the subjective perception of individual empowerment. The state of empowerment is a cognitive and motivational assessment of an individual’s impact, competence, meaning, and choice at work. Empirical evidence showed that the state of psychological empowerment is positively related to affective outcomes like job satisfaction or work motivation (LIDEN / WAYNE / SPARROWE 2000). The states postulated by Empowerment Theory overlap considerably with the critical psychological states from the Job Characteristic Model. ‘Impact’ is similar to ‘knowledge of results’; ‘meaning’ corresponds to ‘experienced meaningfulness’, and ‘choice’ resembles ‘experienced responsibility’. The forth assessment, competence, addresses an employee’s confidence in work-related abilities and is similar to Bandura’s (1982) concept of self-efficacy. The Psychological Empowerment Theory enriched the work design literature by highlighting the idea that not only task characteristics such as complexity or variety, but also interpersonal and organizational factors such as leadership or co-worker relations determine employee motivation and behaviour (LIDEN / WAYNE / SPARROWE 2000; SPREITZER /JANASZ / QUINN 1999).
Action Theory A highly elaborated theory concentrating on cognitive aspects of work design is the ↑ Action Theory originating from German work psychology (HACKER 2005; VOLPERT 1982; see FRESE / ZAPF 1994 for an overview of the relevant German literature in English). A central proposition of this theory is that work behaviour is goal directed and action oriented. Thus work behaviour starts with a
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goal, proceeds to formulating a plan, moves on to execution and finally to processing of feedback. Cognitive processes and knowledge representations play a key role in the regulation of actions (HACKER 2005; VOLPERT 1982). Work behaviour is regulated at different cognitive levels, reaching from automatic processing (sensorimotor level of regulation) to a meta-cognitive level (intellectual or heuristic level of regulation). The operative image system can be considered as action regulation’s ↑ knowledge base representing an employee’s knowledge of the linkages between conditions, actions, and results. An operative image system is comprised of movement-oriented schemata, flexible action patterns, complex schemata, metaplans, as well as heuristics (HACKER 2005). Action Theory also states that competence development, personality enhancement, and health promotion are strongly influenced by working conditions and task characteristics, especially by regulation requirements and obstacles. Several task characteristics such as control, complexity, variety, or completeness of action have been identified as prerequisites for ↑ on-the-job learning and employee ↑ well-being (VOLPERT 1982). The concept of completeness of action plays a pivotal role within Action Theory. It represents both the completeness of the action process itself (all steps from goal setting to feedback processing) as well as the completeness of the hierarchy-of-action regulation (in the sense that all levels of regulation from automatic to meta-cognitive are used). Based on Action Theory job analysis tools have been developed to assess and evaluate job regulation requirements and regulation obstacles (for an overview see FRIELING / SONNTAG 1999). Job analysis results indicate whether the work design fosters personality enhancement or poses a risk to employee health and ↑ well-being. Furthermore, practitioners can derive detailed implications for redesigning work from job analysis data. 3.6.2.3 Work Design Methods
Job Enlargement Job enlargement provides a means to increase job variety by expanding the job with additional tasks. Usually the new tasks are similar to existing ones,
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therefore job enlargement basically modifies the quantitative dimension of work (ULICH 2005). Campion and McClelland (1993) evaluated the impact of two forms of job enlargement, namely task enlargement and knowledge enlargement. Participants of the study were 500 back office employees of a financial services company. The employees had to code information or enter product-related information into a computer system. ‘Task enlargement’ implied that the previously separated jobs of coding or entering data were combined in a ‘data-processor’ job. ‘Knowledge enlargement’ meant that an employee was no longer responsible for coding or entering information only for one product but for several products. Campion and McClelland (1993) demonstrated differing effects for the two forms of enlargement. Whereas ‘task enlargement’ reduced employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and ↑ work process ↑ efficiency, while increasing the number of processing errors, ‘knowledge enlargement’ positively impacted job satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and processing ↑ performance. Sonntag and Freiboth (1997) discussed how the introduction of semi-autonomous work groups in two automotive companies led to job enlargement. Traditionally, manufacturing and maintenance activities were clearly separated, with ‘operators’ being responsible for production and ‘maintenance workers’ handling errors and repairing machines in case of downtime. Operators in semi-autonomous work groups now also had to take care of errors and quality control. Therefore this redesign was regarded as a form of job enlargement for operators. Sonntag and Freiboth (1997) also reported an increase in operators’ cognitive and ↑ social work demands, indicating a need, accordingly, for an update to training and development activities.
Job Enrichment The goal of job enrichment as a method of work design is to increase employee discretion and autonomy as well as the completeness of their work (ULICH 2005). In an enriched work environment employees have the opportunity to participate in planning and evaluating their work as well as handling work related problems and errors. Whereas job enlargement mainly consists of adding more
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but similar tasks, job enrichment adds different, cognitively and socially more demanding tasks. A study by Parker (1998) provided empirical evidence for a positive effect of job enrichment on employee personality and competence. Employees who had a higher level of autonomy and control at work also scored higher on a measure of role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE). Employees high on RBSE act proactively and broadly define their role and responsibilities at work. There was no impact however of job enlargement on RBSE. Job enrichment therefore is a way to encourage employees to act proactively and engage in tasks even if they are not part of their core work description.
Job Rotation Job rotation increases job variety by allowing employees to move from one task to another. As this requires several tasks and more than one employee, it is usually applied to teams or work groups (PARKER / TURNER 2002). Depending on the types of tasks available for rotation, its impact might be comparable to job enlargement or job enrichment. Campion, Cheraskin, and Stevens (1994) examined the effects of job rotation on several careerrelated outcomes of employees in a pharmaceutical company. Job rotation frequency was positively related to promotions, salary increases, and employees’ ↑ skill development. Interestingly, younger employees especially took part in job rotation programmes, as they probably saw this as a relevant prerequisite for their career advancement.
Problem Solving Groups Project teams, autonomous work groups, and quality circles are different forms of group-based work design (a detailed classification can be found in FRIELING / SONNTAG 1999, 435). Group-based work is defined by the following criteria: a common goal, more than two people working together for a period of time, existence of several subtasks, role differentiation in the group, and self-perception as a group (ANTONI / BUNGARD 2004). Quality circles are a form of temporary group work, where employees meet regularly on a nonmandatory basis to discuss work-related problems and to cooperatively develop solutions for increas-
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ing quality at work (ANTONI 1990). These meetings also provide a good opportunity to exchange knowledge and information and foster collaborative learning. A large number of studies investigated the impact of quality circles on a broad range of outcome measures. Taken together these findings strongly supported quality circles’ positive impact on economic indicators (e. g. productivity, absenteeism, quality measures) as well as on social indicators such as motivation, satisfaction, or organizational climate (ANTONI / BUNGARD 2004). Marks, Mirvis, Hacket, and Grady (1986) reported findings of a quasi-experimentation study showing that ↑ participation in quality circles reduced the negative impact of uncertainties related to restructuring processes. Employees not taking part in quality circles during the change processes experienced their work as less meaningful and reported increased production downtime of their machines. By now the concept of quality circles has been integrated into the regular design of work group activities (ANTONI / BUNGARD 2004). Solving problems, improving products and ↑ work processes, exchanging knowledge, and handling social conflicts are seen as part of core activities in a (semi-) autonomous work group. 3.6.2.4
Work Design Efcfects: Empirical Findings
It is important to understand how work design affects different types of outcomes. These include attitudinal measures like satisfaction and motivation, more stable variables like employee personality and competence, and finally work ↑ performance at different levels ranging from the individual to the organization. Empirical evidence meanwhile has been summed up in a number of reviews focusing on the effects of work design on attitudes and personality (BAITSCH 1998; BERGMANN, B. 2000; PARKER / TURNER 2002; SCHALLBERGER 2000), on performance (PARKER / TURNER 2002), and on safety, health, and ↑ well-being (SONNTAG 2001; 2001; SONNTAG / BENZ / EDELMANN /K IPFMÜLLER ZAPF / SEMMER 2004). Some of the key findings will be discussed next.
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Effects on Performance Reviewing the work design literature, Parker and Turner (2002) concluded that much stronger and more consistent effects of work design have been reported for attitudinal outcomes such as job satisfaction or work motivation than for result-oriented measures such as job performance. Focusing, however, on more rigorously conducted studies does provide empirical evidence for work design effects on performance. For example Griffin (1991) demonstrated that increased skill variety and job autonomy were positively related to the job performance of bank tellers 24 and 48 months after redesigning work. In a similar vein Wall, Corbett, Martin, Clegg, and Jackson (1990) reported that providing machine operators with the discretion to correct and prevent machine failures led to reduced overall production downtime. As mechanisms linking increased operator control and reduced downtime, Jackson and Wall (1991) in a follow up study identified quicker response time and improved error prevention. The amount of feedback employees receive at work can also impact their work performance. Leach, Jackson, and Wall (2001) showed that increasing feedback for cutting and packaging operators (e. g. via regular discussions of results with managers and public display of performance information) reduced the number of call-outs to specialists while simultaneously increasing the degree of machine utilization. In summing up these findings, Parker and Turner (2002) defined several mechanisms linking work design and performance. They expect performance to increase, if an enriched work design leads to greater employee motivation, improved knowledge and skills, and an increased opportunity to respond quickly and based on a broader role definition to variances in the ↑ work processes. Positive effects of an enriched work design on ↑ performance should even be more pronounced for employees with high growth need strengths, a tolerance for ambiguity, and a proactive personality working on uncertain and highly interdependent processes. These individual and organizational contingencies are supposed to moderate the effects of work design on performance.
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Effects on Employee Personality and Well-Being Kohn and Schooler (1982) provided empirical evidence for a positive influence of job complexity on employees’ intellectual flexibility. The authors also demonstrated an effect with a reversed causal direction, namely that an employee’s current intellectual flexibility had an impact on job complexity at a later point in time. Therefore the relation between work and personality should best be understood as reciprocal (SCHALLBERGER 2000). Employees actively search for a job that fits their personality and even reshape their current job’s task and social boundaries to make it better fit their needs. Parker and Sprigg (1999) examined the relationship between control at work and employees’ role breadth self-efficacy. Employees with higher levels of control also scored higher on measures of role breadth self-efficacy. This positive effect was even stronger for employees with a proactive personality. Using a longitudinal design Axtell and Parker (2003; PARKER 2003) were able to replicate control’s positive impact on role breadth self-efficacy. Taking a closer look at consequences of lean production practices, Parker (2003) reported that a reduction of work autonomy resulted in a decrease in employee role breadth self-efficacy. Effects of job autonomy were also reported in a study by Morgeson, Delaney-Klinger, and Hemingway (2005). Employees who had more influence on content and organization of work acted more proactively and their actions were based on a broader understanding of their role. Karasek (1979) investigated effects of work design on employee health. Especially those employees working in jobs with high demands and low control (i.e. high strain jobs) reported more frequent health problems such as increased depression or fatigue. This result was further supported by Parker (2003), who reported that a decrease in job autonomy led to increased job depression. Sonntag, Benz, Edelmann and Kipfmüller (2001) examined how personality and job characteristics interact with respect to employee health and ↑ well-being during organizational changes processes. Employees with a high degree of self-efficacy, who have much discretion at work (high control), manage to cope best with changes at work.
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Whereas employees low on self-efficacy and low on job control reported an increase in health related problems following the restructuring processes (for a collection of tools to minimize negative health effects during organizational change processes see SONNTAG / SPELLENBERG 2005). Taken together, the above findings clearly demonstrate that work design characteristics such as skill variety, degree of feedback, complexity, job control or autonomy affect employees, their work behaviour and even organizational results. 3.6.2.5 Future Challenges for Work Design Research Demographic, technological, and organizational trends have a major impact on the design of work and its effects on employees. We will highlight three major trends and discuss a number of questions that these developments pose for work design research. (1) The workforce in organisations is aging: Demographic trends in all major industrialized countries together with a legally prescribed prolongation of working life will lead to an increased number of older workers in organisations (HEDGE / BORMAN / LAMMLEIN 2005). From a research perspective it is interesting to ask whether the existing research findings about the effects of work design based mainly on samples of younger workers also apply to an aging work force. For example, it would be worthwhile finding out whether there is a turning point at which an increase in autonomy or task variety starts to have a negative impact on older workers’ satisfaction, competence, health or ↑ performance (PARK 1994). (2) The convergence of ↑ information and communication technologies enables new forms of work design and organization: Developments in ↑ information and communication technologies give employees ever greater opportunity to share and exchange information and knowledge, or to solve problems collaborating almost unrestrained by the time and location of their work (CASCIO 2003). This increased flexibility and the reduced transaction costs enable new forms of work design and organization such as teleworking, outsourcing, call-centre based work, and virtual or
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open creation networks (FRIEDMAN 2005). It will be a challenge for future work design research to arrive at a balanced view of positive consequences (e. g. increase in autonomy) as well as negative consequences (e. g. high cognitive demands, increased uncertainty, IT-enabled forms of employee control) of these new forms of computer- and network-supported forms of working and collaborating within and across the boundaries of organisations. (3) The social and cognitive complexity of work is increasing: Employees in organisations are faced with an increasing social and cognitive complexity. Flat hierarchies, team work, and project work, leave employees with a growing number of social relationships to handle, decisions to take and problems to solve (PARKER / WALL 2001). From the perspective of the organization, decentralization of decision-making reduces organizational complexity. However, consequences of decentralization on the individual level are doubleedged. On the one hand the individual employee or the team gains more autonomy at work, providing opportunities for stimulating work and personality enhancement. On the other hand there is a significant increase in cognitive and ↑ social work demands, which employees have to flexibly cope with (SENNETT 2000). If employees lack relevant knowledge and skills unexpected negative effects of an ‘enriched’ work environment might occur. Future research should therefore focus on the interaction between work design and training activities with regard to their impact on employees.
3.6.3
Organisational Learning Michael Dick
3.6.3.1
Structure of the Chapter
In the first part, the concept of ↑ organisational learning is introduced regarding its definition, basic elements, reasons and concept history. In the second part, the perspectives of the most important involved disciplines are set forth. The management theory does not only influence the inter-
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national perception of organisational learning, but it also integrates the approaches of different disciplines. Strategic management, with its main focus on internal organisational resources, designates the behaviour within organisations and its analysis, development and effect as a competitively-relevant resource. One central concept that can be connected with the various learning theoretical schools is organisational routines. As dynamic group manifestations, they are treated as ↑ organisational development, whereas informational routines are an issue of ↑ knowledge management in a broader sense. Finally, the prerequisites and effects of the concepts regarding learning, organisation and professional education are outlined, in which some critical points are also presented. Cohen/ Sproull (1996) or Dierkes et al. (2001), for example, provided anthologies containing detailed information about this topic. 3.6.3.2
Introduction
Definition Organisational learning means the development of the capability of an organisation to change appropriately with its environment. This change includes the adaptation to or correction of existing products, structures or processes. However, it goes beyond that and can also mean changes in the central business and internal condition, or even the shifting of the organisational borders by means of splitting, merger or cross-linking. Organisational learning applies only if the learning process runs intentionally and into an anticipated direction. It excludes changes from the outside or those occurring coincidently. In this point, organisational learning differs from concepts of organisational change (AMBURGEY/K ELLY/ BARNETT 1993; HANNAN / FREEMAN 1984; HAVEMAN 1992; LIEVEGOED 1973). The learning concept implies that a subject of learning, which establishes the intention and the direction of the learning process, can be determined. Consequently, ↑ organisational learning is tied to an awareness of learning. Another prerequisite for the opportunity of organisational learning results from the concept of the organisation as a collective unit that distinguishes between an inside, i.e. persons and objects belonging to
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the unit, and an outside, i.e. anything not belonging to it. Each change involves the organisation in relation to its environment (ALDRICH 1979). Only in this relation is it possible to formulate learning aims, evaluate learning results and recognise changes. Therefore another basic element characterising the concept can be determined: organisational learning is seen as a cycle, wherein aims are set according to which actions are planned, performed and finally evaluated. If the results of action differ from the expectations, or if the aims are not achieved, there is a need for correction. As an adaptation or learning process, this correction can affect the behavioural conditions, the behavioural aims or the ↑ learning strategy themselves. Organisational learning is extensively understood as an analogy to the models of human behaviour – without the person being explicitly named as the subject of learning. The scope of the concepts here is wide in a similar way as the behavioural concept in psychology and comprises behaviouristic (CYERT/ MARCH 1963; MARCH / OLSEN 1975), cognitive (collective knowledge basis; DUNCAN / WEISS 1979; HUBER 1996), interactive (ARGYRIS 1985; ARGYRIS /SCHOEN 1974; DAFT/ WEICK 1984; TSOUKAS 1996), system-oriented (PROBST/ BÜCHEL 1994; SENGE 1990/1994; WIMMER 1999) and situated positions (BROWN / DUGUID 1996). In an earlier typology, Maier et al. (2001), Pawlowsky (2001) or Shrivastava (1983) provide an overview along learning theoretical bases. Organisational learning becomes necessary, because the environment of organisations is becoming more complex and dynamic. Environmental magnitudes that are relevant for events in and the results of enterprises (market, technology, society, information) are increasing; they mutually influence each other and change increasingly rapidly. In industry, this development is characterised by smaller and more varied series, shorter product life cycles, increasing demands on service and stronger price and order fluctuations. In this case, technical and organisational measures will enable more flexible production structures and smaller spans of leadership. Structurally similar is the problem situation in public administration. Growing and new challenges confront a critical revenue situation: lack of global control mechanisms, socio-
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demographic changes, social and cultural transfer requirements or the creation of an innovationfriendly regulatory framework. Overall, the pressure of transformation on economically acting organisations is increasing and fundamental.
Concept History The term organisational learning first came about in the 1960s (CANGELOSI / DILL 1965; CYERT/ MARCH 1963; WILENSKY 1967), took its first conceptual shapes in the 1970s (ARGYRIS /SCHOEN 1974; DUNCAN / WEISS 1979; MARCH / OLSEN 1975), experienced its expansion and theoretical differentiation in the 1980s, and was being edited popularly and absorbed to the middle of the 1990s (BERTHOIN A NTAL / DIERKES 2002). A milestone was the publication of Peter Senge’s “Fifth Discipline” in 1990, which became a bestseller and has won and secured, for the time being, the attention of the practice to the concept. More or less at the same time the concept was also increasingly brought into discussion and absorbed in Europe, in the United Kingdom through “The Learning Company” (PEDLER / BURGOYNE / BOYDELL 1991), and in Germany through “Die Lernende Organisation” (SATTELBERGER 1991). Since the late nineties, the core concept has appeared less in article titles, but still exists as a keyword. The concept diversified and was completed with the concept of ↑ knowledge management (DAVENPORT / PRUSAK 1998; → 5.4.7; DICK / WEHNER 2003). Characteristic for the literature on this topic is the self-critical reflection of the research situation. In 1985, Fiol/ Lyles stated, ”the organizational learning literature is full of multiple interpretations of the concept” (805) while, in 1991, Huber lamented the “general lack of cumulative work and the lack of synthesis of work from different research groups” (1996, 125). Another five years later, Weick/ Westley articulated that there were “more reviews of organizational learning than there is a substance to review” (1996, 440). In the meantime it essentially did not change. According to further works of overview of the nineties, Pawlowsky assessed: “… the current growth of literature on organizational learning coincides with a sense of ambiguity, lack of
Handbook of TVET Research consensus and even growing confusion. Attempts at integrative theorizing are the exception” (2001, 64).
In one literature review, 17 key publications were extracted. The works of the group working with James G. March achieved between 57 % and 64 % of the citations in several successive years (Introduction to COHEN / SPROULL 1996, xiv). It says something that the relation between independent, empirically sustained approaches on the one hand, and adapted, combined approaches on the other hand turns out to be too one-sided so far. One proof for this in Germany are the numerous dissertations, which theoretically and historically reconstruct the concept, incorporating and systemising an immense amount of the literature, but which stay descriptive and refrain from going deeper empirically (for economic theory HENNEMANN 1997; management theory K LEINGARN 1997; sociology K RANZ 2000). 3.6.3.3 Perspectives The concept of ↑ organisational learning is as heterogenic as the disciplines and cultures involved: noteworthy are educational science and professional educational science with their detailed educational concepts and a perspective to professional and further training (ARNOLD 1996b; GEISSLER 1994), the ↑ organisational development, systemically oriented and interested in changing processes (→ 3.4.5; → 3.8.3), and work and organisational psychology, which is rather oriented towards industrial work (BAITSCH /JUTZI / DELBROUCK / HASENBEIN 1998; SONNTAG 1996). Also significant is the sociological-organisational theory (GHERARDI / NICOLINI 2001), which is abstractly interested in the constitution and establishment of the organisation itself, business management, which conceives of learning and organisation for a specific purpose, as well as management research, which, even more pragmatically, tries to generalise managers’ course of action.
Strategic Management Economic theory and management research are the areas that constituted the topic of organisational learning first and which still dominate today. From the perspective – assumed herein – of the ex-
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ecutive management, it is about seeking competitive advantages and long-term increases in value by investing in the enterprise’s unique identity and inimitable knowledge assets instead of investing in production facilities that easily become obsolete (QUINN 1992). The share in activities, based on the distinctive core competence, in all activities of the enterprise would be more important as an indicator than the market share. This concept comes from a repeatedly approved criticism of the orientation of classical management theory. This theory affects (1) its one-sided orientation to the outside, (2) the assumption that the strategic orientation of an enterprise could objectively be reasoned by the criteria of maximisation of profits, as well as (3) the associated demand that each strategic decision can be derived linearly and analytically. Summarized, the assumption criticised is that company development would be a change planned by the strategic management. Various theoretical alternative models pave the way to understanding organisational learning and change as it dominates today. Re (1): Strategic management aims at securing long-term competitive advantages. Thereby, it is assumed that there is a general orientation category that distinguishes four different categories from each other according to how management orients itself: strengths and weaknesses as internal characterisations of the organisation as well as opportunities and threats as aspects of the environment (“SWOT-Analysis”). The analysis and control by management points towards the use of strengths and opportunities and towards minimising or avoiding weaknesses and threats. The resource-based view has its main focus, contrary to the presently dominating orientation on the market, on business branches, and branch structures, and on internal resources, especially human resources, as a competitive factor. External and internal conditions are to be analysed in a close mutual relationship, since one produces the criteria for the evaluation of the other. Thus, strategic management takes on a circular perspective. It is about determining the core competence at first, developing it in a well-directed way, and positioning it correctly (PRAHALAD / HAMEL 1990). During this task, the special quality of the capabilities and the
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knowledge assets that form the core competences, inevitably become the focus of attention: “capabilities involve complex patterns of coordination between people and other resources” (GRANT 1991, 122; SPENDER 1996b). The knowledge-based view results from the resource-based view (GRANT 1996; TSOUKAS 1996). Re (2): The concept of bounded rationality of management decisions leads to a similar understanding. The objective ability to reason is an ideal that fails because of incomplete knowledge, the difficulty to evaluate future incidents, as well as the limited choice of decision alternatives (GIGERENZER / SELTEN 2001; SIMON 1996). Consequently, decision makers reduce the complexity of their decision tasks, e. g. through a selective perception or through habitualisation. Decision and management competence is thus, at best, insufficient to be formally portrayed and trained. They are based on subjective experience and socio-cultural tradition. A further development of this approach directly leads to the first mentioning of the term ↑ organisational learning. The well-known “Garbage Can Model” (COHEN / MARCH / OLSEN 1972) assumes that, in the case of confusing decision situations (“organised anarchy”), the acting, the problems, and its solutions coincidently meet each other on suitable or unsuitable occasions. Basically you can say that the opportunity of effective decision making only results from the accumulation of experience, from learning by doing, or from reflecting experiences in decision situations (BAECKER 1998b). Re (3): Accordingly, the imagination of company development as a planned change is also an illusion. Not only the incomplete information, but also differently motivated interest groups, power relations and the lethargy of organisations obstruct a well-directed change (HANFT 1996). Instead, change is, analogous to the biological theory of evolution, described as an evolutionary process (Population Ecology Theory; HANNAN / FREEMAN 1977; 1984). Mechanisms of the variation (e. g. through new foundations), the selection (bankruptcy, branch crises) are, at the same time, effective on the level of entire populations (that means organisationally comprehensive). In contrast, the protection and reproduction of successful strategies is also necessary. These strategies develop as existing
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experience, religious and control systems. So here the competitively-relevant resources also refer to the practice and action, since it is about building up and supporting surviving-relevant competence and routines (MCK ELVEY/ALDRICH 1983; NELSON / WINTER 1982). In summary, the critique of classical management theory results, from different points of view, in the behavioural analogy and the discovery of a repertoire of organisational rules and routines (K IESER / BECK / TAINIO 2001).
LUCKMANN 1967) that emphasises the active construction and common negotiation of meanings. With this, the collective dimension of learning is indicated. In the mutual linking of individually and commonly developed routines, the grammars of action now arise. They abstract from concrete situations and describe a basic structure of orientations of actions, which can be concretised in various situations, similar to the use of language. Thus, routines can be seen as opportunities of action or as patterns that emerge as practised handling of all relevant aspects of a task or a situation:
Organisational Routines
“an organized routine is … a set of patterns – enabled and constrained by a variety of organizational, social, physical, and cognitive structures” (P ENTLAND / RUETER 1994, 491).
The concept of organisational routines is defined as a pattern of defined ways of behaviour between people or between people and other resources. Characterisations of routines are, amongst others, their procedural or sequential quality, their reliability, their non-verbal representation and the fact that they are borne in organisations by several actors (COHEN / BACDAYAN 1996). Pentland/ Rueter (1994) distinguish routines as automatic responses, routines as an expression of effortful accomplishments and routines as the grammar of action, and which thus trace the way of an increasing differentiation and change of the concept. At the time, routines were understood to be automated ways of behaviour through which opportunities of search and selection were reduced. Learning the routines occurs through the behavioural consequences. This corresponds to the early understanding of organisational learning, the acquisition of “standard operating procedures” (CYERT/ MARCH 1963) or the development of “individual skills” as capabilities of a behaviour that is coordinated in a smooth sequence and which has proved to be efficient in a specific context (NELSON / WINTER 1982). Since routines are executed partly without conscious attention, they constitute a link to the concepts of implicated knowledge or ↑ tacit knowledge (see below). The second connotation emphasises, in reference to Giddens (1984), that routines also represent active behaviour and contain opportunities to choose. Thus, they can change or rebuild structures. ↑ Decoding and adaptation ↑ performances are necessary in order to constantly adapt routines to varying situations. This assumption corresponds with the social-constructivist paradigm (BERGER /
This understanding approaches the model of the ↑ community of practice, which is based on ↑ activity theory (WENGER 1998b) or the model of activity systems (ENGESTRÖM 1999b) as historically developed coordination structures (→ 5.1.2).
Organisational Development Chris Argyris and Donald Schön produce their concept of ↑ organisational learning by observing a special kind of organisational routine. Defensive routines are: “actions and policies, enacted within an organizational setting, that are intended to protect individuals from experiencing embarrassment or threat, while at the same time preventing individuals, or the organization as a whole, from identifying the causes of the embarrassment or threat” (ARGYRIS / SCHÖN 1996, 99 f.; cf. ARGYRIS 1993).
Such defence mechanisms consist of ambiguous messages whose nature is disguised in such a way that they are clearly portrayed. At the same time, the ambiguity remains non-discussible and the inability to discuss the things that cannot be discussed is defended against any discussion as well – the result is a regressive multi-level cover-up (cf. ARGYRIS 2004). One example for this is when the cooperation between people or divisions of a company cannot take place, although – or even because – all parties involved continuously emphasise its great significance. The affirmative statement, “we need to cooperate” can mean the end of each practical effort (detailed examples loc. cit.).
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Since the ambiguous messages and the defence reactions that cause them are not discussible, they easily become independent and produce loops that work well together. The actual message (the underlying fears) becomes so cleverly disguised, that something else, which is often the opposite of the actual intention, is understood. Consequently, the message does not reach those desired, fears are confirmed, and there is even more reason to disguise them. Peterson et al. (1995) described the motivational consequences in the concept of learned helplessness. Systemic therapists called the mutually causing emergence of these consequences in family systems as double-bind (BATESON /JACKSON / HALEY/ WEAKLAND 1956). In organisations, such communication patterns are not only found as conflicts between two people, but they also form complex loops throughout the entire organisation. Such mechanisms are neither natural nor deliberately enforced from the outside, but are acquired by mutual actions related to each other. In that respect, one can speak of ↑ organisational learning. By way of communicating, a hidden organisational reality is created. Organisational actions always relate to this hidden level. Rational reasons, legitimized aims and tasks are thus only part of the motives causing the actions. Argyris/ Schön (1996) call these reasons espoused theories. These are theories that the actors preoccupy for themselves, and which mostly represent a professional ideal or an internalised norm. Theories in use, however, explain the behaviour as it can be observed from the outside. In distinguishing between both these levels of action-leading theory, you can find another source of organisational learning. Used and favoured theories deal with the reality in organisations or the reality concerning them outside the organisations. Even if there are always acting persons – they act in relation to the organisation – this is exactly what the theories represent. Theories, values and rules are being constructed, applied and handed on together. This is how they stay valid independently from any individual (mental models at SENGE 1990/1994). Respectively plausible is the observation that the defensive routines stay, although the acting persons change. Most authors, following Argyris/ Schön 1978), agree on calling the efforts of changing these action-leading
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theories double loop or type 2 learning. It stands out from the single loop or type 1 learning, which only consists of an adaptation of the action to external conditions. Double loop learning includes the underlying theories. Through this, new orientation criteria for acting can be developed; common frames of reference change. This learning mode enables the interruption of negative action amplifiers and control loops, and the practicing of new routines. Peter Senge considers learning processes in organisations generally to be an adjustment of individual and common orientations on the three levels: the vision, the practical job-sharing, and the theoretical models. He describes the learning process with the help of five disciplines; personal mastery (1) concerns the work on personal visions, aims and capabilities and describes an individual development process from an integral perspective. However, this discipline does not occur in isolation, but, instead, personal visions are being combined with the visions of other organisation members and, consequently, are coordinated into common visions (2). This process is part of the organisational daily routine. It forms a steady field of tension, and in comparing the aims and available resources, shows which capabilities and methods need to be developed. In the discipline of team learning (3), the acting parties agree to develop common and complementary competence, and organise themselves based on job-sharing. The problem solutions that are successful in practice are generalised again. By doing so, assumptions or theories are developed that enable us to understand the reality of the organisations and their environment, and that determine our perception. In order to ensure a productive balance between the stability of these assumptions and their changes in the process of learning, they need to be reflected upon, i.e. they deserve the collective work on mental models (4). In the fifth discipline, the system thinking, these modes of learning are finally integrated into a thinking that is directed towards correlations instead of being directed towards single ideas in an isolated way. This way of thinking also focuses on constantly monitoring processes for a considerable amount of time, since interventions in complex systems seem staggered in time and place. Mem-
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bers of a learning organisation should think in networked contexts and learn to evaluate the consequences of their own behaviour for the entire company.
Knowledge Management The close and optimised coordination between persons and structures, which we know as organisational routines, are also subject to knowledge management. This coordination raises the question of what is being coordinated according to the contents used and learned. Strictly speaking, the routine is not the competitively relevant resource but the knowledge within it, taking the effect as the guideline for action. Knowledge management concerns dealing with knowledge in all of its manifestations within organisations (→ 5.4.7; Wehner/ Dick 2001). Generally, it is described as a task to transform knowledge into and between systems of activity (teams, departments, project groups etc.). Thereby, we distinguish between three circular and constantly proceeding transformation processes (DICK / WEHNER 2002): – The transformation between knowledge and information or data generating context-independent information and/or data from the knowledge gained through concrete task situations and thus making those available as a basis for further situations of action; – The transformation between tacit and explicit forms of representation of knowledge serving amongst others ↑ knowledge creation as well as – The transformation between individual and collective structures securing continuity and tradition on the one hand and making possible the subjective acquisition of culturally-borne rules, tools and processes on the other. These transformations can be understood as learning and acquisition processes on different levels of activity – operation, action, system, culture. Instead of running autonomously, they intertwine. This shows that it is not easy to measure, to formalise or to standardise knowledge. ↑ Local knowledge is embedded in physical and sociocultural structures of systems of activity (e. g. organisations or production systems) and acquired through participating in them. It is locally limited and hence not necessarily applicable to supe-
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rior coordination or other contexts (SCRIBNER / DI BELLO /K INDRED / ZAZANIS 1991; WAIBEL / DICK / WEHNER 2004). Especially because of its silent, local and context-related characteristics, knowledge is valuable for organisations (BLACKLER 1995; SPENDER 1996a). For every ↑ knowledge management this raises the question of the limits within which knowledge can or should be transformed and passed on. Limits of knowledge mark organisational culture. Against this background, knowledge management becomes more important to the development of organisations. Pawlowsky (1998) made an attempt to integrate different concepts of knowledge management. He takes into consideration levels of learning (individual, group, organisation, networks), modes of learning (cognitive, dependent on behaviour and culture), types of learning (the three loops: single, double and deutero) and phases of learning (identification, generation, diffusion, integration, use). This integrative approach is a framework for the learning capability of organisations similar to the one of Schüppel (1996) who, additionally, thoroughly examines individual, structural and cultural knowledge and learning barriers. It is becoming clear that analogous to the explained learning phases one must also make a distinction between two levels of ↑ knowledge creation: a short-term action cycle between planning, implementing and evaluating concrete action ↑ performances and a long-term cultivation cycle that comprises its creation, diffusion and – mentioned less frequently – its clearance utilizing a kind of “life curve of knowledge”. Scientific sociological approaches might contribute to its understanding and they have until now been less considered in this discourse (KUHN 1962; MANNHEIM 1982; SCHÜTZ / LUCKMANN 1974). 3.6.3.4
Influences and Effects
Organisation Concept Analogous to the described changes of the management perspective, the emphasis in organisational theory shifted from organisational structure to organisational change (MORGAN 1986). In this connection, the systems theory of organisation is influential (BAECKER 1998a; LUHMANN 2000). Here, organisations are understood as self-observing and
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self-reproducing systems in relation to the environment. This means a constant process of balancing imbalance and target balance. The ↑ structuration theory, coined by Giddens (1984), also points out the organisations’ reflexivity, recursivity and development capability (ORTMANN / SYDOW/ TÜRK 2000). In addition to sociological approaches, psychological ones that describe behaviour and development processes at an organisational level are tackled increasingly (KATZ /K AHN 1966; WEICK 1969; WIMMER 1999). These dynamics of the organisational theory are a precondition of the concept of ↑ organisational learning and are boosted by the like. They lead, inevitably, to the question of how organisations reflect on organisations as, in principle, a subject of learning is able to be aware of. It is to be expected to that extent that the expansion of the concept will contribute to distributed organisations or company-independent ↑ communities of practice (ORLIKOWSKI 2002; LEE / COLE 2003).
Learning Concept Weick/ Westley (1996) question why organisational theorists turn to the concept of learning at just the same moment when psychology is departing from it but – in contrast to the concept of change and adaption – find it useful. It appears that, while examining the learning concept throughout time, that relevant authors viewed it from its behavioural to cognitive, social, constructivist up to the situated perspective and, in doing so, have not used orthodox or excluding concepts (e. g. the groups working with March or Hedberg). From the very beginning it has been characteristic that learning is seen as a circular process in close interaction between an organism/system and its environment. In spite of different terms there is a conformity with the distinction of a smaller cycle of adaptive learning and a larger cycle of innovative learning. Another characteristic is the great importance of learning capability (deutero learning), for instance as willingness to learn, assuming a perspective, putting ↑ distance, learning style, dialogue or feedback. ↑ Organisational learning is the most striking example of stretching the learning concept, starting from the behaviour to the cognition and the holistic subject up to the activity system, i.e. the collectively composed system. Its temporal stretching is
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insinuated in the concept of ↑ lifelong learning and its medial and methodic liberation in ↑ e-learning and blended learning (→ 3.7.9). After all, the spatial stretching takes place in the clearly apparent trend towards a merger of the spheres work, learning and innovating all of which were separated before (BAITSCH 1998; BROWN / DUGUID 1996; FISCHER / RAUNER 2002b; WENGER 1998b; → 2.4).
Professional Education Professional education deals with how professional agents should be educated appropriately. Therefore, qualification and competence are examined in more detail, as they are concepts linked with the preceding ones (→ 3.4.2; BREMER 2005b). Decentralised forms of organisation, ↑ participation and group work broaden the basis for learning and ↑ innovation processes within organisations (DEHNBOSTEL 2002a; DYBOWSKI 2002b). Accordingly, professional education does not only impart expert knowledge, that anticipates the requirements for professional action, but also prepares to deal with a constant change. The skilled worker who aims at more autonomy is to be integrated into the holistic concept of personal development, skills and transversal/↑ key qualifications. The establishment of professional education within professional practice and the overlap with work psychology, which is more empirical, have led to methodical concepts that can be redefined as organisational learning (cf. FISCHER / BOREHAM / RÖBEN 2004). For example, ↑ decentralised learning locations interlink experience and curriculum-based learning in a work infrastructure as well as in a learning infrastructure (→ 3.7.4; DEHNBOSTEL / HOLZ / NOVAK 1992). Objectives related to work such as operating ↑ efficiency and quality and also individual learning objectives are pursued. Thus, one hopes that experience based and curricular knowledge can be considered equally, and can hopefully be integrated into professional behavioural knowledge. Quality and problemsolving circles which tackle the participants’ concrete problems and experiences claim something similar (DERBOVEN / DICK / WEHNER 1999; → 5.4.2).
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Comment Often questions concerning organisational learning are dealt with broadly and basically. Critics from a practical perspective say it is philosophically excessive and lacks details and concrete suggestions for implementation (GARVIN 1993). Indeed, this emphasises that there is a demand in practice. However, it also indicates that so far the practice of learning in organisations has not been observed and reflected on sufficiently. Complex, theoretically derived concepts that do not include empirical operationalisations or suggestions are dominant. On the other hand, empirical experiences and models exclusively tailored to these experiences (cf. Argyris; Senge) are not sufficiently evaluated within other model concepts. Lastly, it is difficult to establish a relationship between learning and collectives when the empirical implementation is limited to the experimental paradigm and therefore only represents the individual under controlled conditions. Context-related and explorative studies which consider the socio-cultural and micro-political dimension and lead the programme of organisational learning to concrete questions would be necessary.
3.6.4
Work Process Knowledge Martin Fischer and Nick Boreham
3.6.4.1
Introduction
The term “↑ work process knowledge” refers to a dimension of occupational competence which is often neglected in debates about vocational education and training but whose importance has been increasingly recognized in recent years. In brief, work process knowledge is an understanding of the work processes in an organization as a whole, as opposed to the more restricted ↑ knowledge base which underpins an individual task or narrowly defined job within one department of that organization. At least three factors have contributed to the recognition that this knowledge is important in contemporary organisations. First, in many (although not all) sectors of the economy, global
competition has been met by developing more organic ways of organising work. The early and middle parts of the 20th century witnessed the ascendancy of an organizational type based on bureaucracy, an entrenched hierarchy, command-and-control management and strong boundaries between functions. Decision-making was concentrated at the top of the hierarchy and the remainder of the employees followed fixed procedures imposed by management. In response to global competition, however, there has been a growth of industrial organisations with flatter management hierarchies, integration of functions, multi-skilling and the delegation of more autonomy to (partially) self-managing teams. This evolution has had major implications for the knowledge required by employees. In the new kind of organization, the workers are expected to work across boundaries and contribute to continuous improvement in order to maintain a customer focus, achieve quicker times to market and increase productivity. In order to be able to do this, they need to understand the ↑ work process in the organization as a whole to a greater extent than the employees of traditional bureaucratic organisations who only need knowledge to underpin their own narrow jobs. Secondly, whereas vocational education and training were previously oriented towards specialist qualifications defined by the providers of the training, there has been strong pressure to orient them towards the actual requirements of work. When this work is carried out in the types of organic organization just described, there has been a move to base ↑ curriculum design on models of the total work process (including the business process, production process and labour process, as described below) rather than on the academic disciplines and concepts that underpin technical operations such as machining or maintenance. Whilst knowledge of the latter kind is not excluded from a ↑ work process knowledge curriculum, it tends to lose the foundational status it held in ↑ vocational curricula of the traditional kind. Thirdly, it is now recognized that the knowledge base that underpins the work of intermediatelevel employees such as maintenance technicians extends beyond ↑ engineering science and includes the knowledge which they construct in the ↑context of their work – knowledge built from their own
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experiences within a ↑ community of practice. Research into these occupations identifies work process knowledge as an important constituent of this knowledge base. As described below, disciplinary and academic knowledge are not absent from this knowledge base, but they lose their foundational status and are put to use in a different way than traditional vocational curricula generally assume. The modern concept of work process knowledge has been developed by researchers in vocational education and training. The term itself is a translation of the German Arbeitswissen which was originally proposed by Wilfried Kruse (1986). Kruse’s original definition of the term was extended by the European research network “Work Process Knowledge in Technological and Organizational Development”, a project which included research institutes from ten European countries (see BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002) and derived their extended concept of work process knowledge from a range of empirical research projects in 22 industrial sectors. According to this project, work process knowledge has three main defining characteristics: – in terms of content, it constitutes an understanding of the complete work process in the organization concerned. It can be contrasted with the knowledge provided for the typical employee of a Taylorist organization, which is generally narrow and restricted to the minimum needed to perform his or her narrow job. In contrast, “Work process knowledge means an understanding of the entire work process in which the respective person is involved, in terms of its product-related, technical, work organization, social and system-related dimensions” (K RUSE 1986). The knowledge of work processes in other
parts of the organization need not be specialized but must be sufficient to enable employees to carry out their own work with the wider picture in mind. Given the contemporary requirement to work flexibly across boundaries and engage in continuous improvement, the whole organization and even its suppliers and customers come into the picture. – It is used directly in the ↑ work process, in the sense that apprehension of this knowledge is an instrumental part of work activity. “↑ Work process knowledge is a form of knowledge serving as a guide for practical work” (RAUNER 2002a, 25). Such knowledge is contrasted with knowledge that
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is systematically structured within academic disciplines, the significance of which derives from the logical relationships within the ↑ body of knowledge and not from its pragmatic implications. Work process knowledge is also contrasted with ‘↑ inert knowledge’: “Any knowledge can be judged active or inert in relation to a given practice. It is active if possessing it enhances ↑ performance in that activity – for example, knowledge of a music score is active knowledge for the musician performing it, because it enables him or her to produce the right notes. However, knowledge of the value of the shares of a company in which the musician has no interest is inert knowledge in relation to his or her musical performance, as it does not have an impact on the way the music is played. But the situation is reversed for a stockbroker trading in the shares in question and having no interest in music – knowledge of the musical score is inert in relation to his or her day’s work buying and selling shares, while knowledge of the share price is active in relation to that activity” (BOREHAM 2004b, 213).
– in most cases, it is constructed in the workplace itself by synthesizing experiential and codified knowledge. ↑ Experiential knowledge is acquired by direct experience of work. Codified knowledge is obtained from formal instruction, reference texts, written operating procedures and other symbolic sources. Empirical ↑ studies of work process knowledge in a variety of contexts suggests that it is constructed when an employee encounters a problem and reflects on the contradictions between the guidance provided by codified knowledge (e. g. a procedures manual) and what his or her experiential knowledge (e. g. previous encounters with similar situations) implies. In these situations, employees have been observed to construct an entirely new interpretation of the situation by resolving the contradictions between the two. An illustration of this can be found in the study of a computer-based telephone debt collection agency (LAMMONT / BOREHAM 2002, 94–105). In this study, new technology (an automatic direct dialler and a database containing records of the agency’s dealings with debtors) served as a collective memory for the workforce, and along with knowledge of relevant legislation, provided the codified knowledge resources with which they solved problems in the course of their work. However, the debt collectors did not solve problems by applying the knowledge in the database. They inter-
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acted with the debtors by telephone while consulting the database, and by synthesizing the experiential knowledge gained from these interactions with the codified knowledge available in the database, they constructed new knowledge of how to achieve their immediate purpose – to persuade the debtor to pay the money owed. These transactions were recorded on the database and thus became codified knowledge. New cases generated more experiential knowledge and new problems were solved in the same way. The new technology enabled the telephone debt collectors to co-operate with other departments within the agency and in other parts of the country, and thus the work process knowledge they were building encompassed the agency’s work process as a whole. This case illustrates how new technology made the work process transparent and enabled knowledge of that process to be shared by a wide range of employees, facilitating flexibility and cross-departmental collaboration. Two further aspects of work process knowledge can be emphasized. – this type of knowledge does not consist of Platonic ideas which exist independently of human activity. To the contrary, it is embodied in human activity as complexes of codified and tacit capacities for interaction between humans and between humans and objects, manifested as customary practices and artefacts. Such knowledge can be regarded as an integral part of activity. For this reason, in a reappraisal of the idea of work process knowledge Kruse (2002, 100 ff.) mentions two major attributes which in his view characterize work process knowledge: It is often manifested in a worker’s feeling of confidence about his or her goals and the means to attain them, and it is an integral part of the skills required by workers in new production and service concepts. – work process knowledge is not simply experiential know-how that is accumulated by carrying out work over a number of years without reflection or theoretical understanding. To possess ↑ work process knowledge is to exercise human capacity for critical reflexivity to the full – even Karl Marx noted in his observations on the ↑ work process that the worst human architect stands out from the best bee in that he builds a construction in his mind before he builds it materially: “The result that comes out
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at the end of the work process is the same as that already imagined by the worker at the beginning, i.e. that already existed as an idea” (MARX 1972, 193). Work process knowledge is not the kind of direct work experience that reproduces the limitations of the industrial method of production and thus limits thinking. Rather, work process knowledge transcends the conditions by constructing “a view from the outside” (K RUSE 2002, 102). In the acquisition of work process knowledge, given that working conditions and workflows are historically reconstructed, alternatives become conceivable and opportunities for employee involvement are developed. Kruse comes to the conclusion that this self-directedness is extensively ignored in the diverse contexts in which the idea of work process knowledge has been taken up so far. Instead, work process knowledge tends to be seen as knowledge that helps workers to come to terms with existing working conditions. This misunderstanding is also evident in the representation of work process knowledge as ‘process competence’: “Process competence means an understanding for how processes take place and what they can be influenced by, as well as a ‘feeling’ for where concrete information and decisions are necessary, and where deliberately affording room for manoeuvre has a favourable effect” (HENNING / ISENHARDT / ZWEIG 1999, 22 ff.).
Following the project carried out by the Work Process Knowledge network (BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002), the term was taken up in international research contexts and also by the extensive programme of German ↑ pilot projects designed to improve the ↑ dual system of apprenticeship. “Orientation to the work process” was a key programme goal both in the BLK (Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung –Federal and State Commission for ↑ Educational Planning and Research Promotion) pilot programme “New learning concepts in dual vocational training” (see DEITMER / FISCHER / GERDS ET AL. 2004) and in individual pilot projects such as “Work and Business Process Oriented Vocational Training (GAB)” (see BREMER /JAGLA 2000). Thus to summarize, three distinct meanings are associated with the term work process knowledge: – The designation of the knowledge that (qualified) workers need to acquire in order to meet modern work requirements.
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– The designation of the knowledge that (qualified) workers have actually acquired from the work process in which they are involved and which is integrated with codified knowledge acquired through off-the-job study and other means. – The designation of the knowledge that from an educational perspective enables the subjects to coshape work and technologies according to their professional orientation. In the following an attempt will be made to unite these three different meanings. 3.6.4.2
Conceptual Considerations
Up to the mid-1980s, academic investigations of the changing structure of skilled work – particularly in computer-based production – focused primarily on the assumption that it was becoming increasingly abstract. Publications on research and practice in the field of training took the aim of training to be theory-based, systematically planned work activities (KORNDÖRFER 1985). Accordingly, in the development of training concepts, special importance was attached to the development of goal-directed cognition as the support for practical action (see, for example, BACHL 1986). This approach was based on ↑ theories of action regulation (HACKER 1986a; VOLPERT/ OESTERREICH / GABLENZ-KOLAKOVIC ET AL. 1983; VOLPERT 1992) and the Soviet culturalhistorical school of psychology (LEONTJEW 1979; GALPERIN 1967). In this intellectual climate, the traditional emphasis on experience-based learning and the transmission of the customary practices of crafts and trades was inexorably undermined. In comparison to the view that computer-based technology necessarily involves abstract, logical and systematic activity, industrial sociology abandoned technological determinism (see K ERN / SCHUMANN 1984; MALSCH / SELTZ 1987). The definition of work was not based on the technology it utilized but on the way production was organized and the degree of work rationalization (SCHUMANN 2000). Now more than ever the question was posed as to what competences skilled workers acquire under different production concepts, such as flexible specialization and Fordism, and in particular how they acquire them. In response to this question, the significance of “experience” has been the subject of discussion
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for many years. In this context this initially meant “↑ empirical knowledge” as a sociological category relating to experience of the production process (see, for example, MALSCH 1984; 1987). However, this term is unclear in one respect. After all, engineers and operations planners also have experience. It is the content of the experience that is the decisive difference, not the assumption that some employees have experience and others do not. In contrast to the possession of experience, emphasis is placed on the process of gaining experience in the concept of experience-guided work (see BÖHLE / MILKAU 1988; BÖHLE / ROSE 1992). Like Donald A. Schön (1983), whose concept of the “reflective practitioner” has gained some influence in Anglo-Saxon countries, Fritz Böhle et al. emphasize that the competence of professional practitioners exists above all in coping with unforeseen events and unique cases. At the same time, it is in particular the feel for one’s work resulting from practical experience that brings about self-assurance in one’s actions, thus providing the subject with orientation. However, this process – and thus the acquisition of competences relevant to the work to be carried out – is hindered by the lack of transparency in ↑ work processes and inability to perceive technical phenomena and processes directly. The concept of experience-guided work has had a significant influence in the field of work and technology research, where the term “computer-based experience-guided work” has been used to denote the working conditions that promote experiential learning by skilled workers through the appropriate ↑ shaping of work and technology (see MARTIN 1995b; FLEIG / SCHNEIDER 1995; SCHULZE 2001). It also stimulated a similar debate about vocational education (see, for example, DEHNBOSTEL / PETERS 1991; DEHNBOSTEL / HOLZ / NOVAK 1992). In vocational education research and development, the drive to promote experience-oriented learning was manifested in a range of ↑ pilot projects (DEHNBOSTEL / HOLZ / NOVAK 1996). This explicitly underlines the significance of experience for competent work-related action. However, from the perspective of vocational education research the dividing lines between knowledge on the one hand and experience or action on the oth-
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er are of less interest than their possible context or the context to be fostered. Experience already comprises elements of language and is linked to reflection about the world. Accordingly, extensive exclusion of objectifying (generalising) thinking from the field of experience proves to be inappropriate (FISCHER 1996). The concept of ↑ work process knowledge is important in vocational ↑ training research because it helps to avoid the misunderstanding that the skilled worker’s knowledge is based on unelaborated experience. It also shows that the conceptual opposition of experience and knowledge is false and misleading (FISCHER 2000). Whilst other terms are in use which also try to avoid setting up a binary opposition between experience and knowledge, such as “experience-guided action” and “↑ informal learning”, these terms focus on the “how” of competence development, whereas the term work process knowledge involves the “what” –the content of this knowledge – which enhances its value as a conceptual tool for ↑ curriculum design. Work process knowledge refers to knowledge of the components of the work process in an organization and their interaction. Aristotle (1982) examined these elements back in the third century BC. He postulated four aspects that interact in a work process: – Causa finalis: the goal of the work (in the sense of the anticipated outcome of the work), to which all other aspects are subordinate. – Causa materialis: the work object, the material. – Causa formalis: the form in which the work object is to be put. – Causa efficiens: the working method including the tools used. Knowledge of these four elements of the work process is still of great importance, even in modern work. High-quality work involves a causa finalis, i.e. the target criteria that are linked to the outcome, and resolution of problems such as mutually inconsistent objectives. Nowadays, the causa formalis can be represented by a technical drawing or operating procedure, the understanding of which is imperative for ↑ performance of the work. The causa materialis encompasses, in the broadest sense, the objects that are needed for the ↑ work process and which undergo change during the work proc-
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ess. Finally, the causa efficiens is what gets things moving in the work process. The focus here is on knowledge of the working method applied, which is imparted today in a variety of ways in terms of technical, energy-related, chemical and information-related aspects. ↑ Work process knowledge involves knowledge about these aspects of a work process identified by Aristotle a long time ago (see FISCHER / RÖBEN 2002b). Of course, the Aristotelian model has to be extended to include present-day work reality such as the integration of work into the modern free market economy as well as the division of labour or cooperation that is provided for within the framework of gainful employment. An important theoretical development is to incorporate the concept of work process knowledge within ↑ activity theory. Drawing on the Soviet school of historical-cultural activity theory and Bateson’s (1973) concept of deutero-learning, Yrjö Engeström (1987; 1999a) developed the concept of an activity system as the focal point of the theory of expansive learning in work (see e. g. LEONTJEW 1979; WYGOTSKI 1985). The basic idea is that learning takes place in a changing mosaic of interconnected activity systems. An activity system comprises the subject and the object of the action (work outcome), the technical artefacts that mediate the subject and object as well as the community to which the subject belongs, including the rules and division of labour found there (see Fig. 1). Within this framework, work process knowledge means knowledge of all the elements of an activity system as well as their interaction. It includes knowledge of the concrete work-related action carried out by the subject as well as knowledge of the object-specific, tectnical, organizational and socially determining factors to which the concrete work-related action is subject. Fig. 1 clearly shows that the top part of the triangle in the graph (the subject-object relationship conveyed via technology) represents the Aristotelian model of work while the lower section of the diagram represents the integration of the work process into social contexts. The inclusion of interrelationships that go beyond the subject-object relationship is necessary because work cannot be understood in the restricted terms of technical actions but must be contextualized by the norms of
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what the ↑ community of practice accepts as economically valuable, taking into account the financial and competitive conditions encountered in the free market economy. Knowledge of the elements of an activity system is not static knowledge. It is tied to the events that occur at the level of the reference points of the system (subject, technology, object, etc.) and to the process that takes place between these reference points. Work process knowledge comprises and is updated by what happens in an activity system and what actions follow these events. However, two misunderstandings must be avoided here. Firstly, it is not knowledge per se that constitutes occupational expertise, but the coupling of intentions and knowledge of conditions and measures relevant for action (HACKER 1996, 10). Secondly, a dialectical relationship between knowledge and action must be assumed, not a onesidedly deterministic relationship. Therefore, the role of work process knowledge in shaping work must not be regarded as cognitive shadow action, whose conscious and complete activation always has to precede a practical action. Research on the nature of the knowledge that shapes work activity shows that the process of integration of knowledge into practical action necessarily takes place implicitly (NEUWEG 1999) and that explicit processes such as verbalization in the course of the action may impair the quality of the results of the action (BOREHAM 1994). ↑ Work process knowledge
Fig. 1: Work process knowledge as knowledge about the relations between the elements of an activity system (according to ENGESTRÖM 1987
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is incorporated into the appropriate activity and its appearance in codified form (when, for example, it is verbalized) is a process of reconstruction, either by the actors themselves or third parties. Thus work process knowledge has both implicit and explicit dimensions (→ 5.1.5; Moser 2004). 3.6.4.3 Some Empirical Research Results We will now flesh out this categorical framework with selected results of empirical studies concerning work and training.
The Need for Work Process Knowledge in Industrial Contexts In a recent study in the field of skilled metal and electrical work, Martin Baethge et al. (1998, 4 ff.) observe a significant change in the profile of qualifications required for skilled industrial work. In addition to the requirements of the traditionally defined “manufacturing worker”, there are now demands for “system regulators” and “problem-solvers” who engage in detecting and resolving problems in the product and production process. The successful fulfilment of these roles assumes the possession of work process knowledge, which is of especial importance where skilled workers have to carry out planning and control duties within the framework of in-company production workflows (when, for example, work is organized by the cell concept; see BRÖDNER 1985). The concept of work process knowledge is also useful for studying the competences skilled workers have actually acquired through work. In one study, skilled workers and trainees were asked to outline the in-company flow of information and materials. This revealed that some of the skilled workers had acquired “knowledge of how production is organized” (quoted from a participant), although the tasks represented in the workers’ outlines were not part of their scope of responsibility (see FISCHER 1995b). In this study it became apparent that the work process knowledge of skilled workers was in most cases not merely knowledge about individual duties, but also knowledge about how the various sub-tasks are incorporated into the whole-factory context. It included an understanding of the interrelationship between norma-
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tive models of work organization (such as organizational charts and operating procedures) and the actual practices that take place within the company, and also between the formal engineering specifications of machines and the way they behaved in the production process. This “context perception” (see FLEIG / SCHNEIDER 1995, 8) or “context understanding” (see LAUR-ERNST 1990, 14) encompasses: – the in-company workflows that are incorporated into the work operations and technical processes, – the specific characteristics of the materials, systems and equipment used in the company, – the internal characteristics linked to the nature of the mechanical, energy-related, chemical, ↑ information technology processes themselves, and – the consequences in the life-world that may be provoked by actions taken by the operators. Other field studies of in-company maintenance (FISCHER /JUNGEBLUT / RÖMMERMANN 1995; DRESCHER 1996) showed that the work process knowledge of skilled workers focused on the characteristics of the equipment and materials used in the company as well as the lived experiences within the company in which the workers’ own actions were incorporated. Similarly, Hartmut Schulze (2001, 93 ff.) in a review of computer-based experience-guided work studies, emphasized the following features of experience-guided work in the industrial-technical sector: – optimal situation-based precision planning and scheduling: e. g. optimal situation-based shortterm management of order processing; – networked action: e. g. overcoming frictional and information losses between departments along process chains; – foresighted process control: e. g. preorientation in connection with critical situations through anticipation of the machining process; – compensatory process regulation: e. g. in the case of NC machining perception of the tiniest discrepancies between real and programmed paths with the aim of avoiding collisions; – production-oriented measurement: e. g. production-oriented interpretation of ambiguous measured data; – flexible and time-optimised malfunction management: e. g. correct interpretation of otherwise
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incorrect, incomplete or lacking fault indications through recognition of similarities to previous malfunctions; – optimisation through experience optimisation: e. g. search for common features between experienced and new situations; – innovative process improvement: e. g. exchange of experience with colleagues and superiors in order to expand one’s own horizon and as a safeguard.
The Construction of Work Process Knowledge in the Workplace The stimulus for the activation and acquisition of ↑ work process knowledge is the problem situation experienced by the worker. This may include disruptions to the planned workflow and malfunctions in the technical equipment as well as new types of task for which the worker does not yet have an action plan. For some of the skilled workers involved in the study (e. g. in FISCHER 1995b) this was reason not only to compensate for malfunctions in one’s own workflow, but also to cooperate with other company departments and acquire knowledge of company workflows. However, this means that not only previously existing knowledge is applied, but that new knowledge, too, results in the context of the action – though by no means by itself. Ulich and Baitsch (1987, 516) have shown on the basis of a ↑ longitudinal study that the question of whether work process knowledge is accumulated based on a problem situation depends on the interplay of three critical aspects: “(1) It is necessary that the worker becomes aware of contradictions in the given work situation and that new goals based on a newly developed or previously latent motive in the work are formulated for this situation. (2) To ensure that new goals can be developed, information that can serve as the basis for devising alternatives must be available. (3) The practical execution of a new job that represents elimination of these contradictions or meeting of the new goals finally leads to the development of competencies”.
The question is, however, what kind of information is used for a solution. Skilled workers invariably make use of “pragmatic concepts” as they are called by the research group led by Janine Rogalski at the University of Paris VIII (see SAMURÇAY/
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VIDAL-GOMEL 2002, 156 ff.; ROGALSKI / PLAT/ ANTONIN-GLEN 2002, 145 ff.). On the one hand, relevant theory is utilized pragmatically, although sometimes-incorrect ideas prevail about the relevant mechanical, energy, chemical and ↑ information technology laws. On the other hand, as Felix Rauner (RAUNER 2002a) was able to show on the basis of a reappraisal of studies (by BENNER 1997, among others), this ↑ practical knowledge contains elements of a sensitivity for fine qualitative differences, contextuality, situativity, the experience of paradigmatic ↑ work tasks, communication in the ↑ community of practice and meta-competence – components of knowledge that traditionally are not contained in the relevant theory. However, the use of knowledge relevant for work is not only a question of individual competence but has to do also with the respective area of occupational responsibility. An analysis of different fields of work indicates significant differences in the composition of the knowledge required in the ↑ work process. For example, there is no corresponding scientific discipline for some occupations or ↑ occupational tasks that would be able to determine the general laws of the subject and make them the object of initial and further training so that it is almost exclusively handed-down skilled trade experience which is decisive for occupational competence (e. g. for so-called bedding-in in ↑ mechanical engineering; GERDS 2002). Other occupations are not of a purely craft trade origin, but have developed out of scientific subjects or were closely linked to the latter right from the beginning (e. g. occupations in electrical engineering and chemical technology). Here it is necessary to take theoretical knowledge into consideration in the work as well and to integrate it into ↑ occupational skills (NIETHAMMER / STORZ 2002; RÖBEN / SIEBECK 2002; FISCHER / RÖBEN 2002b), even though (as shown by BÖHLE / ROSE 1992; BAUER / BÖHLE / MUNZ ET AL. 2002) the importance of experience-guided action cannot be disregarded even in high-tech fields.
The Construction of Work Process Knowledge in the Workplace ↑ Work process knowledge is not acquired but constructed, and moreover constructed in the course of work in response to a problem experienced by
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the worker. It is constructed out of ↑ experiential knowledge (such as the pragmatic concepts described by Rogalski/ Plat/Antonin-Glen and theoretical knowledge (such as scientific principles) by a dialectic in which the theoretical and experiential bearings on the problem are resolved into object-focused activity. The dialectical construction of work process knowledge can be illustrated by a series of studies of how physicians prescribe drugs, or more exactly, how they adjust the daily dose of a drug given as long-term treatment for a chronic illness (see BOREHAM 1989; 1994; 1995b; BOREHAM / FOSTER / MAWER 1992). These studies reveal that when making pharmacotherapeutic decisions, expert physicians combine theoretical knowledge of pharmacokinetics (the science of how drugs are distributed through the body) with personal knowledge of clinical events and phenomena they have accumulated throughout their own professional practice. In these studies, it was found that when pharmacokinetic theory was taught in medical school, the medical students could not make effective decisions in classroom prescribing exercises when they tried to ‘apply’ the theory directly to new cases. According to the theory of work process knowledge, this was because they lacked the experiential component needed to construct a course of action. When expert prescribers were studied, however, it was found that they used both experiential knowledge and pharmacokinetic theory which they synthesized in a dialectic process to construct work process knowledge. A three-term model of prescribing was proposed in which the physician uses his or her clinical experience to understand the patient’s problem, provisionally selects a new dose using rules-of-thumb derived by trial and error from previous experience, and then reflects on whether it would be appropriate to prescribe this new dose. The dialectic occurs in this last stage and creates the psychological basis for action (BOREHAM / FOSTER / MAWER 1992). The key finding of this study was that, while the provisional selection of a dose was made experientially (by recognising the problem as a type that had occurred before, and by using rules-of-thumb based on previous clinical experience), the reflective part of the process involved recalling scientific papers in journals and reference material in standard text-
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books – codified knowledge from the world of the laboratory and the lecture theatre. This can be illustrated by the following case. A physician used rules-of-thumb which he had accumulated over years of clinical practice to suggest increasing a patient’s drug dose by 100 mg. However, while reflecting on the appropriateness of this therapeutic intervention, he noted that the patient had an unusually low body weight and recalled research papers which reported a positive correlation between body weight and the optimal dose of that drug. From this he inferred that the dose increment implied by his rules-of-thumb might be too high for this particular patient and reduced it to a 50 mg increment. The conclusion of this study, important for the definition of work process knowledge, was that while the problem could not be solved by directly applying the relevant pharmacokinetic theory, this theory was crucial when synthesized with knowledge compiled out of personal experience. Moreover, while the reasoning process itself was a dialectical one in which experiential rules-of-thumb were interrogated in the light of research-based theory and synthesized into an understanding of how to solve the problem, it was also necessary to have a good knowledge of the overall ↑ work process. The first term in the decision making model – understanding the patient’s problem, which had a major bearing on whether to increase the daily dose or leave it at the same level – depended on understanding the cause of the patient’s symptoms, and this in turn required a broader range of knowledge, including the strategies by which the medical ↑ profession deals with this kind of chronic illness (BOREHAM 1995b).
The Interplay between Individual and Organizational Learning in the Construction of Work Process Knowledge Whilst ↑ work process knowledge is possessed by individuals, in most employment situations the individual is a member of a ↑ community of practice, engages in collaborative practices in the workplace and shares work-related knowledge with his or her co-workers. ↑ Work process knowledge is collectively as well as individually owned, in the sense of being embedded in the interrelationships, artifacts and practices of the workplace. The construc-
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tion of work process knowledge will consequently involve both individual and collective activity and the interplay between these levels of activity. Research in an oil refinery by Boreham (2004b) and Boreham/ Morgan (2004) studied artefacts such as the standard operating procedures laid out in (electronic) manuals and analysed their social utilization schemes – that is, the meaning of the artefacts within the work culture. Collective activity based on these standard operating procedures was an enactment of the social utilization scheme, and the work process knowledge was constructed though social practices which enabled dialogue to take place between workers about the problems they were encountering. Some studies refer to networked action of skilled workers in line with production workflows and departments (FISCHER 1995b; SCHULZE 2001; BAETHGE / BAETHGE-K INSKY/KUPKA 1998) and explain in this way that skilled workers have acquired work process knowledge as an understanding of the overall company ↑ work process. However, other studies (WAIBEL / ENDRES / WEHNER 2002, 396) point out that the acquisition and communication of knowledge relevant for work in the company may be a locally restricted phenomenon that does not extend beyond the limits of a community of practice (LAVE / WENGER 1991). This discrepancy raises the question of the extent to which work process knowledge is acquired individually or collectively or stimulated organizationally. Learning in social interaction – particularly whenever this form of learning is permitted officially and de facto – opens up a way of acquiring work process knowledge in companies. In some cases, such learning is supported by structural measures of the company. In a recent empirical study (FISCHER / RÖBEN 2004) on the question of whether and how the enterprises actually (and not only ideologically) introduce and design “organizational learning” it was found in all companies examined (large enterprises in the chemical industry in four European countries) that skilled workers were required to support familiarization and/or training of colleagues. In all the enterprises examined, work process knowledge was made the subject of learning (FISCHER / RÖBEN 2004): The knowledge necessary to operate the chemical facilities
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was analysed and documented by the skilled workers themselves on the basis of all jobs and shifts. Through organizational measures the companies subsequently contributed to the communication and dissemination of this knowledge in the company as well as to its incorporation into the training programmes. In this way, learning in social interaction becomes a major demand placed on the competence of skilled workers, without eliminating competition within and outside the company. For the “problemsolver” type of worker Baethge et al. (1998, 5 ff.) describe such demands as an understanding of economic interrelationships that requires extended knowledge qualifications. With regard to training, the authors conclude: “The job profile must have a broader theoretical basis, the imparting of social-communicative skills and problem-solving competencies must be integrated into the organizational and social context of the entire enterprise and entire workforce”.
3.6.4.4
Perspectives for Shaping Work and Education
Acquisition of knowledge about how to do one’s work and about the product-related, technical, work-organization, social, economic and ecological context in which the work is incorporated is important in vocational training for three reasons: – As knowledge that is incorporated into practical action, it is implicitly responsible for ↑ performance (the work actually performed, differentiated here from competence as the designation of performance potential). – As knowledge that can be abstracted from performance, it can serve as a guide for practical action even in situations the subject has not yet experienced and has not had any practice in coping with. – As knowledge that can be abstracted from given action situations, it can transcend given reality and involve the notion of another design of the working world. How can (prospective) skilled workers acquire such knowledge? For the shaping of work Theo Wehner et al. (1996; DERBOVEN / DICK / WEHNER 2002; WAIBEL / ENDRES / WEHNER 2002) have further developed concepts of observation and group work in
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order to foster knowledge transfer in and between companies and help in overcoming the phenomenon of locally bound interpretation patterns. In the field of vocational training, recent reforms attempt to structure curricular methods for the acquisition of ↑ work process knowledge (see R AUNER 2002a). The training is based on work process knowledge that is incorporated into the ↑ performance of key occupational ↑ work tasks. It endeavours to promote the acquisition of work process knowledge, beginning with the question of what the main focus of the occupation is, then encourages the acquisition of contextual and functional knowledge and ends by imparting systematic and experiencebased in-depth knowledge according to the specific field (→ 3.5.1). However, the acquisition of work process knowledge not only involves in-company and curricular approaches, but also biographical shaping strategies that individuals pursue. Heinz et al. (in press) were able to show on the basis of a ↑ longitudinal study that the different empirically found types of design of occupational biographies have significant impacts on the Whether and the How of acquisition of work process knowledge.
3.6.5
Learning with Tutorial Working Systems Matthias Becker
3.6.5.1
Tools and Working Systems as “Tutors”
Work is accomplished with tools and working systems; learning is achieved with teaching material and teaching systems. For a long time, work and learning have been considered as contradictions. The tradition of handicraft has never underlined this polarisation as distinctly as ↑ industrial skilled work has, but the “scientification” of the world of work (cf. BÖHLE 1992; GRONWALD 1993b; TAYLOR 1911/1993) supports these separation tendencies. It is therefore crucial for vocational ↑ educational research to analyse the conditions, the prerequisites and the shaping principles for an in-
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tegration of work and learning by the shaping of learning oriented working systems. It is not easy to explain tutorial working systems. Both parts of the term, “tutorial” and “working systems” are, in practice, differently defined. The catalogue of standards, DIN EN 614, defines a “working system” as follows: “The working system encompasses the interaction of one or more persons with means for work in order to perform a system task within a work area, in the work environment and under the conditions set by the work tasks” (DIN EN 614-1).
In the narrower sense the term is used to define those aids and tools (the means for work), which are applied by their users during the ↑ work process, i.e. a hammer, repair manuals and machines, up to computer-aided diagnostic devices. Today these are usually dialogue-guided, computer-aided machines and information systems as implements, e. g. personal computers. In a wider sense a working system is a cybernetic entity within whose system boundaries work is “taking place”, i.e. a workshop, an office or other rooms and areas which are functionally linked in terms of work processes. A working system can only be called tutorial if it acts as a tutor (teacher, advisor) of its user, i.e. if one can learn with or within the working system. As the term “learning” is differently defined – depending on basing it on either behaviouristic or constructivist learning theories – the property of being “tutorial” can only be assigned by adding a comprehension of theory. Working systems – or as they are widely delimitated by Ropohl – socio-technical systems or ↑ manmachine-systems respectively (ROPOHL 1975, 45) exert a major influence on the acting opportunities of a human being. The man-machine-interaction within such a system therefore has an enormous practical importance as it considerably determines whether learning at the workplace or within the ↑ work process is possible or not. This prominence is even augmented with the increasing introduction of computer-aided systems into the world of work. Due to the late introduction of computeraided working systems, research work on man-machine-interaction is still comparatively young and has only been intensified in vocational ↑ educational research since the late 1980s. In terms of ↑ constructivism, this research plays a great role in ↑ en-
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gineering sciences, and is carried through in order to improve the ↑ ergonomics of work psychology and work sciences (cf. TIMPE / ROTHE 1999; LANDAU / ROHMERT 1987). The computer sciences and their discipline of ↑ Artificial Intelligence looks at the man-machine-interaction in terms of a comparison between human and machine learning (cf. PUPPE 1992). Also the fields of learning psychology and pedagogical psychology deal with this topic (cf. MANDL / GRUBER / RENKL 1995). This wide field of engagement in the issue of working systems within this perspective indicates the highly ↑ interdisciplinary character of this field of research. 3.6.5.2
Man-Machine-Interaction and Ergonomics
The Perspective of Ergonomics Good ergonomics, in terms of an adaptation of working conditions to the human conditions of ↑ performance, are normally seen as a basic prerequisite for a working system promoting learning (GEISER 2001). This means that the system is highly ↑ user-friendly. A maximum performance can be reached as soon as its use does not require any learning process resulting in an “intuitive” use and a “self-explanatory” system. As this condition is only very rare in practice, above all the work scientific research concentrates on the analysis of “learning in a context with the use of technical systems” (ibid., 131) with the aim of improving the ergonomic properties (see Fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Research with the aim of improving the ergonomic properties of a system.
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Perspective of occupation-oriented learning contents
“a dialogue promotes learning as soon as it supports and guides a user during his learning how to handle the dialogue system” (ibid., 12).
A completely different question is the focus of vocational educational research (see Fig. 2): How must a working system be shaped in order to best support learning which is oriented to the object of work? After all it is not the task of the skilled worker to just handle a working system but to make use of it while coping with ↑ work tasks and in order to solve occupational problems.
With regard to occupationally oriented contents, the adherence to the principle of promotion of learning does not yet safeguard learning because the description of the standard exclusively refers to the use of the dialogue rather than to the specialization and corresponding learning processes to be supported. 3.6.5.3 Surveys of the Promotion of Learning through Working Systems
Fig. 2: Research with the aim of promoting the learning contents of a system.
Thus there is a decisive difference between ↑ user-friendliness and the tutorial quality of a system. Ergonomically flawless systems which blend into the performance conditions of human beings or which are adapted, are not automatically promoting learning. In the light of the increasing permeation of working systems with software, the shaping of the communication and the interaction between man and machine becomes the centre of interest. Therefore research work often concentrates on the dialogue properties of programmes. The ↑ ergonomics standard EN ISO 9241 describes them as having seven principles: – Adequacy of tasks, – Ability of self-characterization, – Controllability, – Conformity to expectations, – Fault tolerance, – Ability for individualisation, – ↑ Promotion of learning (ISO 9241). As for the promotion of learning it states:
Surveys of the promotion of learning through working systems are carried out with objectives that may be seen between the two above-mentioned perspectives: – Surveys on ↑ software ergonomics – on the “usability” – concentrate on the adjustment of computer programmes to the human work acting (interfaces, shaping of the dialogues, physiological principles, see AREND / EBERLEH / PITSCHKE 1999; VÖLZ 1999; also see http://www.usability-forum. com; http://www.stcsig.org/usability/) – Surveys on the development and use of software and ↑ e-learning systems such as ↑ computer-basedtraining (CBT), ↑ Web-Based-Training (WBT), virtual communities etc. for the support of learning processes (e-Learning; see also the field of topics “learning within the network and with multimedia” in the BMBV research and development programme “Learning Culture Competency Development”). – The survey on interactions with the dialogue system and the virtual actions (simulations) represents a special feature (see MÜLLER / BRUNS 2002). – Surveys on the ↑ interdisciplinary solution of complex problems of the man-machine-interaction on the basis of a system technical approach. Increasing problems caused by the encapsulation of machines lead to probes for approaches for a socially acceptable shaping of technology within the programme “Work and Technology” by the BMFT in the 1980s and early 1990s (see FRICKE 1994; MARTIN 1995b) and the subsequent BMBF programme “Innovative shaping of work – The future of work” (BMBF 2002a). An important emphasis was laid on the retrieval of “sensual work
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experience” and a trend towards workshop oriented programming techniques for computer-aided production technologies (see SCHLAUSCH 1997). As for the analysis of the ↑ promotion of learning, the approaches of ↑ Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasingly coming to the fore (compare PUPPE 1992; SONNTAG / SCHAPER 1997; also see projects of the Centre ↑ Man-Machine-Systems of the Technical University of Berlin, http://www.mms.tu-berlin.de). In recent years the distributed artificial intelligence (DAI) in the form of “shaping of competency-promoting ↑ multi-agent systems”, e. g. to give support with diagnostic tasks for CNC-machine tools has become more important (cf. DFGproject TI 188/6–1). The research tasks also encompass the question of the role of social interrelationships for intelligent acting (↑ Field of research: ↑ Socionics) (cf. MALSCH 1998). – Survey on the possibilities of integration of work and learning with the aid of a method of shaping of working systems, which promotes learning (see the conferences on researching work and learning: http://www.oval.uts.edu.au/rwl4/ and projects like worklearn: http://www.peda.net/veraja/ worklearn/). The documentation of the 11th and 12th HGTB Symposium on “Man-Machine-Interaction” (see EICKER / PETERSEN 2001) and on “ITaided skilled work” (PETERSEN / RAUNER / STUBER 2001) offers an overview of the research work of the occupational specialisations. The following chapters fundamentally deal with the publications of this approach of research. 3.6.5.4
State of the Research
With the insight that experience knowledge (BÖHLE / MILKAU 1988) and ↑ work process knowledge (→ 3.6.4; → 3.4.4; K RUSE 1985; FISCHER 2000) play an important and increasing role for occupational work and the shaping of learning processes, the question was raised how this may be safeguarded, processed and made available to the skilled workers (to be). Thus, Gronwald stated, with regard to the development of a ↑ work information system for the trades, that media are necessary “which support the individual learning during the ↑ work process” (GRONWALD 1992, 185). Such media have to initiate and support the learning process of the users for a skilled handling of work relevant in-
formation (ibid., 187). Therefore it is less important how explicit knowledge may be imparted with the help of a tutorial working system. Moreover it is crucial to examine how they can develop a comprehensive ability for acting. During the 1980s and 1990s it was attempted to safeguard and optimize the capacity to act in maintenance skilled work through the use of ↑ expert systems (cf. STRIEBEL 1994; ZIEGLER 1994). These working systems were supposed to inform, guide and support the user as an expert would do it. However, it soon turned out that the use of expert systems rather hampered learning instead of promoting it because: (1) The advice and the conclusions of the expert systems could not be understood; the systems proved to be not transparent (see FISCHER 2001a, 75), (2) Neither the experiences of the skilled workers with the development of knowledge data bases for these systems were taken into consideration nor were the skilled workers able to document their experience knowledge in the systems, (3) Coping with occupational ↑ work tasks called for immediate work- and situation-oriented information whereas the explanation component of the expert systems did not consider the context of the work processes (see FISCHER /JUNGEBLUT/ RÖMMERMANN 1995), and (4) the problems occurring in practice could not be solved to a satisfactory extent by the available information, as the malfunctions tend to develop an increasingly individual character (see BECKER 2003, 145). Categorical critics of expert systems doubt that these systems will ever be able to support a human being at an adequate level as they apply a knowledge model which is entirely different from the human knowledge model (the model of mathematical logics) (DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1987). Several research projects work on overcoming these identified weaknesses of expert systems (cf. BRUNS 1990; DANIEL / STRIEBEL 1993); cf. PUPPE / ZIEGLER / MARTIN 2001). One of the most important points of contact is the ↑ participation of the skilled workers in the shaping of the systems. Whereas, formerly, only knowledge engineers were responsible for the acquisition of knowledge, there are increasing attempts to:
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Fig. 3: Prevalence of learning models in projects for the adaptation of employees to the technological changes. Source: biat/ADAPT database evaluation based on 657 projects
(a) Open the systems for the knowledge of skilled workers and involve the latter in the shaping (↑ participation in shaping); and to (b) Allow skilled workers to change and amend certain system areas (participation in the use and further development). In addition there are attempts to provide different kinds of user guidance depending on the competency levels of the users (BOURAUEL 1996; BECKER 2003, 158 f.). This approach encompasses the preparation of tutand models, which are meant to adapt the systems to the use and learning habits of the users (see PUPPE 1992). Recent research results point at the fact that the adaptation of a working/ learning system to the user and learning habits of the skilled workers is only likely to be successful through a context-oriented processing of ↑ work process oriented information. Projects repeatedly stated that learning processes during work are either occurring formally or are to a greater extent initiated by “breakdowns”. Fischer explains: “Workers act at the basis of their existing knowledge without being concerned until they realize that they cannot get on” (FISCHER 1999, 109).
Breakdowns are characterized by malfunctions, interruptions, dead ends, situations of incomplete information, non-existent or lack of communication, unforeseen circumstances and unexpected situations.
What needs to be done is to cope with tasks and solve problems. They are the reasons and the content references for the structuring of information in tutorial ↑ work information systems. Fischer therefore concludes that surroundings promoting learning “(must) support the ‘man-problem area-interaction’ rather than just the ‘man-computer-interaction’” (ibid., 119). The breakdowns and barriers (DÖRNER 1979, 10) as they are called by the psychology of learning always contain learning contents. A work process oriented structurization of comprehensible information to overcome the barriers at the same time leads to understanding and to problem solving. Thus all systems with such a structure are highly interesting for corporate practical work, as learning during the work process can be promoted rather than learning in addition to work. A tutorial work information system based on such a work process oriented structurization was developed and tested by Becker and Spöttl with skilled workers in car repair workshops (see BECKER / SPÖTTL 2001b). 3.6.5.5 Scope and Limits Learning with tutorial working systems not only requires good ergonomic properties and a shaping of the system contents promoting learning, as the latter task alone already represents a major didactical challenge where less secure occupation-
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al knowledge in a domain is concerned. Moreover there is the need for a work organisation promoting learning (see SCHREIER 2001a, 210 ff.; îShaping of work, work organisation; → 3.4.2). In his survey of the application of a ↑ diagnostic system declared as “tutorial”, Schreier has already identified six shaping criteria: (1) Flat hierarchies and on-site competency in order to increase the freedom of decision making. (2) Cooperative leadership style to increase personal responsibility. (3) A work organisation oriented to work processes allowing for a process oriented coping with tasks. (4) A holistic coping with tasks with the least possible specialisation. (5) Groups should be encouraged to learn “from each other” by working and learning in teams. (6) The previously-discussed participation of all persons involved in the shaping of the means for work and the work processes (ibid., 210 ff.). The use of tutorial working systems often purports to save costs for initial and further training (compare STAUDT/K RIEGESMANN 1999; BECKER / SPÖTTL / STOLTE 2001) as there is no travelling to a ↑ learning environment: the learning itself is organised in a self-reliant way and the learning times can be reduced in favour of productive “learning and working times”. This is based on the hypothesis that future further training cannot be distinguished from productive work, neither in terms of time nor of contents. However, surveys on the use of tutorial working systems for the integration of working and learning in the European Community initiative ADAPT have shown that (more and combined) learning models are necessary to safeguard learning during the work process. 12 models were identified: (1) “↑ e-learning” models, (2) Multiplier models, (3) Shaping model “Future”, (4) Network model, (5) Reorganisation model, (6) Facilitator model, (7) Simulation models/projects, (8) Knowledge model, (9) Coaching model,
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(10) Self-learning centre, (11) Seminaristic model, (12) Problem solving model (ibid., 18 ff.) A combination of these models, which takes the advantages and disadvantages of their different objectives, learning approaches and their learning and working environment into consideration, has proved to be very successful (Fig. 3). Tutorial working systems combined with a learning arrangement are very supportive. They can, preferably, be applied for the “problem solving model” which promotes a situation-oriented learning within the framework of coping with concrete corporate ↑ work tasks and the solving of problems during the ↑ work process. Therefore they are especially suitable for diagnostic support systems. With regard to comprehensive competency development processes, they do not replace the teacher, the trainer or the instructor in any way. Tutorial working systems in terms of ↑ knowledge management rather help to interlink context-oriented information in a meaningful way and to test and reflect on it during the work process. On the one hand the student follows the steps towards the solution of a problem delivered by the working system (instruction) and interlinks the newly learned contents with existing knowledge (For more details on this see STARK 1999, 40). In addition to this, information is retrieved from the working system during the coping with the work tasks. It is situatively integrated into the acting context and verified with the aid of actions with regard to their ↑ efficiency (construction). In this context Gerstenmaier and Mandl call such systems “constructivist ↑ learning environments” (GERSTENMAIER / MANDL 2001, 5) and allocate them to a theory of situative learning. Thus an important aspect of the man-machineinteraction is addressed: apart from the ↑ context orientation it is the sharing, the exchange and the common production of knowledge in a group and/ or a community which is relevant for tutorial quality. 3.6.5.6
Problems and Development Prospects
Learning with tutorial working systems is basically subject to the same delimitations as ↑ self-directed learning as such (see NUISSL 1999). There is no automatic learning process because of an existing
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tutorial working system. Apart from the necessary motivation, the students are required to differentiate between useful information, which promotes learning and useless input and to enter a learning process on their own. It will be also crucial in the future to initiate learning processes by a didactical-methodical structuring of the contents. For this structuring process, we have to find out which contents when, and in which working or problem solving situation are likely to support learning by making use of this system. Therefore research work on the domain-oriented competency development (see. RAUNER 2004d) is required. So far this has not yet been carried through in a satisfactory way in terms of necessary depth and concretion. The key problem in this context is the ratio between explicit and ↑ implicit knowledge and the embedding of the systems in working contexts. As a matter of fact only partial aspects of the usefulness of research studies on work psychology, knowledge construction and pedagogical psychology as well as expertise from expertise research are thus far known. However, example results from the field of vocational ↑ educational research are available.
3.6.6
Occupational Socialization Walter R. Heinz
3.6.6.1
Introduction
Occupational Socialization is not just vocational learning, it is much more: It is the process of developing attitudes, knowledge, motives, value orientations and social competences which are used by the individuals at work and across their employment biographies. This process concerns socialization for an occupation (in family, school and training), socialization in the occupation (↑ work process and employment biography) and socialization besides the occupation (continuous learning, retraining, coaching). Processes of occupational learning and development pertain not only to the qualification for work, they influence the person’s identity formation.
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At first sight, occupational socialization seems to be an anachronistic field of theory and research in the individualized service and ↑ knowledge society. Many social theorists assume that individuals turn to other life areas outside work because society lacks jobs and the returns of education and training are decreasing. After some thought based on the research results which will be discussed and the debate about social and political consequences of mass unemployment, we see, however, that especially in a period of social transformation, occupational work offers important psycho-social experiences, development and action opportunities – and not only risks. Occupational socialization turns our attention to the processes – embedded in economic, political and social structures – by which the conditions of training, working and employment contracts become the object of individual experiences and action strategies on the ↑ labour market and in work organisations. In view of increasingly flexible and insecure employment conditions it is obvious that occupational socialization will gain in importance for the individual life course because it contributes to a sustainable selfdesign of employment biographies. Shaping one’s own employment life is possible when self-reliance concerning one’s occupational action competences is supported by social and material recognition of the individual’s contribution to the maintenance and integration of public and private life worlds. If societies succeed in connecting occupational knowledge, competence and self-esteem of the individuals with ↑ flexibility and security (“flexicurity”), then economic ↑ performance will also be promoted. This is also underscored by management, at least in Germany, which regards the quality and supply of skilled workers as a crucial factor of international economic competitiveness. In this contribution, there are links to other sections of this handbook: Work, education, qualification (→ 2.4) Research on qualifications (→ 3.1.5; → 3.4.1) Research on competence (→ 3.4.2) Learning in the work process (→ 3.6.1) Development of moral judgement (→ 3.6.7) ↑ Vocational identity (→ 3.6.8)
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3.6.6.2
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Occupation
An occupation defines the living conditions and life chances and is characterized by a specific profile of competences which consists of knowledge, practical and social skills (BECK / BRATER / DAHEIM 1980). Compared to other industrialized service societies in Germany, occupation, vocational training and employment opportunities are closely related to each other and embedded in social institutions, specifically the ↑ Dual System of Vocational Education and Training (VET), collective agreements and structures of ↑ further education and training: “Occupation orients training and employment” (DAHEIM 2001, 24). Occupational activities in work organisations bring about subjective motives, social relationships and achievement standards. Moreover, occupations determine the social position as the interface between individual and social structure. Out of these defining characteristics results the meaning of occupations as contexts of socialization and identity formation. Therefore, an occupation can still offer a frame for orienting life plans, however, only as far as the occupation serves as a vehicle for social status and for realizing individual interests and competences. In contrast to the thesis of the loss of meaning of the occupationally based employment career (e. g. BAETHGE 2001), we observe that first, new fields of gainful activity are being integrated in the vocational training and academic education systems; second, a vocational training certificate is facilitating the change of firms or occupations; and, third, a vocational qualification opens the access to the system of further education and training. However, today the ↑ occupational principle does not serve anymore as a lifelong perspective, individuals rather have to navigate their pathways through the ↑ labour market on their own by shaping their employment biographies in a self-directed manner. In “flexible capitalism” (SENNETT 1998) individuals are confronted with mobile work times, tasks and locations, while continuous and standardized employment is losing ground. Whether this will lead to a devaluation of the occupation as a pattern of allocation and individual orientation in Germany and if it will result in chronic discrepancies between the training occupation and employ-
ment, cannot be answered empirically (see KONIETZKA 2002). Three scenarios characterize the current discussion: On the one hand Baethge (2001) argues that a structurally induced weakening of occupationally based work will lead to a transformation of the system of Vocational Education and Training into school-based and academic education because process-oriented and cognitive demands will enforce a logic of qualification which is based more on knowledge and organisational requirements. On the other hand, it is possible that competence profiles with substantial ↑ flexibility of in-firm implementation will develop out of newly designed “core occupations” (RAUNER 2000b). Another scenario is visible in the new occupational type of the “entrepreneur of one’s own work capacity” (Arbeitskraftunternehmer; VOSS / PONGRATZ 1998) who develops his or her individual occupation as a solution of the contradicting relationship between ↑ occupational standards, insecure employment careers and cultural individualization. More and more participants in the labour market are confronted with the challenge, despite and maybe just because of the declining continuity in the employment system, to engage in a solid and sustainable vocational education and training. Without occupational socialization it will become more and more difficult to explore employment opportunities under increasingly restrictive labourmarket conditions. In deregulated labour markets, occupational capital can only be assembled by multiple employment experiences in connection with flexible and self-initiated changes of the location and time of employment. The drawback of this development is that work conditions and employment biographies are under the pressure of imponderable decisions of employers who over and over again impose on workers and those who are looking for work compromises with the conditions and returns of their occupational activities. 3.6.6.3
Socialization
Theory and research regarding socialization (cf. HURRELMANN / ULICH 1991; HURRELMANN 2002) focus on the explanation and empirical analysis of social processes which contribute to the formation and change of personality structures. Contempo-
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rary theories of socialization look at the living and working conditions which promote, respectively restrict the development of a stable identity. Individuals unfold their psycho-social identity by constructively connecting their genetic-biological endowment with the societal and material living conditions: By actively and productively dealing with their living conditions, individuals shape their biography out of activities in different areas and stages of life. With the transformation of the industrial into a service society, multiple living conditions, cultural images and life plans have been constructed. In the service and ↑ knowledge society, the model of an independently thinking and acting individual, as the basis for a mentality of cooperative individualism, has become dominant (e. g. MARR / FILASTER 2003). In this process, occupational work is still the core of the reality principle because it is the medium for linking one’s achievement experiences with social recognition in the life course. The concept of socialization has undergone transformations in the past few decades. Theories of primary socialization and the internalization of norms and values in childhood and youth have been losing their dominance, whereas socialization today is understood as a lifelong process of productively acquiring the social, cultural and material reality (HURRELMANN 2002) through self-reflective actions which obtain the character of “selfsocialization” (HEINZ 2002b). These changes in the theory of socialization follow the process of social modernization, that is, the increasing autonomy of individuals vis-à-vis direct social control and traditional values, the de-standardization of the life course, which is linked to a more or less ambivalent promise of more autonomy and self-responsibility. 3.6.6.4
Occupational Socialization: History and Development of a Concept
The process of occupational socialization became a field of research in the Social Sciences not before the end of the 1960s (LÜSCHER 1968; MOORE 1969). Starting points were the sociological concepts social status, role and norms in context with the formerly prominent theory of structural functionalism. Occupational socialization was regard-
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ed as a process that occurs within social structures, a process that has consequences for both the social personality and the social system. This theoretical perspective emphasized the occupational and organizational role demands and rules rather than the individual’s coping with these expectations. Consequently, to become familiar with the role expectations that were linked to an occupation, was regarded as a precondition for the ↑ occupational identity. Together with social status and role, the normative expectations were seen as crucial in the theory of structural functionalism because the extent to which they were internalized by the employees was seen as an indicator of the individual’s ↑ commitment to the ↑ work tasks. This implied primarily the acceptance of work-time routines, in-firm authority and achievement standards and last but not least the readiness to become a loyal member of the company. Thus, Moore (1969) defined occupational socialization as the learning of knowledge and abilities as well as the internalization of general ↑ work orientations and the norms specific of an occupation. Even then it was noted that, because of the permanent change of the occupational structure and of working conditions, occupational socialization will accompany the entire employment career (see Adult Socialization). Since then, the theoretical argument has shifted from the emphasis on the training for work virtues by control in the context of regulated working conditions to the ↑ self-organisation of occupational processes of learning in the context of risky employment careers (see HEINZ 1995). The reasons for this change in the notion of occupational socialization, are grounded, on the one hand, on the changing occupational structure from industrial production to service work, on the other hand, on the increased level of education and respective expectations concerning the scope of action in work organisations, and last but not least, in a change of the concept of socialization from a normative role theory to an interaction and biographical perspective. This paradigm postulates a dynamic interrelationship between personality development, occupational structure, work contexts and employment experiences. This theoretical transformation of the socialization concept in Germany was driven by ↑ longitudinal
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studies about socialization processes in the context of vocational education and training (MAYER / SCHUMM ET AL. 1981; K RUSE /KÜHNLEIN / MÜLLER 1981) and of employment activities (HOFF / LAPPE / LEMPERT 1985). These studies first differentiated blue-collar and white-collar occupations and did not only accompany career development but also the way adults dealt with their occupational experiences. The results indicate that occupational socialization leads to a sceptical as well as realistic perspective of the world of work. This means to arrange oneself in one’s own interest with the work conditions, occupational risks and chances and, at the same time, to maintain one’s scope of action as far as possible by flexible strategies of employment and continuous training. The short history of research on occupational socialization shows that it makes sense to differentiate this concept from occupational education and qualification. Whereas occupational education and training is a more or less methodical and systematic instruction and promotion of work orientations and abilities, qualification is the acquisition of occupational knowledge and skills in the context of ↑ specific training- and learning arrangements. In contrast, occupational socialization is an intentional but also incidentally occurring process of active acquisition of beliefs, orientations and competences by which work experience and personality characteristics are being connected. 3.6.6.5
Socialization Prior to, by and besides Occupational Work
Today, individual standards of motivation, quality of work and the employment biography focus on the “normative subjectivation” (BAETHGE 1994) of the relationship between the person and work and develop through processes of occupational socialization. For the analysis of these processes it is useful to proceed from three related perspectives (HEINZ 1995; LEMPERT 1998): (1) Socialization prior to occupational work in family and school which promotes the acquisition of values, interests and abilities for certain ↑ occupational fields. These processes lead to occupational choice, that is to finding an occupation and a place of occupational training in the ↑ labour market.
(2) Socialization by the occupation. These processes focus on the experiences made in the organisation and ↑ work process which influence the person’s attitudes toward the contents, conditions and results of work. These experiences have consequences concerning the whole living context in regard to social and political attitudes, identity formation but also in coping with stress at work and its consequences on private life. (3) Socialization besides occupation. Due to the requirement to learn in a lifelong sequence, experiences with ↑ continuing education, retraining and unemployment as well as biographical ↑ counselling (for instance coaching) are becoming important aspects of occupational socialization. Studying processes of occupational socialization is of great importance for the politics and practice of VET if it can clarify how subjective work capacity, occupational beliefs and training requirements get connected in the changing economic, technical and organisational conditions of work. Of special importance is the clarification of the relationship between skills, personal and social competences which is subjected to different constellations of learning in the wake of changing work conditions. For quite some time the ↑ occupational skills and the internalized normative orientations were the focus of research. In view of the implementation of new rationalization processes in work organisations and the cutting down of work places, self-responsibility, the willingness to develop one’s competences and to participate in the development of organisations gains in significance on all three levels of occupational socialization. 3.6.6.6
Theories of Occupational Socialization
For the investigation of socialization prior to, by and besides occupational work it is necessary to connect approaches from social, personality and work psychology on the one hand, and the sociology of occupations, organisations and the life course (see HEINZ 1995; LEMPERT 1998) on the other. In the next section, elements of an integrative theory about occupational socialization will be sketched. (1) Role theory: The sociological theory of roles defines occupations from the point of view of so-
Areas of VET Research
cial norms and skill demands of companies. Occupational roles are not just related to the company but they also refer to societal standards of achievement and values which also concern the social status of the employee. According to role theory, the main objective for socialization is the social shaping of motivation, abilities and orientations which are instrumental for working in defined occupations. Thus, the outcome of occupational socialization is the social integration into the work process through a high degree of association between individual motives and the qualification and achievement requirements (cf. JOAS 1991). (2) Subject-oriented theories: The interrelationship between social structures and individual qualifications contributes to the societal constitution of occupations (BOLTE / TREUTNER 1983). In socialization processes, different combinations of skills become connected with the work capacities of individuals. Learning a certain occupation, however, the access to other combinations of skills are blocked or at least made difficult. The reason for this is that the access to occupational positions is subject to social selections which reproduce societal inequality, for instance, when manual skill profiles are being separated from symbolic and planning skills. Thus, the subject-oriented notion of occupational socialization concentrates on the question which programmes of human development, in the sense of options of subjective ↑ commitment to the various occupations, are implied. Therefore, it is well suited to analyze the extent to which individual claims concerning work and biographical projects are promoted or restricted by certain types of occupational work (cf. K EUPP /AHBE / GMUER ET AL. 1999). (3) Psychological theories of learning and action: Here the demands concerning the regulation of actions which are embedded in the ↑ work tasks, are emphasized. According to Hacker (1986b) and Volpert (1987c), each work task can be classified by the extent to which it provides opportunities to regulate one’s activities. Accordingly, partial work activities and restrictive conditions restrict the employees’ chances of developing their personalities, to participate in the work organisation, and may impact negatively on their psychological ↑ well-being. The ↑ action theory emphasizes that personal-
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ity development can be promoted when all levels of regulation in the work activities are implicated. This concept is based on the cognitive psychology of learning and human development and can be supplemented by the notion of self-efficacy (BANDURA 1997), because it adds the individual ↑ commitment to the work activities. The subjective assessment of self-efficacy in coping with the work demands differ according to the levels of regulation that are implied in one’s work activities. If individual goals can be achieved and self-efficacy is perceived, which result from successful work activities and social recognition, occupational selfmotivation is possible. (4) Occupational habitus: When there is a close connection between family, school and employment, the outcome may be an “occupational habitus”. According to Windolf (1981), following the social theories of Pierre Bourdieu (e. g. 1988), the habitus is a stable system of internalized rules of action which not only serve to adapt to the world of work, but also influence social attitudes as well as self-concept. Learning and practicing an occupation leads to a similar habitus; people share patterns of thinking and evaluating as well as of action. This concept has been used primarily in connection with the occupational socialization of members of the ↑ professions (e. g. medical doctors, lawyers, architects), to characterize the traditional types of the wage worker and the civil servant. (5) Interaction between occupational work and personality: By socialization processes prior to, by and besides work, people develop patterns of identity which tend to be reinforced in interaction with other members of the work organisations. According to Hoff (1994) personality development has to be investigated from the perspective of social interaction, as mutual relationship between the structures of training and work on the one hand and the personality structures, shaped by pre-vocational socialization on the other. Thus, past interaction processes result in a range of interrelationships between occupational work and personality development. The formation and stability of identity are influenced by the continuity and discontinuity of the employment career, the lifestyle and the criteria for accepting or rejecting different
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work conditions. The erosion of the standard work conditions, the reduction of continuous full-time employment as consequences of organisational restructuring and lay-offs, confront many employees with the requirement to upgrade their skill profile in order to minimize the increasing risks of their employment biography (see BECK 1986; BROCK ET AL. 1989). Important insights into the ↑ dynamics of occupational socialization as a mutual interaction between work experiences and personality development resulted from studies conducted by Wolfgang Lempert’s research team (HOFF / LEMPERT / LAPPE 1991). For characterizing the work situation and its interaction potential the most important dimensions are the scope of action and the extent to which work activities are self-directed; depending on this context, personalities develop different kinds of control consciousness and levels of moral judgement. (6) Occupational biography and self-socialization: Due to increasing de-standardization of the employment career, actively shaping one’s occupational biography becomes the main challenge: To take oneself as point of reference (KOHLI 1994). Persons are required to search for new connecting links for orientation on the ↑ labour market and the restructuring of firms (HEINZ 2002b). In order to cope with discontinuities in the work life course, it becomes necessary to develop not only occupational competences but also modes of shaping one’s occupational biography which support the person in responding to the changing work demands and employment conditions. According to a ↑ longitudinal study with young skilled workers in Germany (WITZEL /KÜHN 2000), occupational experiences and stock-taking are characterized by different modes of shaping one’s biography: “status arrangement”, “career-management” and “autonomy gain”. 3.6.6.7
Changing Work Conditions and Skill Profiles
With new ↑ information and communication technologies and flexible forms of work organisation the focus of occupational socialization shifts from skills and qualifications to subject-based competences of action because specific ↑ occupational skills and abilities must be connected with knowl-
edge concerning the ↑ work process, organisational systems and social competences (DEUTSCHMANN 2002). Flexible work and insecure employment careers require that the person develops a series of ↑ key competences which overlap specific occupations (see MERTENS 1974; HEINZ 1995): Personal flexibility as readiness to adapt to new learning requirements and work contents; cognitive competence as ability to solve problems by thinking ahead and constructing hypotheses; technical sensibility as coordinated knowledge about functional relationships which permit adequate interventions into the work process; self-responsibility as readiness to carry through ↑ work tasks in a responsible and independent way; and more and more important, an entrepreneurial mentality and having the competence to take on risks and market one’s competences. For the employees, these competence profiles determine how they assess the opportunities to use their skills in changing work situations and employment careers and how they respond to stress at work and risks of occupational discontinuity. The company, however, expects that its employees connect their occupational skills and knowledge with organisational and management competences in order to efficiently coordinate work processes and customer relations. These potentially contradicting expectations suggest that employees use their extended and more risky scope of action in a way that they anticipate changes of work and career prospects and to make up for discontinuities. This means to be able to function in flexible patterns of cooperation and in different work environments without permanent crises of orientations and identity. The spread of service work and especially of parttime employment concerns particularly the occupational socialization of women. The gender-specific division of labour in VET and in the employment system continue to channel the occupational pathways of women, most of whom are employed in the person-centred service sector. Their socialization prior to and by occupational experiences concern occupational sectors which require a special elasticity in reconciling family life and paid employment (HOFF 1990). Companies act accordingly and recruit primarily women for temporary
Areas of VET Research
or part-time employment which excludes them from moving into higher level positions and ↑ continuing education and training (HOCHSCHILD 2002; K RÜGER 2003). 3.6.6.8
Occupational Socialization and Employment Biography
According to the sequence model, socialization prior to, by and besides occupational work, learning processes accompany the entire occupational biography: Starting with anticipatory socialization in family and school, which inform occupational choice, vocational or academic education, applications and selection for certain positions and work places, up to retraining in the context of changing ↑ labour markets and work organisations, changing occupations and companies, unemployment and re-entering the labour market. The work and career beliefs of the younger generation are based on the socialization experiences in family and school as pre-occupational orientations. They influence personal interests and claims concerning work and employment. Level of education and occupational training in the ↑ dual system in college or university focus on different ranks of ↑ occupational status. Occupational choice is subject to societal structures of inequality, though its image suggests a decision concerning one’s occupation according to wishes and capacities. This, however, is only part of the story because the relationship of socialization and selection on the labour market remains implicit. The social determinants of access to certain occupations and other options are independent of personal wishes and expectations. They result from human resource strategies of companies and the welfare and labourmarket policies of the state. In contrast to the assumption that young persons keep to their preferences and unrealistic expectations, results of ↑ longitudinal studies (HEINZ /K RÜGER / RETTKE ET AL. 1987; K EUPP /AHBE / GMUER ET AL. 1999) document that occupational choice quite often is characterized by an early exclusion of youth from many occupational sectors, according to their level of education, their social origin, as well as gender. As regards the transition into the employment system, the biographical connection between occupational wishes, vocational education and training and
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employment has disappeared expecially for those young people who do not qualify for academic ↑ professions. Youth’s transition experiences impact on socialization processes which refer them to a restricted range of options on the ↑ labour market. Despite these experiences and a heightened risk consciousness, young adults persist in their life planning to obtain a qualified occupational education and training; they emphasize that they are in charge of the realization of these life plans which are tied to labour-market ↑ participation. As a recent longitudinal study in the ↑ US of youth in transition from ↑ high school to adulthood shows (MORTIMER 2003), regular and moderate part-time jobs, which are practised besides school (teenage work), promote self-esteem, time management, occupational exploration and even success in college. Because there is no institutionalized VET in North America, this kind of occupational self-socialization can be regarded as a functional equivalent for the well organized and certified transition patterns which are typical for German speaking societies (HEINZ / TAYLOR 2005). In Germany, VET is the linkage between competences, work and identity formation. As the core institution of vocational socialization, it is in charge of transmitting skills and patterns of orientation which may stabilize the employment career. In contrast to the traditional fixation of VET on specific occupations which are marked off from each other, templates of skills and work routines, nowadays, content and practice of training are geared more and more towards the acquisition of socalled “↑ key qualifications” or competences. This trend, for example, is visible in the stepwise inclusion of modern service occupations into the system of VET which offers a broad skill base together with competences that overlap occupations. Despite all these reforms, a growing number of qualified young job starters have to cope with the problem of developing options and strategies for the transition into the employment system and adapting to precarious work. Studies that focus on economic, educational and organisational frameworks of the increasingly difficult transition between education and work underrate the activity potential and agency which young adults perform according to their respective modes of biographical shap-
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ing when searching for employment and adapting to unexpected work conditions via processes of self-socialization. Moreover, they have to adjust to job requirements which put a premium on socially competent and efficient solving of problems, requirements which the ↑ Dual System of VET has integrated only quite recently (MÜNK 2002). With the weakening of organisation of in-company work, skilled employees are confronted with planning their employment future in due course: “With the extended scope of skill utilization, the training occupations lose clarity and orientation for employment careers at the same time” (BAETHGE 2001, 61).
This does not apply to all ↑ occupational fields because the new jobs in the ↑ IT, person-centred and media service sectors are just beginning to be turned into occupations with certified standards of quality and competence profiles. Here, not only social competences but also ↑ occupational skills and knowledge are necessary in order to demonstrate and convince customers of the quality of products and services. After the transition into the labour market, occupational socialization becomes more differentiated because of increasing work experience. The degree of matching of subjective claims and competences with the work content and environment become central in this respect. This creates new criteria for self-definition and opportunities to develop one’s identity. As already mentioned, employees have to deal with ambivalent work experiences in regard to the technical and organisational rationalization in manufacturing, services and administration. This requires a flexible arrangement with changes as well as the active shaping of work situations and processes of (re-)qualification. Expectations and beliefs that were acquired before entering an occupation are still yardsticks of the personal interpretation of work situations and occupational perspectives, together with in-company work experiences and labour-market events (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988; BROCK ET AL. 1989). As the well-known ↑ comparative studies by Melvin Kohn and his team (KOHN / SCHOOLER 1983; KOHN / SLOMCZYNSKI 1990) document, there is a stringent relationship between social class and the structural imperatives of occupational work. These imperatives are connected with the degree of occupa-
Handbook of TVET Research
tional self-direction, the position in the work organisation and with the risks and opportunities in one’s employment career. The extent to which there is autonomy at work activities is the crucial background for the differentiation of value orientations, social and political attitudes and the self-esteem of the employed. Together with the evidence of longitudinal research that studied the work experiences of employees over a longer period, we can conclude that the experiences with self-directed work lead to intellectual flexibility and to independent social orientations. This is also true for the ↑ participation in work-related continuous education whose meaningfulness is assessed according to the criteria of the individual’s occupational biography (BOLDER / HENDRICH 2000). 3.6.6.9
Perspectives of Occupational Socialization
Due to the changing work conditions occupational socialization is in a transition (BROCK ET AL. 1989; SENNETT 1998; Heinz 2002b; PONGRATZ / VOSS 2003). The relationship between VET and occupational careers are being transformed; they become individualized occupational biographies. Thus, the investigation of occupational and biographical socialization is not only of theoretical importance, it also concerns the interrelationship of occupational work and the person regarding the coping with discontinuous life courses. In order to comprehend these changes, the notion of occupational self-socialization is introduced because of the more dynamic formation of identity and the increasing pressure on self-management in the design of work situations and employment careers. This means to link the study of occupational socialization with the life-course perspective and to analyze the mutual relationships between occupational structure, work requirements and personal competence development in longitudinal design. Projects of this kind permit a productive combination of qualitative-interpretative and quantitative-standardized methods (cf. K LUGE /K ELLE 2001). Such a research perspective needs a long-term concentration of research personnel and resources which is only possible in large institutes like the Institute of ↑ Labour Market and ↑ Occupational Research (IAB),
Areas of VET Research
the Max-Planck-Institute of ↑ Educational Research or the German Youth Institute (DJI). It may sound exaggerated to assume that the permanent change of work place, company and occupation has become the norm. However, economic and organisational rationalization of work and the flexibilization of employment conditions have led to new break points in the occupational biography. In view of the negative consequences of those discontinuities on the possibility to participate in society, sustainable socialization in regard to identity formation, labour-market integration and employment opportunities have become a core task of lifelong education. For the analysis of occupational socialization this also calls for investigating the reasons and consequences of discrepancies between the images of the “cooperative individualist” and the “entrepreneurial self”, as well as between the persons’ opportunities for employment and skill formation and the action competences.
3.6.7
The Development of Moral Judgement Wolfgang Lempert
3.6.7.1
The Subject and its Research Context
This chapter introduces and discusses investigations, which relate to the development of an individual’s competence to judge morally and how this competence can be fostered or inhibited through processes of learning and work ↑ performance in non-academic jobs. This places the focus on processes of social learning, which also influence other forms of competence development, such as being able to express compassion or to argue convincingly for something. The social conditions that enable the development of such kinds of competence form an essential characteristic of vocational training and the work milieu as well as non-work related contexts. Most notably they are an indication of whether those work and non-work related contexts function along hierarchical or rather along participatory structures.
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This chapter relates to a series of other contributions in this handbook dealing with the following areas: – ↑ VET Planning and development (see → 3.4) – Occupational Work and competence development (see → 3.6) – Shaping teaching and learning in TVET (see → 3.7) – Shaping work and technology (see → 3.8) – Evaluation, ↑ quality development and assurance (see → 5.4) – Methodological aspects (see → 5.1) – ↑ Experimental research designs (ERD) in vocational Education (see → 5.3.3) Being able to articulate a moral judgement does not only influence how an individual acts in work contexts, but also in other spheres of life. Hence, moral judgements also – and even in the first place – form part of research areas other than vocational education research, research of developmental psychology and îsocialisation research in particular. Investigations that aim at assessing how individuals achieve the ability to formulate moral judgements differ from the above-mentioned areas of vocational education research in their orientation towards a particular theoretical concept. This concept was developed by the ↑ US-American philosopher, psychologist and educationalist Lawrence E. Kohlberg (1927–1987) and further elaborated by numerous other social scientists (see KOHLBERG / ALTHOF 1995/1996; OSER /ALTHOF 1992). From research of developmental psychology and (also compare with) socialisation research the field stands out simply because it concentrates on occupational contexts and work-related phenomena. 3.6.7.2
Notional Clarifications
I conceptualise ‘moral’ as the regulation, coordination and evaluation of acting according to social norms that individuals establish and – although often disobeyed – members of the social group hold on to and define as being ‘right’. ‘Right’ in this context means that individuals, who accept those norms and act accordingly are respected as a person by their peers and valued as a member of the respective collective by others and also in their own view.
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Not accepting or disobeying such norms generates in other people expressions of disapproval and contempt, which (typically) evokes a feeling of inferiority in the ‘sinner’ (see LUHMANN 1989). ‘Moral competence’ relates to the ability to suggest solutions in cases of social conflicts and being able to justify these solutions in ways that all those involved as well as external observers can accept them – given that all these people are willing to listen to rational arguments. ‘Rational’ arguments are arguments the universal moral principles of which everybody can agree to – such as justice, thoughtfulness, truthfulness, tolerance and respect for human dignity – which are applied to other situations, contexts, people or reactions and adjusted in a differentiated manner (see KOHLBERG /ALTHOF 1995/1996). According to Kohlberg, developing the ability to express moral judgements follows a discontinuous process over three levels – the pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional level – each of which has two stages. Whether a higher stage can be reached sooner or later depends on the contextual factors and whether those are favourable or rather unfavourable. The transition from the fourth to the fifth stage – that is passing from the conventional to the post-conventional level – typically occurs after adolescence. The sixth stage is rather of theoretical nature than an empirical reality. It could hypothetically be observed if a ‘normal’ individual had not been taught any moral-philosophical principles at all. Kohlberg’s model of developmental stages is based on three extensive (see KOHLBERG 1958) ↑ longitudinal studies, of which the longest covered more then two decades. These studies provided the basis for him to continuously adjust and modify his results. His definition of the six stages remains highly controversial to date. He adhered, however, to the definition of the three levels as well as to the assumption that individuals can neither jump several stages at once, nor can there be any backward development. He also affirmed that all human beings – beyond any transition phases or particular contexts and situations – reason in a more or less homogeneous way. Since the unambiguous distinction between the different stages remains controversial – and be-
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cause we only know more about the social conditions that facilitate making the transition between the three different levels, I would here only like to briefly sketch those three major levels of moral thinking: individuals at the ‘pre-conventional’ level tend to be egocentric and unable to differentiate between subjective/individualistic and intersubjective/social principles. A socio-centric perspective dominates the ‘conventional’ level without being able to differentiate between particularistic principles that are only valid for some social entities, and universal, generally accepted principles that apply to everybody. This only occurs at the ‘post-conventional’ stage. At this level individuals are able to consider and balance both personal interests and social needs on the basis of general principles like justice, thoughtfulness and truthfulness. 3.6.7.3
Historical and Current Research
Kohlberg developed his stage model in his PhD thesis, completed in 1958. He based his ideas on a study of the Swiss development psychologist Jean Piaget, which in 1932 had already been published under the title “The Moral Judgement of the Child” (PIAGET 1973). In this study, he described the development of the child as a transition from the original heteronomy – an orientation towards following instructions and role models of authorities – to a first sense of (see KOHLBERG 1958) autonomy in terms of independently constructing and complying with simple moral rules. Kohlberg further developed this concept by adapting it to youth and adolescence. Later on, he, his colleagues, students and followers applied and empirically tested this stage model for all age groups and members of different cultures – as indicated earlier quite successfully. Only reaching a precise definition of the different stages required making adjustments and modifications, also from a theoretical point of view. Initially, Kohlberg investigated the development of moral judgement and how it manifests in everyday life, so to say ‘naturally’, without any pedagogic influence or manipulation. Very soon, however, he piloted some intervention measures in penal institutions and schools. Those could be considered ↑ pilot projects to systematically foster the devel-
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opment of moral judgement. In order to be able to do so, Kohlberg needed to not just consider an individual’s psychological preconditions for moralcognitive development – that is an individual’s logical – numeric intelligence and the ability to adopt a social point of view – but also the social conditions and barriers which one would expect to have a significant influence on the moral development if those were to be modified or altered. In brief: in order to be able to purposely (re)direct an individual’s moral development he was challenged to not just describe an individual’s development, but also to explain it on the basis of socialisation and ↑ education theory. Since the development of moral judgement extends into adulthood it was also necessary to consider vocational and work-related experiences. Kohlberg took this into account, but only conducted four retrospective (see his studies) case studies covering two medical doctors and two lawyers (these remained unpublished, but are imparted through Ann Higgins). Four cases, however, would not be enough to generalise the results. Even if retrospective enquiries cover larger samples, they are not adequate to assess the influence and possible consequences of social contexts – including occupational milieus – on moral thinking in a reliable manner. Rather it is necessary to carry out ↑ longitudinal studies. To date, however, those are rather scarce. This is not surprising if one considers the required efforts such kinds of investigations involve. I will further report on four of such longitudinal studies, two fieldwork projects and two intervention projects. The two field studies represent two methodological alternatives with their respective advantages and disadvantages, while the (compare, here, with the studies) intervention studies differ in the first place according to their investigated sample groups in the ↑ educational process, that is apprentices compared strainers. Field studies: Kohlberg’s approach at explanation as well as some subsequent assumptions of other social scientists – I hereby would like to refer to the studies of Garbarino/ Bronfenbrenner 1986) in particular – were taken up and combined by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (‘Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung’) towards the end of the 1970s and tested, for
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the first time, through an intensive ↑ longitudinal study. The study covered the period from 1980 to 1987 and involved 21 young skilled metal workers (HOFF / LEMPERT / LAPPE 1991). It was followed by another more standardised longitudinal study, which the University of Mainz conducted between 1989 and 1999 with 174 insurance clerk trainees. With the help of this latter study it was possible to further test Kohlberg’s model, resulting in its revision on the basis of theoretical arguments (BECK / DRANSFELD / MINNAMEIER / WUTTKE 2002; BIENENGRÄBER 2002). Both projects separately assessed the influence of pre-vocational, vocational and private social conditions on the development of moral judgement. The guiding hypotheses postulated that the development of moral judgement could be fostered by: – Manifest and severe social problems and conflicts; – Reliable esteem; – Relaxed communication; – Participative cooperation; – Appropriate ascription and acknowledgement of social responsibility; and – Room for alternative action and behaviour. The studies of the Max Planck Institute helped to substantiate these suppositions except that the open discussion of social conflicts did not seem to be a necessary condition for progressing in the developmental process. The study from the University of Mainz rather confirmed that high esteem, but also the open discussion of social conflicts, would particularly foster the development of moral judgement. The other conditions, which were assumed to potentially foster the development of moral judgement, were found to have hardly any or even contradictory effects, while due to theoretical difficulties the category ‘participative cooperation’ was ultimately abandoned. Furthermore, the studies revealed inconsistent forms of moral judgements and surprisingly fast progressions and setbacks, all of which contradicted Kohlberg’s theoretical assumptions and empirical findings. The studies conducted by the University of Mainz failed to reliably test the more differentiated hypotheses of Bienengräber, according to which the five remaining theoretically-relevant social conditions would not influence the competence to judge
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morally in general, but only some particular structural elements of this competence (as well as some of the psychological conditions of those structural elements). Bienengräber developed his hypotheses only after the empirical phase of data collection had already started. Improving the reliability of those studies had required modification of some of the applied variables. This, however, was not possible, because such modification would have limited the comparability of the annual survey data. That the results of both studies differed considerably can probably be attributed to their different methodological procedures (see → 3.6.7.5). Although only weakly supported by the study of the University of Mainz, one result of the studies that the Max Planck Institute conducted seems to be particularly relevant for vocational education research: as some of the initial hypotheses suggested, the development of moral judgement in some cases could primarily be explained by the characteristics of the variables that concerned the vocational training and/or work environment. The two intervention projects were only indirectly targeted at enhancing the level of moral reasoning. They are, however, worth mentioning, because they led the way out of a one-way ↑ research strategy that the direct reference to moral judgement was in danger of taking. The moral psychologist Fritz Oser from Fribourg initiated and led both studies. Schläfli (1986) documented in detail the first project, a two weeks intensive course with 50 apprentices of a major Swiss bank. The control group was comprised of 21 apprentices of the same company. Both courses were characterised by a series of ↑ learning targets and concrete steps to achieve those targets. Those were – as already mentioned – not directly related to the assessment of developmental progress in terms of moral judgement, because the project partners did not assume that such a progress could be achieved within weeks. Rather it would take several years before the impact of such an intervention displayed. Consequently, the emphasis was placed on some basic intrapersonal prerequisites that could easily be communicated to potentially foster the development of moral judgement. The following strategies were applied:
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– Explaining and exchanging information on relevant mental, social and moral dimensions (for example, concerning Kohlberg’s stage model). – Structured and guided discussions relating to a work-based or private, realistic or hypothetical dilemma – that is, experienced or invented unsolvable conflicts. – Realisation and comparisons. – Assessing and critically reviewing personal value structures. – Open group and plenary discussions. – Map exercises, role-playing and other group exercises. Those strategies can be interpreted as a means of trying to create an enabling environment that fosters the development of moral judgement, but of which the ↑ effectiveness is yet to be verified. Assigning responsibilities, however, was one element that was fully considered. Despite the intensive courses’ relatively short duration, four out of three project targets could be achieved. Even at a second point of intervention, which took place a half year later, the participants showed a more pronounced awareness and ability to manage conflicts and to engage in discussions and problem-solving. They also showed a stronger interest in social and general higher values than in the pre-tests, which took place before the intensive course. All participants had also changed their attitudes towards the course in that they now appreciated the course, while in the beginning they were rather indifferent or even disapproving. The second îintervention study was aimed at enhancing the ability of Austrian teachers to manage conflict situations in class. Latent or open conflicts should not only be better handled, but also resolved. Among other objectives, it was expected that students would increase their communication skills and learn more effectively due to a more peaceful classroom setting. Oser’s (1998) published final report of this study carried the somewhat inscrutable and provocative title “Ethos – the humanisation of success”. Like all the other studies, this advanced training course for teachers was also conducted, scientifically monitored and evaluated during the 1980s. It was based on comprehensive preparatory studies with Swiss teachers and students to test the interview procedures, guide-
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lines and questionnaires. These preparatory studies brought new insights concerning: – The kinds of conflicting responsibilities, which teachers experience in their working life, namely justice, thoughtfulness and truthfulness. – The kinds of decisions teachers can resort to in a conflict situation. These preparatory studies helped to develop a scale of five different forms of decision making: (1) Avoidance: Renouncing any kind of reaction and rejecting any kind of responsibility. (2) Safeguarding or delegation: Accepting responsibility, but only to a minimum degree by acting according to the least minimum requirements as specified by law, for example. (3) Unilateral decision: The teacher decides on his/her own, without consulting with the students or even considering their opinions. (4) Discourse I: The students are invited to participate and express their ideas, but are not allowed to decide. (5) Discourse II: After a discussion there follows some kind of reconciliation by voting. The vote of the teacher does not rank higher and cannot overrule the students’ votes. The role of the teacher, then, is to assess the weight and scope of potential conflicts and opt for the most adequate form of decision making respectively (number 1–5). Rather than actively intervening, the teacher instead facilitates the discussion and decision-making process. Although an agreement can probably only be reached when following ‘discourse II’, this procedure seems to be particular appropriate in the case of severe conflicts that do not over-challenge the students. However, teachers tend to underestimate the students’ capacities for problem solving. Typically they are not aware that the students are quite familiar with most kinds of conflicts at school. Moreover, some ‘trust in advance’ can have a motivating effect that positively influences the students’ learning, ↑ commitment and sense of responsibility. According to Oser, determining what kind of decision-making procedure is the most appropriate one presents a challenging task to teachers. It requires their sure instinct, which can, however, be fostered through training (see below).
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Teachers should be encouraged to follow some basic rules of discursive moderation of discussions, because most likely this will not only enhance the communicative skills of the participants, but – in the long run and even without any intention of provoking such an outcome – also their ability to articulate moral judgements. Challenged by controversial arguments that account for their equal status and different developmental stages students tend to support each other, as long as the teacher ensures that everybody has their’s say, can express their opinion (in the first person), stick to the topic, actively listen to and avoid interrupting others, respect the opinion of others, try to get clarification, etc. A disciplined method of discussion will also fulfil all of the social requirements for providing an enabling environment as specified earlier. Getting back to Oser’s report: if, with such an approach, the social conflicts can be resolved in a way that all those participating (or concerned) are happy with the solution, the learning outcomes are also likely to improve, because the conflict no longer attracts the attention of the learners. The title of Oser’s book itself “Ethos – the humanisation of success” alludes to this hypothesis. Concretely expressed, the learning process can be supported if the teacher displays some form of ethos. According to Oser, such a form of ethos is neither based purely on experience, nor does it emerge from ↑ intuition, which some teachers have more than others due to hereditary genes, internalised norms, externalised forces or specific role models. Rather it is based on ↑ professionalism, which can be learned. Oser tried to empirically test these suppositions by implementing a training course with 89 Austrian teachers, which was designed as a ↑ pilot project. The participating teachers spread across four different courses. Of those courses one was ethosand discourse-oriented, another emphasised a didactical method that would support the students’ independence, one course combined both elements and a final one was designed as a control group. Each course consisted of ten sessions, which were organised as follows: starting with a daily school situation, analysis, discussion, modelling alternative solutions through role playing and dealing with different tasks that could be linked to one’s
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own experience of school practice. Each group applied different methods and social practices. The central hypothesis suggested that in the ethos group the orientation towards discursive methods would rise notably. The results of the final testing supported this assumption. Even when assessed several months later the ethos group showed better results than in the pre-tests and than all the other groups at any given point of intervention. More details on the final overall assessment of these reported studies are presented later in this chapter (see → 3.6.7.5). 3.6.7.4
Methodological Specificities and Implications
The development of moral judgement is typically assessed by confronting individuals with a standardised dilemma relating to different spheres of life. The dilemma consists of confronting an individual with at least two conflicting norms or moral principles, which are further specified by standardised follow-up questions to scrutinise the participants’ reactions. With the help of an evaluation manual these reactions are documented and analysed later on. Each dilemma presented is classified according to a scale, which makes it possible to combine the different results into one value. This one value can represent the results in different formats expressed, for example, by an arithmetic mean, a mode or the highest developmental stage that can be represented by a particular statement of any of the participants. The moral judgements that the participants expressed – the so-called ↑ performance – is classified and linked to the participants’ underlying ability and competence to judge morally. The existing assessment tools vary, in the first place, in terms of: – The areas and contexts that the dilemma addresses; – How close the presented dilemma is to conflicts that the participants actually experience; – The degree of standardisation of possible responses. These can vary from open to semi-standardised or fully-standardised responses or multiple-choice tests. – Whether the dilemma and follow-up questions are presented orally or in a written format. The ex-
treme examples would be interviews on the one hand, and standardised questionnaires on the other hand. The latter two differences in particular imply a different level of validity; only open interview questions encourage the participants to use their full range of moral-cognitive competences and to suggest and justify a conflict solution that, in their view, all participants can agree to. By contrast, making a decision by marking alternative, standardised responses primarily appeals to the participants’ comprehension of the dilemma and, even most likely, only to their preference for a stagespecific justification. The most commonly applied assessment tools are: (1) The Moral-Judgement Interview (MJI) developed by Kohlberg and his associates. It exclusively relates to dilemmas of private life, which are quite remote from experiences of daily life. The response possibilities are open and not standardised (see KOHLBERG /ALTHOF 1995/1996). For this interview procedure an evaluation handbook covering two volumes is available. It comprises literal examples of stage-specific justifications of suggested solutions that refer to a concrete dilemma. This catalogue of stage-specific examples and justifications can be compared with interview sections and, under the condition of satisfactory levels of correspondence, be interpreted according to Kohlberg’s stage model (COLBY/KOHLBERG 1987). (2) The questionnaire on socio-moral reflection developed by Gibbs and Widaman (1982; also SRM – SF by GIBBS / BASINGER / FULLER 1992). It is similar to the MJI, but the responses are written down. As well as the MJI, this questionnaire supports the assessment of moral judgement by categorising independent or even creative expressions as the ability to judge morally in a given conflict situation. It can, however, only be considered an adequate tool when dealing with participants, who are able and skilled to express their views in writing. (3) The Defining-Issues-Test (DIT) developed by James Rest (1972); and (4) The Moral-Judgement-Test (MUT) developed by Georg Lind (1980). The last two assessment tools are multiple-choice tests that assess preferences for stage-specific justifications.
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The assessment and evaluation tools of the ↑ longitudinal studies and their related preparatory and ↑ pilot studies (on the development of moral judgement of teachers and students) that were introduced further above (see → 3.6.7.3) had to be developed by the project partners themselves. This is due to the fact that the researchers involved in these studies were, first of all, interested in how the individuals of the investigated sample groups deal with characteristic dilemmas of their daily life and work environment. With the MUT being the only exception, the assessment tools available so far neither presented dilemmas of daily life nor of the work context. The same applies to the related evaluation tools: The example expressions and statements that appear in the evaluation manuals are dilemma specific. Since it is not possible to transfer or adopt them to other dilemma situations, they cannot be used to analyse arguments and justifications that relate to other contexts (see SPANG / LEMPERT 1989). 3.6.7.5
Problems and Prospects
The empirical and analytical investigations and intervention projects presented thus far introduced possible alternative ↑ research approaches, but also pointed to some apparent problems. This suggests that the linear continuation of previous research can be considered to be somewhat problematic and that some re-orientation is required and needed. (1) So far we only know very little about the conditions that foster the development of the ‘right’ type of moral judgement based on general, consentoriented principles. Moreover, realising what is ‘right’ does not, as such, lead to and guarantee adequate action. We do not know which internal and external factors help to translate insight and understanding into concrete actions. Shedding light on this process should be one of the first tasks of future research on moral judgement. (2) The overall findings and results of the empirical and analytical investigations presented are rather poor despite the great efforts and time, material and personal resources involved. Investigating the socio-genesis of (vocational) moral attitudes could postulate a methodological dilemma that is difficult to resolve and that may be considered quite common in psycho-social research con-
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texts. In some cases we might have a relatively small sample and non- or semi-standardised methods and assessment tools, which support an intensive qualitative investigation based on interpretive understanding and analysis. The study, conducted by the Max Planck Institute with skilled workers represented this approach, which typically produces findings of high validity and to a great extent compatible with theoretical assumptions, but not representative. In other cases – like the study with apprentices conducted by the University of Mainz – the samples are larger, data collection is highly standardised and the findings are more (quantitatively) representative, but still cannot be generalised due to their low validity. The future will show whether it is possible to gain greater insight with ever-smaller samples, or smaller insight with everlarger samples, or whether these are specious alternatives and whether we ultimately have to come to an intelligent combination of both ↑ research traditions as has been achieved in research into life course and biography (see K LUGE /K ELLE 2001). (3) As concerns vocational practice, the research results, however, should not be undervalued. The observed problems of empirical ↑ research strategies are in the first place problematic in terms of conforming with Kohlberg’s stage model of moral judgement and adopting it to vocational and workrelated contexts. The described ↑ pilot projects as such, however, are rather sound. The complexity of the intensive course for bank clerk apprentices, for example, was not even expected to confirm a direct effect on improving the participants’ stage development in the Kohlberg sense. Rather it had a significant and lasting impact on other dimensions such as the establishment and acceptance of rules and habits of discursive practice. The objective of the teacher training course went in a similar direction by emphasising how a discursive habit can be initiated in severe conflict situations in school and how a regulated discursive approach can help to resolve such conflicts. As already mentioned, the ‘ethos group’, which concentrated on improving the teachers’ professional competence in initiating and guiding a moral-oriented discourse in school classes, scored higher than all other participating groups. In these studies, Kohlberg’s stages of development did not at all form part of the courses’
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contents, targets or learning objectives. Here, the stage model was only used as a diagnostic tool to test possible connections and correlations between particular target variables. (4) Based on these reasons, and because the definitions of the six development stages of the model are rather controversial, it would be advisable only to apply Kohlberg’s psycho-developmental model for particular investigations of basic research. This means not to apply Kohlberg’s evaluation scale any more to any kind of supportive interventions and only to carefully use it for psychological and pedagogical research. It seems much more appropriate in the framework of educational and vocational practice and vocational education research. Relating to vocational learning practice the ability to engage in a discursive process should be strengthened more than the development of moral judgement would, because the first one is much easier to identify than the latter, and by focusing on developing discursive competence the ability to judge morally is also enhanced without putting an extra effort into achieving this. Discursive competence seems to be more flexibly applicable, while at the same time resulting in an equally effective potential for problem solving and conflict management. But this competence is more universally applicable and hence more relevant in terms of concrete actions. The competence of moral judgement and discursive competence can be considered forms of communicative competence. When it comes to investigating and supporting this competence, a new prioritisation should strengthen the discursive, dialogue-oriented competence instead of the monologue-oriented ability.
3.6.8
Vocational Identity Sabine Raeder
3.6.8.1
Vocational Identity in the Context of Change
Due to the current changes in the world of work and the increasingly necessary flexibility, identity has re-emerged as a subject for discussion. Critics
like Richard Sennett (1998) doubt that people succeed in developing a sound identity, if they face the demand to act highly flexibly in their working life. Sennett points to the fragility and aimlessness of individual schemes of life, which are determined by economic development and uncertain employment opportunities. Such a critique is implicitly based on the assumptions of classical identity theories like that of Erikson (1959). These assume that a self-definition achieved in adolescence is a prerequisite for an identity construction remaining coherent during adulthood. Identities that continue to develop through adulthood do not conform to the normative assumption of lifelong continuity and are therefore not perceived as sound. Contrary to these traditional assumptions researchers like Keupp et al. (1999) and Rattansi and Phoenix (1997) regard the development of such identity constructions as necessary and as opening up new opportunities. In this chapter I aim to define ↑ vocational identity as the result of a lifelong process of interaction between work and identity (cf. HOFF 1994). Stability and continuity in one’s occupation are not supposed to be prerequisites for the development of a sound identity. Consequences derived for VET refer to such processes of defining one’s identity and relating to work. On the one hand, VET should offer assistance in the continuous process of redefining one’s ↑ vocational identity and reorienting in the field of occupation. On the other hand, it should indicate options of linking occupation and education to one’s identity definition. In this chapter I present four approaches towards researching vocational identity: social identity, life context, biographical and psychological approaches. All approaches capture important aspects of identity in work contexts, but none succeeds in integrating all relevant aspects to a comprehensive approach. My aim is to show the strengths and limitations of all the approaches and to argue for more integrative research. 3.6.8.2 Definition The terms ‘identity’ and ‘↑ vocational identity’ are applied in a variety of contexts. In order to present an unambiguous definition, despite the existing variety in the use of these terms, I refer to a psycho-
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logically motivated concept of personal identity and derive vocational identity from this concept. One of the advantages of the psychological definition is that it focuses on the person and personal experience, while other approaches concentrate on the interrelation of person and work context without clearly picturing the individual. The psychological approach permits the analysis of work-related self-perceptions. Frey and Hausser (1987) understood personal identity as the “self-reflexive process of an individual” (4). In this self-reflexive process individuals develop a structure based on their experiences and establish relations between these experiences. A “system of relations” (7) called identity develops. An isolated self-related cognition or self-description is therefore only one aspect of the whole identity. Hausser (1995; see also RAEDER / GROTE 2007) suggested a structural model of personal identity comprised of three dimensions: self-concept, self-esteem and ↑ locus of control. The dimension selfconcept is further divided into the aspects: – Biographical continuity, – Ecological consistency, – Consequence in the relation of attitudes and behaviour, – Authenticity in the relation of emotion and behaviour, – Individuality and – Equality. As defined by Hausser, vocational identity relates to one sphere of life and is therefore one part of a whole personal identity. This structural model is embedded in a process model, defining identity development as a continuing process of generalisation and specification of identity-relevant experiences. The frequently-voiced critique that identity development is understood as a process that ends with adolescence (i.e. K EUPP 1997) can thus be taken into account. Identity development can be extended to adulthood. In the context of changes in work and careers the dimension ↑ locus of control and the aspects of the self-concept biographical continuity and ecological consistency prove to be important. The dimension of locus of control refers to decision and control in ongoing processes. The aspects of biograph-
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ical continuity and ecological consistency reflect Erikson’s main identity concerns. In the context of work-related changes, the golden thread of occupation does not guarantee continuity any more. Consistency between spheres of life is questioned, if people are confronted with contradictory behavioural demands in different life contexts and if they are urged to focus on their occupation, e. g. investing time for enhancing their qualification. Parallels between these identity dimensions and the dimensions chosen by the empirical approaches to be presented will be shown. Starting from Hausser’s definition of identity I seek to show the variety in concepts and empirical approaches researching ↑ vocational identity. 3.6.8.3 Social Identity Approaches to Vocational Identity Social Identity Theory (e. g. ELLEMERS / SPEARS / DOOSJE 2002) captures vocational identity as identification with an ↑ occupational field or affiliation to a social or professional group (e. g. DICK / WAGNER 2002). Identification represents the social identity component. The terms vocational identity and identification or ↑ commitment are used synonymously. They serve to describe the relation between person and occupation. The European research team FAME defined vocational identity as identification with the job and the ↑ profession (BROWN /K IRPAL / RAUNER 2007; K IRPAL 2004b). The acronym FAME stands for Vocational Identity, ↑ Flexibility and ↑ Mobility in the European ↑ Labour Market. The FAME team analysed vocational identities while considering the context of vocational education and training, historical development and economic features. The sample consisted of employees and employers from seven European countries. The study resulted in a continuum of forms of work identities leading from a classical to a flexible, individualised work identity. The classical form was characterised by high identification with the company and the work task. People of the classical form perceived work-related changes as a threat owing to a lack of personal resources like qualification, motivation or self-esteem. People belonging to the flexible identity form made use of flexibility and competence development for achieving their goals.
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Commitment towards the company or the occupation was subordinated to these goals. Many study participants developed forms of adaptation to flexibility demands lying between these poles of the continuum. The FAME team recommended that VET should support people in developing trust in the acquired skills and in assuming responsibility for one’s own career development (→ 3.6.1). Besides professional skills, VET should train methods skills and social skills, enhance process-related learning and provide support and orientation in learning and developmental processes. In their skill-related approach Mieg and Woschnack (2002) regarded vocational identity as the subjective perception of work skills. Mieg and Woschnack surveyed environmental experts concerning their professional experiences and expertise. Applying Hausser’s conceptual dimensions of self-concept, self-esteem and locus of control, they measured cognitive, evaluating and deductive components of professional skills (→ 3.6.9). The authors depicted a process that is related to the person and to the occupation, but confined to skill-related aspects. The system of relations of Frey and Hausser (1987) was analysed in certain aspects and not in reference to the whole person. These social identity approaches towards vocational identity have succeeded in providing a thorough description of the context in which personal identities develop and in showing how context and identities relate to one another. Such knowledge about continuous processes provides crucial information for VET, which may be applied in order to assist people to manage their own identification process with their profession and work. Corresponding recommendations were developed in the FAME project. VET has to consider that changes take place as a consequence of individual developmental processes as well as a response to external demands. 3.6.8.4
Life Context Approaches to Vocational Identity
Baethge, Hantsche, Pelull and Voskamp (1988) analysed the identity of adolescents in the transition from education to occupation (→ 4.6). The authors developed four types of life styles, which show the relative importance of different spheres of life
in adolescents’ lives. The resulting types are: the work-oriented ↑ life concept, the life concept with balance between work and private life, the family-oriented life concept with subordinated importance of work and the leisure-oriented life concept with substantial ↑ distance to work. The authors define the individual life concept as being synonymous with identity. From a psychological perspective, the personal interpretation of the life concept would be necessary for understanding personal identity constructions. In their research on the ideal type of the “entreployee”, Pongratz and Voß (2003; VOSS / PONGRATZ 1998) emphasised that changes in work and in attitudes towards work affect personal identities. They conceptualised the ideal type within the dimensions of self-control, self-commercialisation and self-rationalisation. Self-control refers to the necessity to self-reliantly plan, control, and monitor one’s work. Self-economisation requires the “entreployee” to actively produce his work potential and to sell it to internal or external clients. Self-rationalisation signifies the self-determined organisation of time allocation between work and private life. Limits between spheres of life have to be handled flexibly and working time may spill over into private time. In their qualitative study of 60 employees of six companies Pongratz and Voß found 15 people who corresponded to the ideal type of the entreployee. These people aimed to optimise their ↑ performance, to autonomously develop their potential for the ↑ labour market and to flexibly manage the time allocation between work and private life. Pongratz and Voß do not focus on identity, but show how vocational identities are embedded in the changing work contexts. Billett (2007) analysed the diverse and contradictory goals of employers and employees concerning employees’ ↑ participation in a life-long learning process. He focused on the individual’s motivation to start such a process. The five individuals who participated in this study adapted well to transformations in their working life. They succeeded in developing their sense of self through changes in their working life and through the interplay of work and private life. Owing to the small sample Billet managed to highlight the personal accounts, which contained identity-related information like
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the subjects’ sense of self in the learning and adaptation processes. These life context approaches to ↑ vocational identity show parallels to Hausser’s identity model and the self-concept aspect of ecological consistency. The authors address the compatibility of behavioural demands in different spheres of life: Baethge et al. (1988) as the main theme of the identity types; Pongratz and Voß as self-rationalisation and its competitive time allocation between spheres of life; Billet as focuses on spheres of life – equally emphasised in ecological consistency. The results of these studies provide information on the interaction between external demands and personal reactions. VET should provide a platform for communication and personal exchange in order to strengthen the individuals’ resources for dealing with such demands and finding orientation in such processes. 3.6.8.5 A Biographical Approach to Vocational Identity Based on a biographical approach in a ↑ longitudinal study with adolescents, Heinz (2002a) elaborated a typology of six modes of biographical agency belonging to three categories. The category Status Arrangement consisted of people who emphasised continuity in their career characterised either by high loyalty to the employer or by looking for job security and a reasonable salary. This category included the modes of Company Identification and Wage-Worker Habitus. The category of Advancement Ambition consisted of people who either intended to climb the career ladder or to gain responsibility without aiming at the next career step. The respective modes are those of Career Orientation and Optimising Chances. The category of Autonomy Gain described people who concentrated on their development with a focus either on their own personality or on setting up their own business. This category subsumed the modes of Personal Growth and Self-Employment Habitus. These six career types varied in their experiences of discontinuity and flexibility in their life course. People belonging to the modes of Personal Growth and Optimising Chances decided for a temporary time-out for travelling or learning languages. People belonging to the modes of Career
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Orientation and Optimising Chances invested time in further training or higher education. People belonging to the mode of Personal Growth used periods of unemployment for a vocational reorientation. Women belonging to the modes of Company Identification and Wage-worker Habitus interrupted employment for their family. Heinz presented one of the few ↑ longitudinal studies. He succeeded in showing from this longitudinal perspective how lifestyle and personal desire to make sense of one’s life interrelate. The study does not explicitly refer to identity. Parallels to the identity dimensions exist due to the continuity, which is constructed in the course of one’s career, the compatibility of work and ↑ commitment to non-work activities and the ability to influence and control one’s ↑ work biography. Contrary to a psychological approach, these dimensions are filled with an autobiographical account instead of a psychological description. By analysing people’s biographies embedded in their life context the study offers information for understanding vocational identities. It shows individual development after apprenticeship. Such a longitudinal design allows for assessing how measures implemented by VET influence work biographies and vocational identities. 3.6.8.6
Psychological Approaches to Vocational Identity
Holland, Daiger and Power (1980) presented the probably best-known concept of ↑ vocational identity. They defined vocational identity as “the possession of a clear and stable picture of one’s goals, interests, personality, and talents” (ibid., 1). Holland et al. distinguished between six identity types: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional. Each type is characterised by vocational interests, life goals and values, self-beliefs and problem solving style. Work environments correspond to each identity type. Holland et al. assumed that an optimal fit between vocational identity and work environment leads to job success and personal satisfaction. People are supposed to remain in a congruent occupation despite career changes and work flexibility (GOTTFREDSON 1999). Holland’s concept has been widely applied in vocational counselling. It is based on
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the normative assumption that clarity of vocational interests implies higher personal maturity. It further assumes that an optimal fit between identity and work may be achieved. It therefore restricts the developmental options to one’s identity type. The concept allows the analysis of the interrelation between person and work, but it is not as specific as the social identity approaches.
Identity States Marcia (1980) expanded Erikson’s (1959) concept of identity as a phase specific developmental task. Contrary to Erikson, Marcia assumed that identity states are not confined to a particulare age and that someone may pass through a state repeatedly. Thus identity develops throughout the whole course of life. People may simultaneously experience different identity states in different spheres of life. Marcia focused on occupational choice and position in working life as well as attitudes towards religion and politics. He distinguished four identity states: achieved identity, foreclosure, diffuse identity and moratorium. He described individuals of these four identity states in the following way: “Identity Achievements are individuals who have experienced a decision-making period and are pursuing selfchosen occupation and ideological goals. Foreclosures are persons who are also committed to occupational and ideological positions, but these have been parentally chosen rather than self-chosen. They show little or no evidence of ‘crisis’. Identity Diffusions are young people who have no set occupational or ideological direction, regardless of whether or not they may have experienced a decision-making period. Moratoriums are individuals who are currently struggling with occupational and/or ideological issues; they are in an identity crisis” (161).
Although Marcia assumed that identity is continuously being reflected upon, he regarded the identity achieved as the goal of a successful identity development. Marcia’s theory therefore normatively judges identity states.
The Development of Work-Related Locus of Control In a ↑ longitudinal study Hoff, Lempert and Lappe (1991) analysed the development of work-related ↑ locus of control in a sample of skilled workers. The authors regarded locus of control as a part of
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one’s personality. Instead of measuring it quantitatively, they concentrated – corresponding to identity research – on the individual development of locus of control and its integration into the concept of self. The authors distinguished deterministic locus of control – internal (events are determined by the person), external (events are determined by the situation) and fatalistic (events are determined by chance or fate) – and interactionist locus of control (events are determined by an interaction of person and situation). At the beginning of the study internal locus of control, additive-deterministic locus of control (e. g. events are either determined by the person or the situation) and interactionist locus of control were equally distributed in the sample, while few participants expressed a fatalistic locus of control. In the second wave six years later fatalistic locus of control had vanished and five participants had adopted an additive-deterministic or interactionist locus of control. The authors concluded that coexisting individual options and situational constraints as well as experiences of conflict fostered the development of an interactionist locus of control. Hausser (1995) integrated this concept of an interactionist locus of control into his identity research. Hoff et al. presented a very focused approach. They therefore succeed in combing identity-relevant information with the concise description of the work context as a setting for identity development.
Continuity-Oriented and Flexible Identity Types Based on those of Hausser’s (1995) identity dimensions important for ↑ career changes – i.e. biographical continuity, ecological consistency and locus of control – I developed a typology of workrelated identities (RAEDER / GROTE 2004). The typology was based on qualitative and quantitative data. The sample consisted of adults from various ↑ occupational groups and educational levels. Through a process of communicative validation (LECHLER 1982) identity was understood in the qualitative part of the study as subjects’ self-perception. The typology comprised a Continuous, a Job-Centred, a Critical-Flexible and a Self-Determined Type. The Continuous Type was characterised by the most prominent “golden thread” which
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led through the ↑ work biography. The Job-Centred Type reported the lowest consistency between the spheres of life often caused by a dominance of working life. The Self-Determined Type showed a high internal locus of control, i.e. attributing control to personal factors, opposed to the interactionist locus of control, i.e. attributing control to situational and personal factors, which was predominant in the other types. The identity types differed in their position in working life. Comparably many people with a continuous career, as well as managers, appeared in the Continuous and Job-Centred Type. In the Critical-Flexible and Self-Determined Type there were more employees without managerial functions, more employees working in highly flexible companies and more people who had had a career change. Opposed to all other types, the Critical-Flexible Type negatively assessed the flexibility demands of employers. The results highlighted the fact that the widely postulated high individual flexibility does at present not enhance a successful career. Combining identities and work perceptions implies an interrelation. The cross-sectional survey, however, does not allow conclusions about reciprocal interaction processes. Compared to the first three approaches presented in this chapter the psychological approach captures the person and the individual development more concisely. The dimensions of work and education remain however – except for the study of Hoff et al. (1995) – rather abstract. The results emphasise that VET should offer occasions for discussing such interactions and for reflecting on the personal consequences of stability and change related to work. It should attempt to mentally prepare people for such reflection processes. 3.6.8.7
Methodological Issues and Implications
Many of the studies cited were examining ↑ vocational identity by means of interviews and were relying on small samples. They therefore succeeded in capturing the references to work and private life holistically. This is a clear advantage compared to studies with standardised questionnaires limited to few identity relevant aspects (cf. HAUSSER 1995). The methodical approaches insufficiently considered the conceptual aspects of self-perception and
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developmental process. It has to be assumed that the categories for structuring and interpreting the data selected by the research do not correspond to categories that the individual would choose for a self-description. I showed that people accept the theoretically developed identity categories for describing their identity (RAEDER / GROTE 2007), but they probably would choose other means of describing themselves. There is little knowledge about the processes of specification and generalisation, which lead to the development of the individual identity concept. Longitudinal designs, which are the method of choice for understanding identity development were only applied by Hoff et al. (HOFF / LEMPERT / LAPPE 1991) and Heinz (2002a). ↑ Research designs in future studies should focus on improving these limitations. 3.6.8.8 Future Directions In the context of flexibility of work and education, occupation is assumed to be formed during the whole course of life. Periods of unemployment and voluntary or situation-contingent processes of new orientation may appear. The question how this affects the interrelation between identity, work and education has not yet been answered by the existing studies. Additionally, VET is requested to make options and prospects for the individual development of ↑ vocational identity visible. Supporting the development of the work-related self-definition VET defines alternatives and provides prerequisites, e. g. professional skills. Such specified options of defining oneself and one’s occupation help people to imagine themselves in a certain occupation or a certain occupation in their life. The changeability of this self-definition in the course of life and career should be taken into account. It is necessary that measures implemented in VET and addressed to participants in learning processes, which are not yet subject to changes, are evaluated. Such an evaluation has to rely on ↑ longitudinal studies in order to assess the impact of these measures.
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3.6.9
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Professionalisation Harald A. Mieg
3.6.9.1
Professionalisation as a Notion and a Social Phenomenon
↑ Professionalisation, in a strong sense, denotes the transformation of an occupation into a ↑ profession, that is an occupation with a certain autonomy in defining and ↑ controlling the standards of the work of its members. Professionalisation in a wide sense denotes the transition towards paid work that is subject to binding ↑ quality standards. In this wide sense, people and activities can be professionalised, gaining in ↑ professionalism. Professionalisation is a main subject of the Anglo-American sociology of professions that developed at the beginning of the 20th century. One of the first milestones was the book by Carr-Saunders and Wilson (CARR-SAUNDERS / WILSON 1933). The discussion had long been occupied by the focus on the medical and legal professions and the attempts to define professions in contrast to occupations (→ 2.3). Today, this approach is considered fruitless. Not later than the work by Freidson (2001), research in the sociology of professions turned towards the notion and phenomenon of professionalism. Freidson understands professionalism as a third organisational logic of work besides the market logic and the logic of planning or bureaucratic administration. In contrast to market and planning, professionalism means the ↑ self-organisation and self-regulation of experts. Today, Eliot Freidson is considered to be the main scholar on professions and the main advocate of today’s professions (FREIDSON 1983; 1986; 1994; 2001). From a historical point of view, we have to distinguish two forms of professionalisation: on the one hand professionalisation “from within”, with the occupation being the driver and owner of the process of professionalisation. On the other hand professionalisation “from above” with the occupation being subject to governmental regulation. In England and the ↑ US, the ↑ professions typically developed “from within” and gained a strong social status. In Germany and ↑ France, we find the Continental pattern of ↑ professionalisation: the main occupations had been shaped “from above”
by state defined education programmes and regulations for occupational work. The Anglo-American and Continental forms of professionalisation were most pronounced in the 19th century (CONZE / KOCKA 1985). Without taking into account their historical roots, we would have difficulties understanding the difference between the Anglo-American professions and the German freie Berufe or the French professions liberales. From the historical perspective, professionalisation is an open-ended process (cf. MIEG 2003) or a historically traceable strategy with which an occupation tries to “raise its economic and social status in a capitalist market and class society” (SIEGRIST 1985, 329, translated). Theories of professionalisation have to explain why particular occupations – the professions – have gained a relatively extended autonomy. This autonomy becomes obvious in the control of working conditions, for instance – The power to define occupational education – The control of market entry – The power to define, organise and evaluate the quality of work. The power to define and evaluate their own standards for work is the core characteristic of professions. Industrial production and craftsmanship are subject to various regulations or specifications regarding the quality of the outcome. The self-regulation of professional work is realized not only by standards, but also by professional contests and a profession’s influence on the filling of qualified posts. Even though the definition of professions is controversial, there are some general conditions for professionalisation. Knowledge of these conditions allows delimitation of the set of professions and shows directions for theorizing (MIEG 2003). These conditions are: (1) First of all, there are specific tasks which involve a high degree of uncertainty and require specialized knowledge. For instance, the medical profession is concerned with explaining and curing illnesses of the human body. Andrew Abbott shows in his book “The system of professions” (ABBOTT 1988) how occupations compete with one another for jurisdiction on certain tasks, applying abstract knowledge on causation and cures.
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(2) Secondly, there is a socially central value involved in these tasks. The medical profession can refer to the value of health, the law profession to justice, environmental professionals to nature protection. As with the values of health and justice, reference to a socially shared value can be used to define and legitimize particular professional work and its particular rewards. (3) Thirdly, there is a growing body of academic knowledge. Not all professions have evolved from universities, particularly not the English law profession. Today, an abstract, academic ↑ knowledge base is indispensable for professional work, the reason being that the lifetime of concrete, technical knowledge is shortening dramatically. In contrast, abstract knowledge – for instance on functional relations of the human body or of natural systems – survives for longer times than concrete, technical knowledge. (4) Fourthly, there is a national professional association. Professions are organized ↑ occupational groups. To first found a local professional association and then a national professional association is seen as one milestone in the process of professionalisation (cf. WILENSKY 1964). A profession forms a guild-like “community within a community” (GOODE 1957). Processes of professionalisation play an important role in vocational education. We can ask: – Do new professions develop? For instance in the ↑ IT business or in the field of environmental services? (e. g. LEAL FILHO 2001) – How can we explain the current “appeal and attraction of the concept of ↑ professionalism”? (EVETTS / MIEG / FELT 2006) Is the self-control of professionals a new form of decentralized occupational control? (FOURNIER 1999) – What is the relationship between professionalised work and volunteer work? Can we professionalise volunteer work? (MCCURLEY/ LYNCH 1989; MIEG / WEHNER 2004) – Do ↑ professions provide new anchors for professional identities in a world of de-regularized work? (HELLBERG / SAKS / BENOIT 1999) – What is the relationship between professionalised science and society today? (KURZ-MILCKE / GIGERENZER 2004)
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3.6.9.2
The Anglo-American Family of Theories of the Sociology of Professions
The Anglo-American sociology of professions is historically dominated by the discussion on two diverging theoretical approaches: on the one hand functionalism, that is linked to the works of Parsons (PARSONS 1939; 1951; 1968) and Goode (GOODE 1957); on the other hand the power approach, that can be considered as a reaction and counter-concept to functionalism. The power approach is linked with the works of Johnson (JOHNSON 1967; 1977) and Larson ( LARSON 1977). Functionalism is based on the idea that professions take over socially important tasks and therefore obtain certain rights and obligations. From this point of view, the medical profession takes care of the health system, the juridical profession the law system, and so on. As to the rights of professions, we find certain autonomy and salaries above average. As to the obligations, we find certain “altruism” or service orientation: according to Talcott Parsons, a profession guarantees “socially responsible uses” (PARSONS 1968, 536). From the power-approach perspective, professions are essentially economic-social monopolies, as they control certain ↑ occupational fields. According to Johnson (1977), professions are characterized by their power to define the types of clients’ needs as well as the types of services involved. Professions render their clientele dependent on their services. From this point of view, professional altruism is an ideology and serves to legitimize collective ends of ↑ occupational groups of the new middle class. Besides these two lines of theorizing there is the professional-client interaction approach. From this point of view, ↑ professionalism is characterized by the type of professional action. Therefore the interaction between professional and client becomes relevant and professional action is considered as people professing. The focus is now on how the professions present themselves towards their clients or audience. Hughes uses the expression: “Professionals profess” (HUGHES 1965, 2). Within the boundaries of the Anglo-American sociology of professions, there have been several attempts to define ↑ professionalisation and to find
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empirical evidence for professionalisation as a process. Wilensky considered professionalisation as a sequence of seven steps (WILENSKY 1964): (1) a job becomes a full-time occupation; (2) establishing a training school; (3) establishing a university program; (4) founding a local professional association; (5) founding a national professional association; (6) creation of a state license; (7) creation of a code of ethics. Taking up this line of research, Abbott showed that the sequence can change depending on the particular level of political organisation, including the local, municipal level, the state-level, and the national level (ABBOTT 1991). International comparisons taught us to understand professionalisation as a pattern with lots of variants (cf. TORSTENDAHL / BURRAGE 1990; BURRAGE / TORSTENDAHL 1990). Hall (1968) examined the correlation between the grade of professionalisation of occupational groups and the individual need for autonomy of the members of these occupational groups. He could show that members of professions with high professional autonomy like physicians worked in organisations with less bureaucratic structure than members of professions with low professional autonomy such as nurses or accountants. Accordingly, members of groups with high professional autonomy experienced more conflicts with bureaucratic structures. However, thirty years of research on role conflicts of professionals within bureaucratic organisations have not yielded consistent results (cf. MIEG 2001). Even today there is evidence for an influence of the grade of professionalisation of an occupational group on the ↑ professional identity of its members (MIEG / WOSCHNACK 2002). Dietrich Rueschemeyer analysed the relationship of power and knowledge, particularly the power of “groups in control of a certain ↑ body of knowledge” (RUESCHEMEYER 1986, 104). Since “the rapidly increasing use of knowledge is characteristic of the modern world”, Rueschemeyer proposes that ↑ professionalisation should be understood “as the development of institutional forms for this vastly expanded use of knowledge” (104). Moreover, he considers the concept of professionalisation as a means of integrating the Anglo-American mar-
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ket-based view of ↑ professions with the Continental bureaucratic administration-based view. Today, there is some consensus on considering knowledge as the base of modern societies and the driver of occupational change. Some scholars propose to understand professions as knowledge-based occupations (cf. EVETTS 2003) – which would mean a far-reaching generalisation of the concept of professions, compared to the traditional understanding. 3.6.9.3
The Continental Family of Theories of the Sociology of Professions
When speaking of the Continental family of theories of the sociology of professions, we have to keep in mind that there are no direct equivalents to professions in Continental Europe. In ↑ France, “professions” denote occupations in general, in German the word “Profession” is used to state one’s membership of an occupation but does not denote a certain class of occupations. The Continental equivalents of Anglo-American professions are professions liberales (France) and Freie Berufe (Germany) which mean “free” occupations. The term “free” stems from the seven liberal arts: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. Since the Roman times, the study of liberal arts was only open for free and wealthy citizens. In the medieval universities, it became the core curriculum and prerequisite for the study of theology, medicine or law. In Continental Europe, sociological theories on professions – or occupations in general – are closely linked to general sociological theorizing. Durk heim, studying the moral base of society (see DURKHEIM 1992), considered ↑ professionalism as a form of moral community based on occupational membership. Max Weber, studying economics and society (see WEBER 1972), considered “freie Berufe” like lawyers, physicians, artists, as a privileged occupational class with a high potential for influencing the economic policies of political and other associations. Today, there are several individual contributions to the sociology of professions with their roots in European sociology. In particular, we see a growing appeal of the discourse of professionalism in work and organisations (EVETTS / MIEG / FELT 2006). The analysis
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of this appeal of professionalism (e. g. FOURNIER 1999) is based on Foucauldian concepts of legitimacy (FOUCAULT 1979) and of the control of autonomous subjects exercising appropriate, “normal” conduct (FOUCAULT 1980). With respect to professions as systems, Foucault (1979) argued that the development of particular forms of expertise was a crucial element in the formation of governmentality from the 16th century onwards. Fournier (FOURNIER 1999) shows how today the use of the discourse of professionalism in a large privatised service company of managerial labour serves to inculcate “appropriate” work identities, conducts and practices. She considers this as “a disciplinary logic which inscribes ‘autonomous’ professional practice within a network of accountability and governs professional conduct at a distance” (FOURNIER 1999, 280).
This interpretation can also assist in understanding the appeal of professionalism as a mechanism of occupational change in the modern world. In the context of modern German sociology, a revised model of professionalisation has been developed by Ulrich Oevermann. The model focuses on the professional-client interaction, and its core idea is: “professional practice is dedicated to and provoked by the function of vicarious crisis management” (OEVERMANN 2001, 3). In other words, the professional helps the client to master some kind of serious personal problems. Oevermann claims that there are exactly three sorts of crises and crisis management that are amenable to professional help: (1) the creation and maintenance of somato-psychic-social integrity (e. g. medical ↑ profession, ↑ social work, psychotherapy…) (2) the maintenance of justice and the law (e. g. lawyers) (3) creation and examination of the validity of liable empirical, normative, ethic, aesthetic and logical knowledge (e. g. scientists) Oevermann also claims that these “three focuses of ↑ professionalisation” are exhaustive, disjunctive and necessary from a functional point of view (OEVERMANN 2001, 15). According to Oevermann (1996) there are ↑ occupational groups such as teaching and social work that need further professionalisation; moreover, there are occupational groups such as engineers that are as a matter
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of fact professionalised but do not require professionalisation from a theoretical point of view. Oevermann’s theory is as influential as it is disputed within German sociology of professions (cf. MIEG / PFADENHAUER 2003). If there is any single thread running through the international sociological discussion on professionalisation, combining Anglo-American and Continental versions of the sociology of professions, then it is social closure (MURPHY 1988): professionalisation results in institutionalized forms of the separation of experts from non-experts. 3.6.9.4
Integration of the Psychological and Sociological Perspectives on Professionalisation
The study of individual development of special skills and specialized knowledge is the domain of the psychology of expertise (cf. CHI / GLASER / FARR 1988; ERICSSON / CHARNESS / FELTOVICH /HOFFMAN 2006; → 3.4.2). Typical examples are playing chess at master level and medical diagnoses. The psychology of expertise makes use of an undifferentiated notion of the expert according to which experts are high performers or – from a differential point of view – the 10 per ent best-performing members of a group (ERICSSON / SMITH 1991). There are some robust results of research of the psychology of expertise: – Expertise is ↑ domain-specific, that is skills and knowledge in one domain are – in general – not transferable to other domains. – Expertise does not depend on general abilities such as intelligence or memorizing capacities. – There is a ten-year rule: in general, the development of expertise requires ten years of ↑ specific training or: “deliberate practice” (ERICSSON / K RAMPE / TESCH-ROEMER 1993). In sum, we see a domain-specific adaptation of experts to a domain (cf. MIEG 2001). Thus, expertise consists in specialized, experience-based structures of perception and behaviour. Today, the expert work has been institutionalized, the main version being professionals and professions. Or in the words of Andrew Abbott: “Professionalism has been the main way of institutionalizing expertise in industrialized countries” (ABBOTT 1988, 323).
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Abbott analysed professional work and described the following sequence (see Fig. 1): (1) ↑ Diagnosis: “assembles clients’ relevant needs into a picture and then places this picture in the proper diagnostic category” (41). (2) Inference: “takes the information of diagnosis and indicates a range of treatments with their predicted outcomes” (40). (3) Treatment “Like diagnosis, treatment imposes a subjective structure on the problems with which a profession works” (44).
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tence. Using Figure 1, we can distinguish several expert roles (cf. MIEG 2000; 2006), for instance – Professionals: they are responsible for the whole task as sketched in Fig. 1. – Researchers/analysts: their core responsibility is the correctness of analyses (diagnosis component). – Formal experts/decision support experts: they support decision making, focusing on the inference component. In this context ↑ professionalisation means that expert roles are extended and now encompass the
Fig. 1: Components of professional work (ABBOTT 1988)
According to Abbott, inference is the main component of professional work (see also SCHÖN 1991) that represents the core of professional autonomy. Inference, says Abbott, is a “purely professional act” (ABBOTT 1988, 40). A professional can easily outsource ↑ diagnosis and treatment to specialists. In fact, a normal doctor who runs his or her own surgery uses the help of specialized firms or coworkers for the analysis of blood and tissue. And in some cases the doctor will prescribe treatments that have to be executed by others, e. g. nurses or the parents of a sick child. However, the inference of a particular medical treatment from a particular diagnosis is the doctor’s job. In complicated or unusual cases, the doctor can delegate the inference to a colleague (not a subordinate!). But the delegation of all inference problems would be the end of the doctor’s practice. Hawkins (HAWKINS 1992) and Freidson (FREIDSON 2001) speak of “discretion” instead of “inference”. The inference component also includes discretion with regard to methods that should be applied. We can expect that professionals run into conflicts with collaborators whenever they feel restricted in their discretion to make professional inferences (for evidence see MIEG 2000). We have to keep in mind that acting as an expert is not only based on specialized knowledge and work but also on an attribution of an expert role to the particular expert by non-experts (cf. MIEG 2001). The core of this role is the attribution of compe-
whole process of professional work (as in Fig. 1). Obviously, professionalisation comprises more than just expertise and expert roles. As Fig. 2 shows, we have to distinguish several levels: (1) the individual level with regard to the specific individual competence (or expertise); (2) the group level with regard to the particular ↑ occupational group or professional association; (3) the task level with regard to the degree of inherent autonomy Specific research themes result from connecting these levels, such as: – The sort of professional qualification (→ 3.1.5; → 3.4.1) – The question of ↑ professional identity (→ 3.6.8) – The phenomenon of interprofessional competition As has been discussed in the previous two chapters, professionalisation – at the level of an occupational group – is accompanied by social closure. Professionalised groups not only tend to establish internal working standards but also to defend the power of their particular domain of discretion against claims from other occupations.
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Fig. 2: Systematisation of the field of research on professionalisation
3.6.9.5
Abstraction and Interprofessional Competition
According to Andrew Abbott (ABBOTT 1988), ↑ professions have to be seen within a system. The system is centered around work and consists of professions and their links to particular tasks. Abbott calls the link between a ↑ profession and its tasks jurisdiction. The professions compete with one another for control of particular tasks. The “currency” of this competition is knowledge (ABBOTT 1988, 102). Abbott claims that interprofessional competition is based on a specific kind of knowledge, namely abstract knowledge: “For abstraction is the quality that sets interprofessional competition apart from competition in general” (8–9).
Viewing professional work connected to ↑ abstraction is not unusual in the sociology of the professions (compare STINCHCOMBE 2001). It is in line with Hughes, who speaks of “detachment” in professional work: “having in a particular case no personal interest such as would influence one’s action or advice, while being deeply interested in all cases of the kind” (HUGHES 1965, 6). Similarly, Parsons speaks of the “intellectual component” of professional work (PARSONS 1968, 536), whereas Freidson refers to “formal knowledge” (FREIDSON 1986). According to Abbott, ↑ abstraction takes on two forms. First, abstraction can be reduction in the sense of lack of content, that is, “abstract which refers to many subjects interchangeably” (ABBOTT 1988, 102). For instance, psychology claims that alcoholism is a personality disorder, thus falling
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into the domain of general psychotherapy. But, by abstraction, alcoholism may also be seen as a mere medical problem or a problem of public administration. Abstraction in the second sense is formalization saying “that knowledge is abstract that elaborates its subjects in many layers of increasingly formal discourse” (ABBOTT 1988, 102). Formalization means that a ↑ profession provides a formal system for the interpretation of a particular sort of problem. The language of modern medicine can be seen as such a formal system, providing a ↑ diagnostic system for tasks such as appendectomy. Formalization strengthens the jurisdiction of a profession. “No one tries to explain particle interactions without mastering the abstract knowledge of physics. More practically, no one offers insurance companies advice on underwriting without having mastered actuarial theory” (103).
The first form of ↑ abstraction, reduction, may be regarded as an offensive mechanism in the competition of professions. By reduction, a profession may claim jurisdiction for the treatment of new types of problems. The second form, formalization, may be considered as a defensive mechanism, preventing possible intruders from taking over jurisdiction, by establishing high professional standards. Recent studies on the emerging market of professional environmental services show that indeed interprofessional competition is shaped by competing knowledge bodies of different grades of abstraction (MIEG 2002; MIEG /DE SOMBRE 2004). 3.6.9.6
Conclusion: The role of abstract knowledge in vocational education
Today, abstract knowledge plays an important role in defining both the body of academic knowledge and directions of future research. As professions are knowledge-based, professions and ↑ professionalisation are closely linked to academic vocational education (cf. MIEG /DE SOMBRE 2004). In general, abstract knowledge can be characterized by – A longer life-time: concrete knowledge becomes obsolete much faster than abstract knowledge – Continuity: abstract knowledge makes it possible to connect concrete professional work to persisting general professional knowledge (cf. HUGHES 1965, 6)
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– Competitiveness: abstract knowledge helps to define and open new fields of professional work, for instance genetic consulting as a domain of biologists – A potential for legitimatization: abstract knowledge that has become part of socially shared cultural knowledge can help to publicly legitimize professional work and high incomes, e. g. the in case of psychoanalytic therapy.
Today, there is a symbiotic relationship between universities and professions. Professions need universities for professional education; universities constantly re-work the ↑ knowledge base for professional work. Universities need professions to propel and practically test academic knowledge. Professions embody the “↑ distance between idea and practice” (LUHMANN 2002). Professionalisation is an important form for transferring, marketing and transforming university-based knowledge systems
3.7.0 Shaping Teaching and Learning in TVET Lorna Unwin 3.7.0.1 Introduction As this handbook shows, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) represents a diverse, dynamic and complex field of activity involving individuals who may still be in ↑ compulsory schooling through to mature adults engaged in re-training, updating their skills, or continuous professional development. TVET takes place in a wide range of settings, including workplaces of all shapes and sizes, workshops, and classrooms. Due to the development and accessibility of new ↑ information and communication technologies, those settings now include the new spaces, such as trains and aeroplanes, in which busy people both carry out their ↑ work tasks and learning associated with their continuing professional development (see FELSTEAD /JEWSON / WALTERS 2004; WHITTINGTON / MCLEAN 2001). VET’s diversity is also a reflection of the different needs and requirements of the industrial, commercial, and service sectors of a nation’s economy and, increasingly, the global forces that are posing serious challenges to existing VET practices and policies. The ways in which VET programmes are delivered vary from one country to another, but there are many shared concerns about how to ensure that knowledge and skills can be developed as effectively as possible. This chapter introduces a section of the book which focuses on the organisation of VET teaching and learning. It begins with a discussion of ter-
minology and then briefly examines some of the key debates in the literature. The chapter argues that, due to its complexity, VET teachers, trainers, and policymakers need to draw on a wide range of teaching and learning approaches, and be highly adaptable in order to keep pace with the changing nature of their subject matter and, importantly, the needs of their learners. 3.7.0.2
The Language of Learning in TVET
TVET represents a landscape of international linguistic richness, but sometimes differences in terminology can be confusing. The most obvious examples of difference relate to the use of the terms ‘didactics’ and ‘pedagogy’, and to the term ‘competence’. We begin with a discussion of the terms, ‘didactics’ and ‘pedagogy’. These terms are not, of course, confined to TVET as they apply equally to other domains of education, but it is important to begin with some discussion of their use as they are sometimes cited as reflections of deeper differences between those countries that use one term rather than the other. The term ‘didactics’ is most commonly associated with Germany and the Nordic countries, whilst ‘pedagogy’ is more commonly used in Britain, ↑ Australia and the ↑ United States and some other English-speaking countries (see NORDKVELLE 2003; TERHART 2003a; SIMON 1994). The term is also used in French, where it
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becomes ‘didactique’, whilst in Russian, it is ‘didaktika’. The use of the term ‘didactics’ has been traced back to German scholars in the 17th century who combined the word ‘didaskein’ (meaning to point at or demonstrate) with the Greek ‘techne’, and also incorporated the Platonic concept of ‘dialectics’. Despite the inclusion of the notion of dialogue between teacher and learner, however, the term ‘didactics’ has come to have a negative meaning in Anglo-American ↑ educational research and practice. Hamilton (HAMILTON 1999, 135) argues that this reflects definitions such as those given in the Oxford English Dictionary, that equate the term with ‘formalist educational practices that combine “dogma” with “dullness”’. Hence, in English, teaching that is seen to be too teacher-centred and in which learners are expected to sit and listen rather than actively engage with the subject, is described as being ‘too didactic’. In other words, the emphasis is on the transmission of knowledge to the learner, rather than on a two-way dialogue combined with active ↑ participation. As Hamilton (1999) explains, however, the term ‘pedagogy’ is actually very close in meaning to the Continental European usage of ‘didactics’. This is because both terms embrace a much broader sense of the learning process than might be conveyed by the term ‘teaching’. Both terms are concerned with the organisation of curricula, with the need to consider the nature of the learner, and with a sense of ‘becoming’. This latter concept is very important for TVET as it captures the sense that learning to perform technical and vocational skills involves also learning about the history and culture of a particular ↑ occupational field, acquiring a sense of pride in the products of that occupation, and a desire to pass on expertise to the next generation. Ironically, the term ‘pedagogy’ has a troubled history in Britain, due to the historical ambivalence towards the training of teachers in the 19th and early 20th centuries (see SIMON 1981). With regard to TVET, this situation has been perpetuated for far longer. Unlike some other European countries, for example, employers in Britain can still recruit apprentices without having recognised trainers in their workplaces, and it was only in 2002 that all teachers in ↑ further education colleges, including those responsible for TVET, were required
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to gain a nationally recognised teaching qualification (see HUDDLESTON / UNWIN 2007; FULLER / UNWIN 2003). Whilst the term ‘didactics’ has a long and generally stable history, the term ‘pedagogy’ began to be much more widely used in Anglo-American circles in the 1970s following the publication of the work of two academics: the London-based sociologist, Basil Bernstein; and the Brazilian radical educator, Paolo Freire. Bernstein (1971), who was greatly influenced by German educational thinking, argued that teaching was as much about the transmission of social codes as about methods and, hence, revealed the inter-relationship between education and politics. Freire (1970), whose early research was on the use of adult literacy to radicalise peasants in Brazil, laid the ground for the conceptualisation of pedagogy as a vehicle of liberation. From this developed associated theories of ‘feminist pedagogy’ and ‘critical pedagogy’. Although Bernstein and Freire did not specifically address the field of TVET, their work continues to be highly relevant as it asks all teachers and trainers to critically reflect on their practice and question the purpose and ethics of their endeavour (see, inter alia, GRACE 2007; YOUNG / GAMBLE 2006). The term ‘competence’ is also relevant to this introductory chapter because it has evolved to mean more than a measure of whether an individual has acquired sufficient expertise to be able to perform a task or series of tasks to the satisfaction of their employer or an examiner. In ↑ Australia and Britain, the term ‘competence’ has acquired a special meaning in TVET through the introduction in both countries of a competence-based approach to vocational qualifications (see, inter alia, R AGGATT / WILLIAMS 1999; BOREHAM 2004a; HAGER 2004). This approach takes the view that vocational qualifications should consist of a series of statements of competence derived from a functional analysis of the tasks involved in specific jobs. If an individual can demonstrate they have achieved the required level of competence (as set out in the statements) to the satisfaction of an examiner, they can be awarded the qualification without having to attend a course of instruction. If they can demonstrate they have achieved the required level as set out in some of the statements, then they only need instruction
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in the areas in which they are not currently competent. This outcomes-based and assessment-driven approach to TVET has been highly controversial in both Britain and Australia, but policymakers have been persuaded to invest heavily in its promotion and expansion. As a result, TVET teachers and trainers have had to adapt their teaching to the competence-based model. In addition to the concept of occupational or jobspecific competence, many countries throughout the world (including those in the European Union) have developed lists of so-called ↑ key competences (see WEIGEL / MULDER / COLLINS 2007). These are also referred to as ‘generic’, ‘transferable’ and ‘core’ competences (or skills) and include, for example: ability to communicate; use numbers; use ↑ information and communication technologies; solve problems; make decisions; work with other people; and reflect on one’s own learning. The general rationale used to support key competences is that individuals now need to demonstrate their flexibility and adaptability to employers in order to sustain jobs within a globalised economy (for a critique, see, inter alia, BROWN / DUGUID 2001). Job-specific expertise is not enough (see K RISTENSEN 2001; K ÄMÄRÄINEN 2002). Again, the inclusion of key competences within TVET curricula and assessment regimes poses considerable challenges for teachers and trainers. Hodkinson (1998, 199) has argued that aligning the organisation and content of teaching and learning too closely to the rhetoric of economic change is highly problematic: ‘Education and training are seen as systemic production processes, using the metaphor of the assembly line, with its inputs, processes and outputs. Quality and ↑ efficiency are dominant concepts’. A major criticism of the competence-based approach, and particularly of ↑ key competences, is that knowledge and skills cannot be abstracted from their context (see BILLETT 2003). This leads us into the next section of this chapter. 3.7.0.3
Teaching and Learning in Context
The publication in 1991 of Lave and Wenger’s slim volume, ↑ Situated Learning, has proved to be a major turning point in the history of ideas related to teaching and learning, and is of particular relevance to TVET as it raised the status of the work-
place as a site for learning. The book can be regarded as a landmark in the gradual shift away from the transmission and acquisition model of learning to one based on ↑ participation and learning as a social process (see, inter alia, BECKETT/ HAGER 2002). Beckett and Hager summarise the acquisition model as one in which the individual mind is ‘steadily being stocked with ideas’ and where the focus of learning ‘as a product is on the stock of accumulated ideas that constitute a well furnished mind’ (ibid: 97). This model still dominates much of publicly-funded education, including TVET, in many countries. It is attractive to policymakers because learning can be measured through formal tests and examinations and countries can measure their stock of qualifications against international league tables. The ‘situated’ theory advanced by Lave and Wenger, however, argues that individuals learn through active participation in a social group, as, for example, in the workplace. As novices, individuals (for example, apprentices) learn by engaging in real tasks within a ‘↑ community of practice’, coached and mentored by ‘old timers’ or experts, and so move from being what Lave and Wenger call ‘legitimate peripheral participants’ to full experts over time. The individuals share in the ‘curriculum’ of the workplace (including the community’s social practices, rules and rituals) and so acquire a sense of pride in what is collectively produced (see FULLER / HODKINSON / HODKINSON / UNWIN 2005 and ERAUT 2000a for a critique). One of the criticisms of Lave and Wenger’s work is that their empirical research was based on very atypical communities whose activities and circumstances do not easily equate to workplaces in advanced economies (HUGHES /JEWSON / UNWIN 2007). The Finnish academic, Yrjo Engeström (2001; 2004), whose work is based on socio-cultural ↑ activity theory, has built on Lave and Wenger’s concept of situated learning to develop what he calls a theory of ‘expansive learning’. He argues that learning through participation is too static for the needs of contemporary workplaces and economies and that what is needed is a theory of learning that leads to change and transformation. This will involve individuals crossing boundaries to work and learn in different ways and to share in the crea-
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tion of artefacts as part of joint problem solving activities. The recognition of the importance of the workplace as a site for learning has long been a part of TVET, dating back to the medieval origins of apprenticeship. When nation states developed TVET institutions to provide classes in vocational theory and allow trainees to practice their skills away from the pressures of the workplace, the problem of how to integrate the on and off-the-job learning components of TVET programmes became very prominent (see, inter alia, FULLER / UNWIN 1998; K IVINEN / PELTOMAKI 1999). In many countries today, this problem has been compounded by the increasing reluctance of employers to provide places for apprentices and other learners wanting to engage in some form of ‘dual’ approach to TVET. This might also include, for example, higher education students who would benefit from spending time in industry. An obvious way round this problem is to create simulated workplace environments within TVET institutions. These can be very successful, but they can become divorced from the dynamic realities of workplaces whose primary function is not learning (as in the case of the simulated environments) but producing goods and services. 3.7.0.4
Researching the Issues
The chapters in this section of the book explore many different factors involved in the organisation of teaching and learning in TVET settings. They highlight the ways in which concepts and theories related to the ↑ policy and practice of TVET are constantly being debated within and across national boundaries. Crucially, the chapters reveal how TVET has to balance the cultural traditions of nation states with the demands emanating from a globalising economy. At the same time, rapid developments in new technologies present new challenges to TVET teachers and trainers in terms of how they might provide learners with greater opportunities to take responsibility for their own learning, whilst, at the same time, trying to sustain the collective dimension of learning as part of a community. As such, TVET provides a highly fruitful and stimulating field for research, whether at the macro, meso or micro levels, and for comparisons to be made within and across nation states.
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3.7.1
Curriculum Research and Development Ulrike Buchmann and Richard Huisinga
3.7.1.1
The Current Frame of Reference
The production and distribution of knowledge are subject to profound processes of change in modern societies. Such processes manifest themselves in various segments of society and of the economy, e. g. as an increasing orientation to science in production (cf. e. g. HUISINGA 1996; ABELSHAUSER 2005; 2006) or in the necessity of transdisciplinary work on dealing with social and technological problems and issues (cf. e. g. HUISINGA / LISOP 2002, 2005; BUCHMANN 2003; 2004; 2007). The consequences include: fluctuations in (qualification) standards and with regard to the structural logic, the values, control mechanisms and regulations, and not least the merits of knowledge and of allocated forms of knowledge. This applies to both general and specialized subject matter and to general and vocational education. Existing structural problems of adaptation between the educational and employment systems (cf. K LOSE 1987) and mismatches on the ↑ labour market (cf. ENTORF 2000) have thus intensified. In this context, ↑ educational policy is called upon to distribute and direct access to existing and new forms of allocated knowledge. At first glance, a certain justification can hardly be denied the current tests of academic ↑ performance – first and foremost PISA (cf. PISA report 2001; BAUMERT /K LIEME / NEUBRAND ET AL. 2001). Such tests are simply an expression of the need to deal with the changes mentioned above and especially with the successive distribution of knowledge that has only been shaped by chance circumstances. The primary goal has been to minimize the ensuing sources of conflict and friction. According to the PISA report, this goal should be accomplished by means of ↑ controlling output in the educational system – explicitly by means of standardization – but without having systematically investigated issues of knowledge distribution in advance.
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This is the point where ↑ curriculum research and development become engaged in the debate, insofar as they are oriented to personal development and differentiate such development temporally, methodically, and with regard to content in the light of overriding goals. The foundation of these approaches to research and development, i.e. curriculum theory, is thus nothing other than Bildungstheorie, which provides the basis for determining what is to develop in educational activity, and how and for whom this is to come about. In principle, then, it is possible to ensure that the current debate on control mechanisms conforms to the recommendations of the German Educational Council. The council maintained that curricula should be developed by specifically combining preparation for scientific study with the relevant structures and processes of societal work – in contrast to the mainstream practice of increasingly instrumentalizing and subordinating educational policy and the education system for purely economic purposes. A curricular approach to education which is input-directed and the standardization of outputs are a priori mutually exclusive due to the divergent epistemological interests (and the corresponding conceptions of man). The design of curricula which function as control mechanisms of the production and distribution of knowledge is a demanding task for academic work which requires a fully new approach in light of converging markets and societies under the conditions of globalization. The terminological renaissance of the concept ‘curriculum’ in the current usage of the protagonists – contrary to the usual terminology of the last 30 years (such as syllabus, syllabus design, learning objectives, etc.) – supports the assumption that, with a view to the complex problems demanding international solutions, there is at least some idea of the limitations of the widespread output specifications oriented to singular forms of utilization. Nevertheless, the (nearly) everyday practice of designing curricula at the international level is frequently enough carried out solely on the basis of pragmatic considerations and normative criteria. Thus, high-risk forms of social friction are inevitable.
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There is an urgent need here of forward-looking solutions which bridge the gap between reality and the constant formulation of approaches that have not managed to register these developments. Such forward-looking positions and instruments were actually developed in the context of the curriculum revision initiated by Robinsohn during the 1970s (cf. ROBINSOHN 1981; HAMEYER 1983; HAMEYER / FREY/ HAFT 1983), but without having been implemented in any lasting way in the practice of designing curricula up to the present time (cf. HUISINGA / BUCHMANN 2003; RAUNER 2004d; → 1.4; → 5.1.1; → 3.4.1). The correlation between theoretical positions and ↑ educational policy’s principles of distribution is the basis for an urgently necessary understanding of how and for whom the ↑ educational process is now to be devised. Yet, one requirement here is a debate at the societal macro-level on the new modalities of distribution through which access to certain segments of knowledge are to be regulated. Generating adequate courses of study on the basis of the range of instruments now available and to be expanded if necessary is, then, a subordinate step in the curriculum process. As a result of the systematic disregard for these curricular demands, referential theories, and for the corresponding instruments during the last thirty years, supervising the national and international production of knowledge has not only more or less been left to chance, but also gravely endangers the reproductive function of institutions of the public education system. The international attempts to establish control mechanisms since the end of the 1960s demonstrate that in this way chance has become an ideologically charged pattern. 3.7.1.2
Developments in the Current Practice of International Curriculum Design
At the supranational level, perspectives developed in the North American and European context have traditionally proved to be of special significance for designing the learning process.
North American Perspectives A major theme of debates on the international scale has to do with the changed demands on em-
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ployees in the context of a globalized, comprehensive ↑ labour market which involves increased risks of friction due to intensified adaptation problems and, as a consequence, can produce considerable mismatches on the labour market. In this sense, the issue of knowledge distribution, as directed by the educational and training process, is also foregrounded internationally. Such shifts in responsibilities can be exemplified by the following phenomena: Demands for integrating vocational education into pre-employment and supplementary educational institutions; Here, contextual learning is not understood as the imparting of ↑ practical knowledge and of problem-solving competence, but, instead, as a form of appropriating academic knowledge, i.e., theoretical knowledge which is to be imparted in a way directly oriented to its application. Still, a fundamental orientation to individual academic disciplines persists. With respect to ↑ tacit knowledge and tacit skills (POLANYI 1966; 1985a), the focus is on a form of knowledge which has a paradigmatic significance for ↑ occupational skills. In this context, the development of ↑ vocational curricula is carried out by means of pragmatic approaches which are directly oriented to ↑ work processes and aim to facilitate the rapid utilization of qualifications in production processes. Two examples can illustrate what is meant: The O*NET content model designed by Mumford and Peterson in 1999 is perceived as a multi-perspective approach which is to provide the following qualification-related information (cf. BUCH / FRIELING 2004): –Experience Requirements (Training); – Worker Requirements (↑ Basic Skills, Education, Cross-Functional Skills); – Worker Characteristics (Abilities, Occupational Interests, Work Values, Work Styles); – Occupational Characteristics (↑ Labour Market Information); – Occupation-Specific Requirements (Work-related Knowledge, Skills, Tools, Equipment); – Occupational Requirements (Generalized Work Activities, Organisational Context). Here, a classificatory scheme has been devised which permits the systematic evaluation of skills,
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with eight levels of evaluation in each case. Furthermore, it is determined whether these skills represent a prerequisite for the work activity. The knowledge structure is organized hierarchically in accordance with activity-related knowledge requirements. In this way, 33 domains of knowledge emerge from 11 clusters. The required knowledge characteristics are determined with this scheme. In preparation for professional work, the required educational and training qualifications, the necessary level of education and the corresponding professional certificates, and professional work experience are to be documented. In this way, ↑ work tasks and activities are intended to provide a content-related impetus for ↑ vocational curricula. As a rule, these are then worked out by experts in collaboration with their superiors. Another internationally influential approach to developing vocational curricula has become known by the label “↑ DACUM” (Developing A CurriculUM). The DACUM approach is intended to facilitate the analysis and description of needs and skill profiles. According to its express self-image, the following three “logical premises” are taken into consideration in this approach: (1) Expert workers are more capable of describing and defining their job reliably than anyone else. Insofar as they do their job in the context of normal employment, they can be called “expert workers”. Foremen and managers know about the work their employees do, yet, they lack the expertise urgently required for a more thoroughgoing analysis. (2) The most effective way to describe a job is to define areas of responsibility and the tasks and individual steps involved. But the worker behaviors accessible and the knowledge of such behaviors do not suffice. Expert workers are able to explain their knowledge and skills, i.e., to train others to be experts. (3) The knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes required for the work are now regarded as variables (“enablers”) of work successfully carried out. They are so significant that considerable care is taken to appropriately identify them. For ↑ DACUM, a group of five to twelve occupational practitioners forms the decisive source of information for the analysis of ↑ work processes. In
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two to three-day meetings under the guidance of a DACUM facilitator, this group develops a needs analysis or a DACUM chart listing tasks, general knowledge, abilities/skills, behaviors, tools, equipment, materials, as well as future developments. These lists represent the empirical basis for “competency-based education (CBE)” and for the “instructional development” based on CBE. The development of the profile is furthered by moderation techniques which take recourse to meta-planning techniques such as brainstorming, clustering, comparing, evaluating, etc. An open experiential exchange between the occupational practitioners is ensured by the facilitators, who take care that the major categories of analysis are used precisely and unambiguously. In the instrument of analysis labeled “Systematic Curriculum and Instructional Development (SCID)” the complete scope of this construct becomes apparent. Within this overall design, thus not within DACUM itself, preliminary conditions such as markets for labour, goods, and services; institutional circumstances relevant to training; and the didactical and methodological treatment of imparting competences are taken into consideration. The exclusion of content from the curriculum debate; With recourse to work done by Doyle/ Westbury (1992), it can be maintained that the content of learning processes only began to be taken into consideration by the academic discipline of education in the ↑ U.S. along with the further development of cognitive psychology and specialized didactics. These developments, however, were greatly influenced by a constructivist outlook. At the beginning of the 1990s, Doyle and Westbury stipulated that there was a resurgence of interest in Dewey (1916a) in American education after the discipline had engaged in a long period of nearly exclusive appeal to psychological work on school subjects, and especially to Thorndike and Judd (cf. SHULMAN 1974), for theoretical reflection. This may very well be the case with respect to certain specific subject-matter curricula (cf. e. g. BENNER / TANNER / CHESLA 1996) (→ 4.2). The (formal and nominal) emphasis on competence development as the aim of the learning process.
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In international educational discourse, the concept of competence is used just as frequently as indeterminately. With reference to VET in an international context, it is primarily the English-language concept of ‘competence’ with its specific meaning which has had a marked influence on the debate (cf. CLEMENT 2003). The ‘competence-based approach’ or ‘competence-based education and training’ (CBET) can only be understood as a curriculum strategy which aims at an encoding of intended abilities and facilitating dispositions. Attempts are then made to achieve these codified elements of learning as goals of work-related, experiencerelated, and school learning processes and, if applicable, the elements are then evaluated and certified as the results of such processes. In the final analysis, they are standards which, as individual curricular elements and predetermined outcomes, are derived from existing ↑ occupational profiles and assigned to various (primary) units of learning (units, modules) which, in turn, are to be related to complex operational functions and tasks. The responsibility for the success of the learning process lies predominantly with the learner, and the learning process itself is subordinate to the successful learning outcome. For the educational standards, the content-related specifications are, at the most, only of secondary importance.
European Perspectives and Approaches In light of the European attempts at establishing control mechanisms of curricula during the last quarter of a century, it is obvious that all of these attempts were not aimed at designing students’ educational careers in the traditional institutions of the (public) educational system, but, instead, were focused on external processes of knowledge production. Among such attempts, the following are especially noteworthy: – the (formal) demand for ↑ lifelong learning, brought forward by the ↑ OECD and ↑ UNESCO during the 1970s and especially influential in Europe (cf. FAURE 1973, OECD/CERI 1973); – the emphasis on self-responsibility in the demand for a self-organized and self-regulated learning process in widely divergent general and specific contexts (cf. e. g. DOHMEN 1998);
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– the frequently emphasized necessity of ↑ e-learning (cf. e. g. EULER 1989) for more effective use of learning time and minimizing costs. In order to ensure freedom of movement within the European education and ↑ labour markets and the comparability of processes of knowledge production, debates on aspects of control mechanisms have centered on issues of standardization in their treatment of traditional educational institutions – including the public ↑ school system in the Federal Republic of Germany. Such debates have resulted in the (further) development of the following structures: – a harmonization of degrees (EQR); – the establishment of a credit system (↑ ECVET). At a formal level, these control mechanisms facilitate interconnections between the following goals in VET: transparency, comparability, permeability, support for ↑ mobility, reevaluation of ↑ informal learning processes, individualization and rationalization of courses of study, creation of a basis of trust between educational providers and their clientele at home and abroad, and quality control. In addition other, implicit goals can be identified, including the following: optimum exploitation of work capacities without the existing nation-specific, largely opaque ability profiles in the (western) European context; the integration of the existing, predominantly public educational institutions into a European education market to promote a European education (service) industry; the convergence of the various systems with the end result of a uniform European educational system (cf. DREXEL 2005, 59–78). Within the European context, curricular control mechanisms are put into practice in two main ways: pertaining to organisational and structural aspects, and, to a certain extent, content-related curricular control mechanisms: The structural control mechanisms focus on modularizations in nonacademic and, more recently, also in academic institutions of education and ↑ further education. The term ↑ modularisation refers to widely divergent models of opening up courses of study and making them more flexible with respect to organisational, temporal, and content-related structures (cf. FROMMBERGER 1999) (→ 3.3.2). An example of modularized vocational education has
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been implemented in Great Britain with the system of National Vocational Qualification (NVQ). NVQ provides for the individual compilation of various partial certificates in a ‘qualification portfolio’ and facilitates access to employment already on the basis of partial certification. In the modularisation model used in Denmark and the Netherlands, the degree also functions as the sum of the partial certificates obtained. But these are mandatory components assigned specifically to certain courses of training, and, in this sense, these models are more moderate variants of modularisation. In contrast, a concern with content-related curricular issues seems to be a perspective that is not pursued at the international level (cf. DOYLE / WESTBURY 1992) and could perhaps even be described as a typically German phenomenon (or, at least, as one in the tradition of the history of ideas). Yet, this phenomenon has become increasingly widespread in methodological debates since the reforms of the 1970s. In any case, content-related issues became more significant with the guidelines on developing VET curricula set up by the Conference of Culture Ministers (KMK 1996; 1999). Here, designing VET curricula was understood as part of a comprehensive curriculum which applies to various ↑ learning environments and relates to work activities and in-company commercial processes, thus allowing an orientation to science to be complemented by an orientation to ↑ work processes. Current ↑ curriculum research takes its starting point for its frame of reference and for its legitimation from the theory of modernization and transformation (cf. CLAUSEN 1996). As this research is financed by ↑ educational policy authorities, two complementary institutional structures deserve mention here: a program of the Federal-State Committee entitled “Neue Lernkonzepte in der dualen Berufsausbildung” (New Approaches to Learning in the ↑ Dual System of Vocational Education and Training) and involving a total of 22 individual projects (in operation from 1998 to 2003), and the 1996 recommendations of the Conference of Ministers of Culture and Education for structuring curricula on the basis of learning fields. Within the context of this interplay, the program of the Federal-State Committee was assigned the role of im-
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plementing leaning field theory to design curricula. Limited space prohibits a further discussion of how far the state (Länder) institutes involved actually performed this function. To date, there has been no systematic presentation of research findings on curriculum theory from the Federal-State Committee projects that would also have taken the recommendations of the Culture Ministers’ Conference into consideration. The connection to educational policy would justify a closer examination of the ideas of the Conference on structuring learning fields, although these are exclusively concerned with vocational education in schools. Yet, no curriculum research under the auspices of the Federal Institute of Vocational Education has been undertaken in this area. Continuing vocational education has also been largely ignored in this context. Since the recommendations of the Culture Ministers’ Conference in 1996 at the latest, structuring curricula on the basis of fields of activity (learning fields) has become a topic for curriculum research in vocational education and training. What in the Conference’s view was fundamentally new here was the replacement of former school subjects that were said to be exclusively oriented to the system of the relevant academic disciplines. Parallel to this development, the extremely detailed catalogs of content aiming at exhaustive mastery of school subjects were to be replaced by outlines that were primarily oriented to imparting an overview and understanding of the system that could serve as a model. In this view, the open-ended design of framework syllabi necessitated later revision only if fundamental changes in the vocational qualifications required were to occur. Furthermore, such syllabi were said to incorporate the experience of learners and broaden the scope for decision making on the part of specialists and educationalists with respect to implementation at the level of the schools and of the states. Thus, formulations of goals along the lines of ↑ vocational competences and the conscious relinquishment of taxonomies of learning objectives now replaced the formerly usual descriptions of learning objectives that were characterized by frequent repetitions and assigned in a very detailed way to the respective content (cf. HUISINGA / LISOP 1999).
Handbook of TVET Research
In structuring curricula by way of ↑ modularisation, the main emphasis is on combining fundamental and supplementary building blocks of education and training and, thus, on their variability and flexibility with reference to temporal and content-related aspects. The basic variants of modularisation currently under debate encompass the following three perspectives: the supplementation model develops from temporal sequencing; the fragmentation model develops from the combination of agency and certification; the differentiation model is more strongly oriented towards curricular considerations. Practical consequences have become apparent in the Federal Institute of Vocational Education’s pilot programmes on further qualifications and in the debate on regulations focusing on § 46 of the Berufsbildungsgesetz (↑ Vocational Training Act). The variability of the control mechanisms is based on various traditions concerning ↑ curriculum development and its theoretical basis. German curriculum development in VET is based on a didactic curricular understanding which is fundamentally characterized by the selection and organisation of subject-specific content and areas of learning. To put this another way: whether learners are able to develop the required dispositions depends on the adequate selection and logical organisation of content in the curriculum. Thus, this curricular perspective is both input and output-oriented. In contrast, the international approaches favor an explicit output orientation with their focus on the identification and certification of application-oriented abilities. With regard to the competences to be developed, stress should be placed on the specific characteristics of the German concept of Kompetenz, which is noteworthy because of its goal-related perspective on the processes involved in VET, a perspective that aims at ability and competence for action in the sense of a ↑ specialized competence. At the same time, this ability to act and evaluate with reference to specific subject matter is indissolubly linked to a distinctive form of self-directedness and to a competence in societal and political issues. Competence development understood in this way aims at enlightenment and emancipation through the process of education. In contrast, the
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concept of competence in the international context is directed toward the simple characterization of desired behaviors and activities (as FROMMBERGER 2006b, 126 also maintains) (→ 3.3.2). Precisely the current problems outlined above require a perspective on and approach to curricular design whose foundation can be provided for by the German theoretical conceptions of curricula. For these conceptions go far beyond the problemsolving potential of formal curriculum strategies.
3.7.2
Cross-Curricular Competencies Katharina Maag Merki
3.7.2.1
Background
The concept of competence is one of the most intensely discussed constructs in vocational training and ↑ further education today (CLEMENT 2002). Its ascent has been propelled in part by far-reaching changes in society and the working world, as well as by increased globalization, the advent of a knowledge-based society, and the fundamental reorganisation of work (ERMELING 2001). The crucial importance of individual competences is reflected not only in the sweeping socio-economic changes currently creating a need for greater flexibility at the individual level, but also in recent findings on teaching and learning, in the increased emphasis on educational standards, and in international developments in (vocational) educational research. Some of the most important of these research projects include the ↑ OECD “PISA” program (Programme for International Student Assessment), “DeSeCo” (Definition and Selection of Competences), and the ongoing work toward a “↑ European Qualifications Framework for ↑ Lifelong Learning” and the“European Credit Transfer System for VET”. Although there exists broad unanimity about the crucial societal changes taking place, consensus is lacking both on the concept of competence itself and on the question of which specific competences are needed to successfully master the demands of particular life situations. At the latest
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with Mertens’ (1974) investigation of the concept of ↑ key qualifications, there has been intense discussion of whether ↑ cross-curricular competences are equal or perhaps superior in importance to subject-specific competences for mastering the numerous and virtually unpredictable demands that arise in the occupational context. These discussions have been marked by the hope that acquiring specific abilities of a non-subject-specific nature (e. g. methodological or social competences) would enable people to react competently to new or different situations. Although this theme was initially discussed using concepts like “qualifications” or “key qualifications”, recent research has tended increasingly to favor the concept of “competence”. The latter concept stems from a different theoretical tradition than the former: from theoretical educational research focusing on the subject, whereas “qualification” comes from ↑ educational economics. Nevertheless, these two concepts are far from clearly demarcated from one another in the literature. Arnold (1998) and Vonken (2001) point out that the concepts of competence and qualification are often used as synonyms, and sometimes even as antonyms. The lack of clear distinction is seen also in the fact that the individual qualifications and competences listed in the various taxonomies are often virtually identical, at least in the terms chosen to describe them. In the literature, different terms are used to designate non-subject-specific competences that can be applied in a number of different ↑ subject areas, from “↑ cross-curricular competences” to “core competences” to “↑ key competences”, all of which overlap to a large extent in meaning. A closely related problem is that of the numerous different taxonomies developed to systematize the relevant cross-curricular competences. The models on which these are based are more heuristically than theoretically consistent, however, and they lack empirical validation. When undertaking the description and cataloguing of cross-curricular competences, we are thus faced with both theoretical and empirical shortcomings. The goal of this article is to critically examine the broadly used concept of “competence” together with the different taxonomies of cross-curricular competences that have been developed over the
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last thirty years. I will refer here to the relevant taxonomies of key qualifications, models that have served as important points of reference – historically speaking – for the current discussion. In the third section, I will analyze important issues for future research connected to the definition and assessment of cross-curricular competences. 3.7.2.2
The Concept of Competence
In common parlance, the concept of competence is used in two different ways: first, as a capacity or ability, and second, as a province of responsibility or field of authority – for example, the authority to make decisions. The first usage corresponds to the concept of “competence” or “competences” used the field of vocational education: here, an individual is considered “competent” when possessing the ability to do something specific. Clement (2002) has recently shown that in the international context, while this concept may initially appear to enjoy overall homogeneous usage, quite the opposite is true. She writes, “both the scope in the content of specific competences as well as the framework conditions required for their acquisition and certification differ (…) in significant points” (ibid., 48). Numerous factors play a role in how competences are conceptualized: these include the prevailing educational, economic, and political strategies, the traditions of the ↑ profession in question, and the specific ↑ labour market on which the competences are to be marketed (cf. ibid., 30). Definitions of (vocational) action competence usually emphasize the importance of practice and learning processes in fostering the development of competences, thus positing competence as something that can be learned and influenced, and as distinguishable from concepts like intelligence. Competence contains cognitive, motivational, and volitional aspects as well (WEINERT 2001; TIPPELT/ MANDL / STRAKA 2003). An important theoretical construct of competence referred to repeatedly in the present-day discussion is Chomsky’s (1969) linguistic concept from the 1960s. Chomsky differentiates between competence and ↑ performance: he uses competence to designate general linguistic capacity, and performance to designate the actual use of language. According to Chomsky, only in the case of the ide-
al speaker/listener (native speaker) does performance directly reflect linguistic competence. He traces the numerous “performance errors” that occur (deviations from the rules, slips of the tongue, etc.) back to socio-cultural, social, individual psychological, and situational factors. Habermas’ concept of communicative competence (1981/1995) also constitutes an important conceptual reference point in the current discussion. Weinert’s (2001) approach occupies a central position in the current debate. He defines competences as “the necessary prerequisites for successfully meeting complex demands possessed by an individual or group of individuals” (ibid., 62). Competence, which is learnable, thus corresponds to the potential to successfully meet complex demands. The concept encompasses not only cognitive aspects, but also explicitly motivational, moral, volitional, and social components. Competences are acquired as well when dealing in depth with specific subject matter (“domains”). Thus, Weinert’s approach ↑ distances itself from the idea that competences are acquired without relation to specific subject matter, an idea originally put forward in relation to ↑ key qualifications but since discarded. In the field of vocational education and training, the discussion taking place in the working group on “Qualification Development Management” has proven important as well. Competence is defined here – in contrast to other constructs like ability, skills, capacities, or qualifications – as the ability for ↑ self-organisation that the individual possesses in the form of a disposition (cf. ERPENBECK 1996, 311). This approach has been criticized on a number of points. From the point of view of ↑ ideology critique (cf. BOLDER 2002, 662), it has been faulted for emphasizing personal responsibility, self-organisation, and self-governance, and for missing the central issue of the internalization of heteronomy, a condition in which the individual is fundamentally lacking in self-determination. Vonken (2001) criticizes the use of the concepts of “competence” and “competence development” not to describe qualifications – a concept almost entirely unrelated to personality – but instead to focus on specific personality traits that are economically and socially desirable for workers. As a result, the lack of certain competences is interpreted as a per-
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sonality deficit. The lack of certain qualifications, however, still allows the personality of the worker to remain intact: the separation of work and personality into two different conceptual areas protects the individual’s self-esteem. Arnold (1997a, 283) takes yet another perspective, criticizing that instead of constituting a new paradigm, “competence” and “competence development” essentially integrate older approaches and discussions without taking account of important new contexts and issues within the debate. Finally, Lehmann (2002, 121) comes to the conclusion that the current debate on competence “[suffers] from not insignificant theoretical deficits; it threatens to degenerate into meaningless generalizations – like the concept of key qualifications that preceded it – and to become no more than a passing fad, despite the fact that this impression has been challenged with vehement optimism by those with an interest in defending the idea”.
3.7.2.3
Taxonomies of Cross-Curricular Competences
↑ Cross-curricular competences must include all those competences that are not specific to an individual subject or occupation but transversal in nature, spanning diverse fields and ↑ professions and crucial for school or job success. Since the inception of the discussion about ↑ key qualifications, a vast range of non-subject-specific qualifications and competences have been identified that only partially do justice to the demands of a theoretically and empirically tested model of cross-curricular competences. Grob/ Maag Merki (2001, 63 ff.) differentiate six criteria that can serve as indicators for determining the quality of the taxonomies: Structural model: A theoretically and empirically tested model of cross-curricular competences has to clarify the internal structures of each of the particular competences. This prevents inclusion of competence dimensions that are largely redundant. Functional model: Such a model identifies the relationships among competences or the dimensions of the particular competences to relevant external criteria by empirically demonstrating that they possess a functional relationship to the complex demands in the desired areas. Plasticity: The competences in question are not determined largely by genetic factors, but can be
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shaped and formed to a sufficient degree. In this way, they can be fostered in school, vocational training, and/or ↑ further education. Breadth of content: The dimensions of the competences included focus on the individual in the broader context of his or her entire life. Functionality should be conceptualized both individually and interpersonally, as well as socially. Empirical falsifiability: A model of cross-curricular competences is empirically falsifiable and remains at the level of previous empirical proofs of its basic statements. Clarification of the normative basis: The selection of competences that are viewed as important for processes of vocational training or further education cannot take place in a value-neutral manner (cf. RYCHEN / SALGANIK 2003). It is important to balance the normative perspectives connected to each of the taxonomies in such a way that the taxonomy is not dominated by particular interests but based on a democratic process of negotiation that integrates different groups with different worldviews and values. The majority of existing models of ↑ cross-curricular competences fail to meet all of the aforementioned criteria, most meeting only one or another individual criterion. The first concept of ↑ key competences proposed thirty years ago by Mertens (1974), for example, lacks empirical testing of whether these key qualifications can be used effectively to solve the problem of unforeseeable demands arising within the workplace (DÖRIG 1994). The most serious deficits of this heuristic approach, in addition to not meeting the criterion of functionality, are its failure to empirically clarify the internal structures of the key qualifications involved (structural model criterion) and its lack of plasticity. Further developments of Mertens’ concept share the same problem. While approaches from the field of vocational education such as that of Bunk (1990), and approaches oriented toward the individual rather than the occupation, such as that of Calchera/ Weber (1990), do provide an anthropological and pedagogical basis for the concept, they lack any empirical testing of its structure, function, or plasticity. A particularly interesting approach is the one proposed by Reetz (1990): since his taxon-
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omy is based on Roth’s personality model, it possesses a theoretically based, systematic structure and thus meets the criterion of “breadth” particularly well. Nevertheless, according to Dörig (1994, 104), it still has yet to “fulfill the promise of being able to transfer the desired abilities out of the specific context” (criterion of functionality). Furthermore, normative clarification of the competences in question is still pending. Klafki (1998) takes a somewhat different approach in establishing the theoretical basis for his model of cross-curricular competences. Through analysis of the “key problems typical of a given epoch”, which represent the content side of the ↑ educational process, he generates the ↑ key qualifications necessary to deal with these problems on the formal side. Acquiring these key qualifications enables students to “understand the contexts of the problems characterizing their epoch” (ibid., 150). However, this model too is a heuristic one, and an empirical test of its structure, functionality, and plasticity still remains to be done. It is possible to distinguish between the aforementioned theoretically based approaches on the one hand and empirically based approaches on the other. The empirical approaches can be subdivided according to their use of three ideal types of methodology that are nevertheless also found in combination in practical research work: (a) the analysis of job descriptions, task profiles, or job advertisements, (b) the analysis of the opinions of experts in companies or research institutions, (c) the analysis of the curricula and guidelines for training currently in use. (a) The analysis of organisational factors – for example, job descriptions or task profiles – proceeds from the assumption that these represent a solid basis for identifying core competences or key qualifications (cf. WEINERT 2001, 57). The deductive procedure that has been used, for example, by Krüger (1988) in deriving extra-functional qualifications from organisational characteristics and tasks, and by some companies as well, guarantees that the criterion of functionality is fulfilled at least conceptually even if the relationship between predictor (i.e. competence) and criterion (i.e. demands in complex situations) still remains to be tested empirically. Further study is needed to better under-
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stand the internal structures (structural model criterion) and analyze the plasticity of the individual competences or key qualifications involved. (b) Another means of creating empirically based taxonomies is by surveying experts in companies or academic disciplines. One current example is offered by the ↑ OECD project “Definition and Selection of Competences” (DeSeCo) (RYCHEN / SALGANIK 2003). The advantage of this approach lies in the possibility to make a relatively rational choice of competences and to maintain ↑ distance from particularistic interests and applications. In practice, however, it proves very difficult to integrate the different concepts due to the diverging perspectives among the various disciplines. Each individual academic discipline has its own emphases and priorities, and choosing experts thus inevitably means choosing specific scientific positions within a discipline while rejecting or excluding others. Choosing competences that are formulated on a high level of ↑ abstraction at least implicitly fulfills the demand for breadth. The disadvantage of these still-untested, abstract concepts is that until they have been put into practice, their practical applicability in the context of vocational training and ↑ further education must be assumed to be very low (criterion of plasticity). (c) A third strategy for creating a theoretical model of ↑ cross-curricular competences or qualifications consists in the analysis of curricula and training guidelines currently in use. This approach has been used in the studies of Frey (1999) within one ↑ occupational group (future teachers) and Grob/ Maag Merki (2001) covering a range of school levels and occupations. Curricula and vocational training guidelines contain in concise form all the learning objectives considered by the decisionmakers in the educational system to be important for meeting the demands of school, occupation, and society. This approach – like the approaches developed in organisational sociology – fulfills the “functional model” criterion, at least conceptually. Particularly in the case of the curricula from general educational and ↑ vocational schools, collective interests are given priority over particular interests since it must be assumed that the process of ↑ curriculum development consists in arriving at transparent compromises among a variety of diver-
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gent interests (criterion of normativity). Some empirical studies have analyzed the structure, functionality, and plasticity of cross-curricular competences that were derived based on the identification and transformation of stated educational objectives (FREY 1999; BALZER / FREY/ RENOLD / NENNIGER 2002; BIERI / FORRER 2005; MAAG MERKI 2006; MAAG MERKI / GROB 2005). Through its inclusion of personal, interpersonal, and social competences, the model of Grob/ Maag Merki (2001) fulfills the criterion of breadth particularly well. 3.7.2.4
Specific Research Desiderata
The discussion thus far has revealed numerous theoretical and empirical shortcomings in the definition and conception of the construct of “competence” or “cross-curricular competence”. From a scientific perspective, the resulting picture is unsatisfying. This has much to do with the fact that the empirical measurement of non-subject-specific competences has received only very marginal attention in the research thus far – in contrast to the thorough discussions of conceptual aspects. Due to the interdependency of theory and empirics, this results in the urgent need for future work clarifying numerous issues on the theoretical level (cf. TRIER 2001, 51). In the following, I will sketch out three central topics of crucial importance for future research.
Empirical Assessment of Cross-Curricular Competences As the previously cited analyses have shown, the discussion about the construct of “cross-curricular competence” is grossly lacking in empirical foundations. The measurement or evaluation of competences is, however, as Bernien (1997, 21) writes, not simply an end in itself but rather “absolutely decisive for both the theoretical conceptualization and practical application (of cross-curricular competences), and not least for the political governance of this process”. The empirical deficit here is connected to the formidable challenges of operationalizing cross-curricular competences such as cooperative or communicative abilities. Competences develop in an interactive process and are dependent on personal and situational characteris-
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tics (cf. GROB / MAAG MERKI 2001, 229). They manifest themselves as latent, individual dispositions in concrete situations (↑ performance) and are often identifiable only in these specific situations. The empirical challenge lies in accounting for this situation-specificity while integrating both sides – the personal and the situational – into the measurement and evaluation of competences and considering the interactions among the personal and the situational aspects as well (cf. also FLASSE / STIELERLORENZ 2000, 209). This integrated perspective can help to prevent the ↑ assessment of competences according to one-dimensional, biased, selective evaluations of isolated aspects. After assessing cross-curricular competences, the next major challenge lies in interpreting them. Often these competences cannot be described according to a simple behavior-effect type of relationship – along the lines of “the more, the better” – but more to a “mesotic type” (PATRY 1991a), a reverse U-shaped relationship between a behavior and its effect in which there is no maximal but merely optimal behavior. “A behavior should not be either too high or too low in frequency, duration, or intensity; rather, a median value is appropriate” (ibid., 68). Pinpointing this median value is, however, significantly more difficult than setting a maximal value, since it depends on theoretical, empirical and normative factors that are frequently nonexistent. Due to the complexity of the subject, Bernien (1997) proceeds on the assumption that not all of the components of competence judged to be relevant are actually measurable and assessable. The currently existing assessment instruments use different methods of measurement. The validity of each of these methods has to be evaluated individually in relationship to the competences. To measure personal competences such as attitudes or motivations, for example, standardized questionnaires based on personal self-assessment have proven to generate valid results (e. g. SONNTAG / SCHÄFER-RAUSER 1993; GROB / MAAG MERKI 2001; FREY/ BALZER / RENOLD / NENNIGER 2002). In contrast, the assessment of social and methodical competences through self-reporting in questionnaires has been called strongly into question. The use of an outside observer to evaluate individual
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behavioral patterns, as carried out using the Kasseler Competency Grid (KAUFFELD 2002) and the Assessment Center method (e. g. SCHULER 2006) is an extremely time-consuming procedure but can generate valid data on specific situational configurations. Nevertheless, here as well, opinions conflict on the extent to which the results can be generalized. These methods can in turn be differentiated from computer-based assessment methods, which are used, for example, to measure problemsolving competences (WIRTH 2004). Using logfile records, computer-based assessment methods distinguish themselves as non-reactive but also very situation-specific procedures. Furthermore, they are unsuitable for assessing motivations or attitudes. Achievement tests are equally unpromising in this regard: while they are often used to measure social competences (e. g. MEIJER / ELSHOUT-MOHR / HOUT-WOLTERS 2000), achievement tests have been shown in numerous studies to lack validity (SEYFRIED 1995). In sum, the existing ↑ competence assessment methods each offer important contributions that help to illuminate the broader research landscape. However, further and more extensive work is needed before ↑ cross-curricular competences can be assessed according to the scientific ↑ quality criteria of ↑ objectivity, reliability, and validity. A particularly fruitful contribution can be expected from the use of multiple complementary methods – combining, for example, standardized methods for the self-assessment of cross-curricular competences with methods allowing for analysis of action processes based on objective observation of behavioral patterns. This would also make it possible to assess different competence areas simultaneously and thus create individual competence profiles, allowing the comprehensive identification of individual competence resources and deficits.
Degree of Generalization of Competences One problem that arises in the selection of crosscurricular competences relates to their degree of generalization. The ↑ key qualifications or crosscurricular competences listed in taxonomies are often presented as highly generalized and abstract constructs whose conceptual basis is far from concretely defined. If they are to become more than
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catchwords, however, these constructs will need a solid conceptual base. Furthermore, they will have to be fleshed out in the context of a systematic and scientifically well-founded process of transformation and operationalization, with the goal of identifying their subdimensions (BERNIEN 1997, 32 ff.). In this way, value of cross-curricular competences for the (vocational) ↑ educational process can be analyzed empirically, and they can be shaped and developed in the practical context of vocational training and ↑ further education. The advantage of this approach that is missing in many of the currently existing taxonomies is its use of multi-dimensional and hierarchically differentiated theoretical conceptions that make it possible to create more detailed competence profiles of individuals. This in turn will enable us to glean information on specific individual resources and deficits that can provide a useful starting point for further vocational training.
The Relationship between Domain-Specific and Key Competences The concept of ↑ key competences (or key qualifications) is based on the idea of identifying competences that are not subject-specific but formal in nature, and thus can be optimally applied to diverse new subjects and fields. In practice, however, this objective has proven difficult to achieve (cf. DÖRIG 1994; DUBS 1996b). In the context of research on teaching and learning, it has been demonstrated that the more general a ↑ learning strategy is, the more limited its contribution to solving challenging educational and intellectual problems (WEINERT/ SCHRADER 1996) – as shown, for example, in the “dilemma of breadth vs. accuracy” (FRIEDRICH / MANDL 1992, 18). Given the situationspecific character and the only limited transsituational consistency of ↑ cross-curricular competences (PATRY 1991a), we must also expect to encounter the same problems outside specific learning areas. As a result, it must be assumed that cross-curricular competences are linked to content-related aspects of learning, and thus, that competences can never achieve universal applicability to all areas of life. At most, individual competences are applicable to domains that share similarities in structure or content (cf. MAAG MERKI 2001). In the future,
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therefore, it will be important to sound out the ↑ domain-specific functions of each competence in relation to its cross-domain functions.
3.7.3
Shaping and Evaluating Vocational Training Offers Peter Gerds
3.7.3.1
Fields of Reference for Designing Curricula and Didactical Arrangements in TVET
↑ Vocational pedagogy as an academic discipline, related to relevant fields of practice, does not only analyse problems in an uninvolved manner but is also expected to give useful support to practitioners acting in real teaching situations. The accelerating speed of social changes, especially in the fields of work and technology, with its unpredictable and undetermined results, opens a wide spectrum of options about how to organise work and to produce and offer numerous goods and service variations. The significant requirement for modern concepts of organising skilled work in the context of implementing open technologies and global competition is to provide a wide and flexible scope of tasks and reponsibilities for all employees. Self-reliant and independent learning and the ability to find solutions for undetermined tasks has become a crucial requirement for the qualification of the workforce, including skilled workers on the shop-floors. Curricula and modern ↑ didactical concepts of TVET have to meet these demands, and corresponding with the dynamic changes of work a new and extended latitude of shaping TVET arose. High flexibility in teaching situations, applying tailor-made didactical approaches, varying teaching methods and using suitable instruments of diagnoses and guidance with respect to individual learning preconditions and processes have become the outstanding marks of professional vocational teaching. One precondition for higher ↑ performance of teaching and providing individual achievements of learning is to analyse the obstacles and beneficial effects of learning situations in order to shape suitable, more demand-
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ing and complex learning arrangements (ARNOLD / LIPSMEIER 1995, 13–15). Didactics in this constructive meaning recognises that the preconditions, processes and results of teaching and learning are not determined but have to be shaped in concrete situations. This includes analysis and eliminating obstacles in the learning arrangements preventing the learners from individual achievements. For vocational education, the constitutive didactical frame of reference consists of the undetermined interrelation of work, techniques and education. This implies that vocational education not only has to prepare learners for coping with the demands of real working situations and tasks but also to enable them to take part in the processes of shaping the organisation of work on the shop-floor. The objectives, contents and delivery modes of ↑ didactical arrangements can no longer be completely determined by analysing the real existing forms of work and techniques only. In addition to this, human-oriented criteria for shaping didactical arrangements are indispensable if vocational education is not only fitting the workforce for whatever demands may arise but also seeks to enable individuals to work more independent and autonomously. Another field of reference for determining contents of didactical arrangements in TVET are the so-called corresponding academic disciplines. This approach claims a strong relation of scientific knowledge in defined academic domains (such as ↑ mechanical engineering) and the knowledge to be provided in TVET for skilled craftsmen from “related” vocational trades (such as skilled mechanics). In school-oriented national systems of TVET this approach, which tends to move away from the demands of real skilled work, is predominant. Summarizing both of the fields of reference for developing TVET training offers mentioned above are not sufficient: demands from real, existing work-processes often do not include subjectoriented criteria for developing broad human abilities, and the structure and subjects of academic disciplines have limited relevance for developing the occupational competence of skilled workers. Modern subject-oriented didactical approaches reflect the limited meaningfulness of both fields of
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reference. Statements about their relevance for TVET can only be given with respect to specific occupational analyses. The characteristic features of modern didactical approaches and curricula are openness, flexibility and responsiveness in order to enable learners to learn independent by and to develop their vocational careers and mastery as part of their own responsibility (VOLPERT 1989; RAUNER 1995a). To sum up one can say that shaping training offers for individual vocational development means empowering and coaching learners to take up and extend given scopes of action in working and ↑ learning environments, including decisions about purposes, means and results of their actions. This implies a coherence of the social, technical and ethical dimension in vocational education and workprocesses (RAUNER 1987). Scopes of tasks and responsibilities in ↑ work processes have been fixed in a given work-organisation by the typical tasks belonging to a special occupation or ↑ vocation. Investigating, documenting and transforming the ↑ occupational tasks into learning assignments is a precondition for shaping and delivering ↑ didactical arrangements. The quality, complexity and extension of occupational learning assignments with respect to their social, technical and ethical dimension determine the potential scope of professional development of the learners. The crucial problem of planning didactical arrangements and delivering real teaching-learning situations in TVET is fitting together learning assignments relevant for real occupational tasks and the individual prior achievements, knowledge and work-experience of the learners. Development of professional expertise takes place within a defined occupational domain and is a process of widening and deepening this domain up to mastery. Shaping occupational learning assignments and arrangements is done properly by starting up with conscious reference to the learner’s current position and guiding him/her to the next step of professional development. This core task of teachers requires sound diagnostic competence in order to assess prior achievements and progress of learners as well as governance of instruments for shaping individual tailored training offers (HOFER / NIEGEMANN /
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ECKERT/ RINN 1996, 53–67; RAUNER 1999a, 424– 446; GERSTENMAIER 2004, 151–166). In other words, development of ↑ vocational curricula, didactical arrangements and ↑ teaching-learning environments implies an indispensable state of tension between the demands coming from the ↑ labour markets to provide marketable qualifications and the social and individual claims that exceed adaptation (DRECHSEL / GERDS /KOERBER 1987; GERDS 1995b). 3.7.3.2
Characteristic Marks of Traditional TVET Arrangements
Traditional curricula, ↑ didactical concepts and learning-teaching arrangements which were the targets of adaptation had been removed by conceptions which put concrete target groups, learning situations and social demands in the focus of attention (HEDDERICH 2001). The following characteristic marks of the traditional conceptions indicate that a deep-seated change in TVET arrangements has taken place within the last couple of years. (1) Standardization Goals, contents, processes, range of time, locations and results of learning have been predetermined in detail by central committees, separated from actual learners, teachers and the environment of learning. Space for unpredictable, unplanned processes, the development of new and innovative procedures and results, original and creative solutions and corresponding competence is not scheduled. Even more, results of individual learning differing from uniform guidelines are unwanted. Acting as a matter of routine and fulfilling given standards are the characteristic features of TVET training offers, in certain analogy to traditional Taylorist forms of work organisation. (2) Learning in Separated Institutions Apart from Real Work and Life The idea of learning is to compile a lot of contextfree items of knowledge in stock for application in future working situations. Since learning does not take place in meaningful situations but in artificial school-based environments separated from real work and individual experiences, students cannot acquire applicable occupational competence. Learning is limited by clearly defined phases in
Areas of VET Research
special locations (e. g. classroom-teaching in a set hourly pattern). Continuous learning in working situations and processes and ↑ lifelong learning based on own experience is not intended. Separate alternate phases of learning and working are located in different places and time. Decentralized learning at work is not scheduled (DEHNBOSTEL / HOLZ / NOVAK 1992; DEHNBOSTEL / WALTER-LEZIUS 1995). (3) Predominance of the Instrumental and Technical Mode of Action Traditional concepts of TVET favour training of skills needed for carrying out clearly and rigidly defined tasks or sub-tasks, corresponding with the Taylorist organisation of work. Comprehensive vocational skills, knowledge and competence which is not directly and immediately required on the fragmented labour-markets are not in focus. TVET has to provide manpower needed for given demands and purposes of production with defined standards. Realizing and considering individual distinctive features of learners and workers as well as taking part in processes of communication and co-operation in ↑ communities of practice and going unusual ways when solving problems is estimated to lead away from the “right” way prescribed in the formal organisation of working and learning. But even social relations with colleagues who are competitors when offering the same standardized and accountable ↑ performances are dominated by the instrumental mode of action. In this mode TVET has the function of supplying abstract qualifications without any specific purpose for alienated work. Development of personal preconditions for sharing in common processes of decisions and innovation that exceed the immediate requirements of daily tasks are not the goal (BRATER 1984; GERDS 1992b). (4) External Control Instead of Self-Regulation Rigid fragmentation and limitation of tasks in strongly dissected organisations of working and learning have severe consequences on the motivation and interests of concerned persons. Workers tend to hold back their work-process-knowledge and engagement when they feel that they are not recognized as equal partners. Indifference and lack of ↑ commitment may be the consequences with strong impact on the results of working and
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learning. External control of workers becomes a necessary requirement in order to ensure the indispensable minimum of interest. The time, energy and expenditure needed the for control usually cause high inefficiency. 3.7.3.3
New Demands for Design of Modern TVET Concepts
Modern, computer-integrated and systemic concepts of work organisation require ↑ participation and overview of employees on the whole process of working and a broader cut of their tasks and responsibilities. A traditional concept with a restricted, limited scope of tasks is an obstacle for the implementation of more flexible and efficient ways of production and the opportunity to adjust quickly and responsibly to new, unpredictable situations. Close communication and co-operation in flexible systems of work, efficient customer advisory service and tailor-made individual solutions are the significant marks of competitive trades and services with new demands for qualified personnel (GANGUIN 1992, 16–33). One consequence is the necessity to shift responsibilities, decision-making-powers and rights of disposal back to the direct locations of work and personnel in the processes of creating values. This is the reason for the significant progress of corresponding holistic and workprocess oriented modern concepts of TVET. Individual, tailor-made qualification, continuous ↑ lifelong learning and, increasingly, ↑ organisational learning are becoming the missing link between ↑ organisational development, ↑ human resources development and TVET (GEISSLER 1998). Just as important as the above-mentioned global trends of modern work-organisation are the new demands arising from direct interaction between personnel and computer aided systems and tools on the workplaces. It is becoming more and more evident that the implicit, ↑ tacit and applicable knowledge and experience of skilled personnel is crucial for their ability to find solutions to an increasing number of non-routine-tasks. Furthermore the effective use of computer-integrated tools requires adaptive implementation, continuous maintenance and updating directly at the workplaces (SCHREIER 2001b).
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The gap between the knowledge of both developers and users of the systems, machines and tools must be reconcilable. Otherwise, deskilling will happen and will have severe consequences (JAKOBS / MARTIN 1991). Computer-integrated systems and tools can only be completed through and incorporated into concrete application on the workplaces with ↑ participation of the user (FISCHER 1995a). Systemic reorganisation of work in the context of computer integration has revolutionary consequences in all areas of TVET, starting from the micro-dimension of shaping concrete teaching and learning situations up to organisational and personal development of TVET-institutions, curriculum-development and the level of national TVETsystems. Comparable with removing more rights of disposal and decision down to the level of skilled work, an international trend of empowerment and enrichment of real teaching and learning places, persons and situations can be identified by the integration of work and learning. Students are increasingly given the responsibility for their own processes of learning, and ↑ didactical concepts for independent learning and working are in great demand (GERDS 2001). Teachers and instructors commissioned with TVET are given more space for didactical decisions, including curriculum implementation and evaluation as well as their own professional development (GERDS / BAUER 2003). ↑ Vocational curricula are moving more and more away from rigid and detailed guidelines but give the teachers/ instructors and learners more space for filling up broader curricular frameworks individually in accordance with the needs of learners. Participation in processes of organisational and personal development is becoming a major qualification requirement of teaching personnel (SLOANE 2002). This enlarging scope of teachers’ and instructors’ tasks and responsibilities yield evidence of the general trend that flat models of organisation and a reduction of hierarchical levels are not only making progress in market-oriented but also in school-oriented TVET-systems. Decisions and competence on planning and evaluating programmes, courses, instructional planning and guidance up to community relations can no longer be divided and allotted to institutions and persons sealed off from each other. Development, implementation, evalua-
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tion and revision of curricula form a coherent circuit. In accordance with modern concepts, teaching personnel have to take on a greater role at every stage (FISCHER / GERDS 2002). The new concepts of TVET and broader scope of tasks of its personnel significantly exceed their traditional scope of duties, with reference to the delivery of teaching as the core of activities. Nevertheless the following remarks refer to shaping the concrete processes of vocational teaching and learning since these are still extremely relevant for the results and quality of teaching. Didactical decisions on suitable teaching methods, instructional execution and evaluation, individual guidance and coaching of learners, developing and using media and shaping ↑ learning environments are still estimated to have a crucial impact on the learner’s ↑ performance. These decisions determine to a large extent how far new aims of teaching like independent learning and development of vocational expertise, which are based on the above-mentioned changing requirements from the modern world of work, can be transferred into reality. 3.7.3.4
Findings on the Quality of SchoolBased TVET
Most countries with school-based or dual TVETsystems for initial technical/vocational education and related academic TVET teacher education have a tradition that has elaborated didactical concepts that are focused on systematic teaching and structured learning. In the last decade the recognition of these concepts has been overshadowed by the boom in learning at work and the development of ↑ work process knowledge, which has a strong impact on the recent process of restructuring the organisation of technical/↑ vocational schools and modernisation of ↑ didactical arrangements of school-based TVET-teaching and learning. Nevertheless, the following actual empirical findings indicate that there still exists a lack of modernity as well in practice as in theory, compared with the contributions put up to the actual European discussion on learning at work.
Areas of VET Research
Elements and Characteristic Marks of Didactical Concepts for School-Based Vocational Learning Academic initial and in-service education of TVET teachers usually refers to school-based vocational learning. The focus lies on the shaping of learning processes in accordance with teaching aims, contents and methods that are pre-set by the teacher and the curriculum. Usually this type of teaching and learning results in propositional knowledge which comes close to traditional academic theory in a mode simplified by didactical reduction: “– discipline-based theories and concepts, derived from coherent, systematic knowledge, – generalizations and practical principles in the applied field of professional action; and – special propositions about particular cases, decisions and actions” (ERAUT 2002, 43).
Since school-based learning takes place apart from real life and working situations with given social, informational and material contexts, all the environmental framework of teaching and learning must be planned and arranged, including: – Social forms of action, regulating the social relations and forms of communication and co-operation of the persons involved in teaching-learning processes. The social forms are determined by the external dimension (structure of space, time and facilities) and the internal dimension (hierarchical or equal structure of personal relations), – Patterns of action, regulating teaching-learning processes with their internal component (building of knowledge and competence by internalisation of performed actions) and its external component (staging and engineering of simulated work-processes as ↑ didactical arrangements), – Sequential arrangement of steps of teachinglearning processes, regulating their external structure (arrangement of sequences by time) and their internal structure of (way of acquisition of knowledge, e. g. situated or context-free) (MEYER 1987). The interplay of social-forms, patterns of action and sequential arrangements is decisive for fixing didactical arrangements and teaching methods like projects, programmes, courses of study, or lesson plans. Like work-based learning, school-based learning is an extremely complex event and scientists are
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uncertain whether a coherent theory with non-contradictory categories for analysing and describing ↑ teaching and learning processes is possible (TERHART 2000a, 33; PÄTZOLD 2003a, 16–21). Therefore Pätzold decided to use a pragmatic definition of the term “teaching and learning methods” to describe their empirical research on the real practice of teaching and learning processes in TVET. The term “teaching and learning arrangement” used is open for a broad scope of different ways of teaching and learning, reaching from “great arrangements” like projects down to short patterns of action in micro-teaching situations. But all these traditional concepts of school-based learning come from the teacher’s point of view: they are the persons who have to shape learning-processes. So learning and teaching become equated and placed on the same level, and the activities and perspectives of the learners tend to be ignored. The term “teaching and learning” arrangement refers to the “constructivistic” theory of learning (MATURANA 1993). The transfer of the theory of autopoietic systems to pedagogic theory indicated a change of perspective: knowledge cannot simply be transferred from teachers to learners. Didactic competence of teachers can no more be defined as the ability to arrange an effective process knowledge-transfer from the teacher to the learner by applying “suitable” teaching methods. On contrary the teacher has to empower the learner’s process of own acting and active learning. Not the arrangement and organisation of the teacher’s instruction is given priority, but support of the process of construction of knowledge by the learners themselves comes to the fore. This “constructivistic” theory of learning can be supplemented by findings from empiric research on the structure and quality of instruction summarized as follows. (1) Existing Room to Move and Modernise the Organisation and Arrangement of School-Based Learning has Not Been Sufficiently Exhausted In spite of increasing regulation by the progress of extensive programme, curriculum and lesson planning and the strong trend towards standardizing and bureaucratizing vocational teaching and learning triggered by the implementation of scientific methods for developing and evaluating cur-
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ricula and organisations, still a wide scope of difference in the quality of vocational education has been found (DEITMER / FISCHER / GERDS ET AL. 2004; DEITMER 2004b). These findings suggest that significant room to move and modernise still exists in many schools and that, in general, it has not yet been exhausted. Another reason for the great differences in quality may be due to a weak impact of regulations on teaching and learning reality, where many possibilities evade them. Experienced teachers and trainers hardly refer to curricula and other regulations when preparing and conducting teaching. Other findings documenting the minor interest of many teachers in their own ↑ further education on pedagogical issues offer some conclusions about the lack of professional development in core areas. About 50 % of the teachers have sound knowledge and experience of traditional concepts like teacher-centred instructional execution, but only 25 % are familiar with modern concepts of independent and work oriented learning (PÄTZOLD 2003a). (2) Verbal Instruction is Still Predominant Head-on verbal instruction is still the dominant form of interaction. Following the theory of ↑ situated cognition (LAVE / WENGER 1991) the consequence is that providing a kind of knowledge that is not very useful in practical vocational contexts is not suitable to make learners ready for meeting the demands of real work. In contrast, and in accordance with the theory of ↑ situated learning TVET has to consider the following general principles (CLANCEY 1992): (a) learning situations should offer real work complexity rather than selective cuts of reality that aim at directly transmitting certain, abstract concepts; (b) active engagement through practical experience is superior to passive learning through exposition; (c) group work and social interaction are superior to individual learning. Another starting point for a critique of verbal headon instruction and curricula overloaded with useless theoretical knowledge comes from a more didactical point of view. The result of learning in this mode is the compilation of “↑ inert knowledge” (MANDL / GRUBER / RENKL 1993) that is not applicable for real life and work situations (BRETTSCHNEIDER /
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GRUBER /K AISER / STARK 2000, 399). Inert knowledge is not applicable for the reason that learning is organised in a receptive manner by acquiring prescribed and disciplinary structured terms and facts. This concept neglects the idea that learning is an active and constructive process that must be related to occupational activities and tasks (R EINMANN-ROTHMEIER / MANDL /P RENTZEL 1994). Dörner resumes the results of his “Lohhausen-experiments” with his sarcastic statement that the participants of the investigated programmes have been enabled to discuss their problems using many fine, new terms. But their real activities remained completely untouched by this increase of eloquence (DÖRNER 2000, 304). In this context Dörner speaks about “knowledge of eunuchs: They know how to do it but they cannot”. Tramm and Rebmann describe the significant marks and reasons for their findings on the type of knowledge in the ↑ occupational area of business administration as follows: (a) Dominance of fragmented and hierarchically structured detailed knowledge on law and trading, (b) Lack of possibilities to acquire authentic experience by dealing directly with relevant subjects, (c) Holistic and complex action, linking concrete tasks and cases, finding aims of action, decisionmaking, execution, control, instruction and justification in complex learning arrangements does not take place (TRAMM / SCHROER, cited by 2002, 78). Following Tramm and Rebmann, the characteristic marks of the “didactic theory” as the basis for this type of knowledge acquisition are: A fund of knowledge-items on contents and procedures exists; the compiled amount of the items results in ↑ vocational competence; This fund consists of defined terms that have been transformed or reduced from hierarchical structured scientific disciplines; Vocational competence is generated somehow by “compressing” knowledge systems. Theoretical terms that have been acquired in context-free learning situations are somehow linked with practical experience from work and real life; Learning happens by illustrating isolated verbal terms by the teacher and receiving them in a passive mode by the learner. When learning, the terms
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are taken up by a hierarchical structure of knowledge ready to be called upon if required. (3) Predominance of Social Forms of Action and Media Restricting Communication and Co-operation The predominant form of action of teaching is head-on, frontal instruction and holding lessons directed by the teacher. Working and learning in groups or with a partner on learning assignments related to typical ↑ occupational tasks rarely happens. Empirical findings indicate that school-based vocational education is usually going off in a “classical” teacher-centred way ascribing a passive role to the learners. Even in industrial and trade education the blackboard is the most preferred medium when teaching (PÄTZOLD 2003a, 64). But vocational training measures in companies also show a lack of modern activating arrangements: trainer-centred instruction and application of the methods coming from “Training within industries” (TWI) are the predominant form of social action. But these traditional teaching methods are given much better grades by the learners since they mark vocational training in companies as being much more valuable for the development of expertise than school-based vocational education. Even for ↑ pilot projects aiming for the implementation of modern concepts of learning, the results of evaluation prove that the enlarged space offered for realization did not result in a new quality of vocational learning in the extension that had been expected. The results of empirical evaluation show that a German governmental programme consisting of 21 pilot projects in 100 ↑ vocational schools carried out for implementation of the four central aims, (1) work ↑ process orientation of curricula, (2) independent learning, (3) action-oriented learning for acquiring the competence of shaping and (4) holistic learning, did not bring about an overall turning away from the ancient traditions of teaching and learning. One of the reasons for this finding is a deficient knowledge-base of teachers and instructors on modern didactics, guidance of students and arranging of individual ways of learning for learners with different prior achievements (DEITMER / FISCHER / GERDS ET AL. 2004).
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3.7.3.5
Significant Marks of Modern Activating and Complex Learning Arrangements and Criteria for Shaping and Evaluation
The Fundamental Relation of Practical Experience and Theoretical Knowledge A general starting point is the goal of enabling learners to cope with the demands of real vocational working tasks and situations. This means governing and participating in shaping the ↑ work processes, technical and instrumental means of production and forms of work organisation, which are relevant for a given workplace, in accordance with the standards valid for the professional ↑ performance of a ↑ vocational task. To govern the demands means active concern with a task that belongs to a vocational profile and performance in terms of fulfilling recognized assessable criteria. Beyond this, enabling learners to shape their own individual career paths and professional development on the way to mastery is increasingly becoming a crucial aim for TVET. W. Volpert defines this goal by the criteria of shaping new conditions, forms and products of work, based on acquired vocational governance and expertise as a kind of self-realization (VOLPERT 1989). In order to avoid the development of ↑ inert knowledge TVET should take place in situations requiring independent and self-reliant actions of learners. Furthermore, learning should be situated in complex and authentic contexts of application. Authenticity means linking new learning tasks and one’s own experience with former solutions to comparable problems. By this experience a limited fund of applicable and necessary knowledge to cope with the new demands is available. But this fund of knowledge is not enough and needs to be extended by acquiring new knowledge when the learner is concerned with overcoming the new task. When the learner realizes that he/ she is able to enable him-/herself to complete the task successfully the motivation arises for continuous further learning. This is an internal process of learners that cannot be taken over by the teachers. They are commissioned to provide the ↑ learning environment and further conditions, which are
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beneficial for successful learning and to eliminate the obstacles of successful learning. Criteria for beneficial learning arrangements are: (1) They focus on work-related learning tasks which trigger independent learning (2) They are complex, open and changeable by the learners (3) They are connectable with prior experience (authentic prior achievement) (4) They require relevant means (equipment, tools, materials, information) needed for professional ↑ performance (5) They allow, or, better, they require different solutions and individual ways of learning (6) They allow and require co-operation and communication in a group (7) They prompt different kinds of personal and social activities (verbal, social, mental, operational, physical) (8) They encourage self-organised learning (alone and in groups) (9) They require self-reflection and self-assessment of the ways and results of working and learning. Contrary to systematic theoretical knowledge acquired in traditional classroom learning the results of ↑ situated learning are influenced by many context-specific variables which are linked with the specific and are not repeatable anywhere at will. But the results from empirical research (BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002) offer evidence that theoretical knowledge and assumptions founded on pragmatic theories are necessary to cope with the demands arising from solving difficult tasks and critical events at work (FISCHER / BOREHAM 2004). Highly skilled workers and professionals are able to integrate their experimental knowledge and theory and to resolve contradictions between both in the context of solving a real problem at work. Recent findings from research projects on the origin of ↑ work process knowledge make clear that its development can be described as a dialectical process of merging practical experience acquired at workplaces and relevant theoretical knowledge acquired apart from workplaces. The crucial task for didactical work is to realize and foster this merger in suitable ↑ didactical arrangements by
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linking learning situations which occur on-the-job with related learning in classrooms. Another approach of research towards clarifying the relation of inert and applicable knowledge comes from knowledge-transfer-theory. The question as to how knowledge is acquired by experience can be integrated into the existing fund of knowledge resulting in a higher level of knowledge and competence, which are required for solving new and more difficult problems. According to the transfer-hypothesis a transfer to new situations of application can only happen if the “old” and the “new” situation have structural identities. A problem comparable with the origin of “↑ inert knowledge” can arise if a “de-contextualisation” of knowledge acquired by situative learning does not take place. In this case an accumulation of knowledge and an integration into the fund of structured knowledge is not possible. Bruchhäuser insists that a structuring transfer-process from primary experience to systematic knowledge is necessary to accumulate the fund. A precondition of the transfer is the ability to draw inductive conclusions (BRUCHHÄUSER 2001, 334–335). In the field of ↑ curriculum development at least two strategies for dealing with this problem are visible. First, the development of spiral-curricula allowing ascendant and successive ways of learning through similar tasks arranged on different levels of difficulty. This allows the compilation and elaboration of ↑ domain-specific funds of knowledge (GERDS 2001, 44–48). It also allows the application of the principle of “logic of development” coming from curricula for health-care ↑ vocations on other vocational fields (RAUNER 1999a).
Aspects and Findings of the Evaluation of Complex Teaching-Learning Arrangements A significant mark of the quality of didactical arrangements is the strategy how to relate practical experience acquired when learning and working to theoretical knowledge that is already available or to be acquired for solving a ↑ vocational task. In order to promote a suitable merger of both sides in the process of developing competence, pragmatic combinations of the constructivistic, situated and instructional paradigms of learning are on the way. That these paradigms must not exclude each
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other necessarily but can be added to and completed has been proven in a lot of practical projects (SCHROER 2002). The results prove that particularly in complex teaching-learning arrangements a significant higher performance could be achieved by providing additional instructional support compared with arrangements without this additional instruction (BRETTSCHNEIDER / GRUBER /K AISER / STARK 2000). Schroer’s research on school-based TVET in Germany proves that poor results of teaching and learning are often due to missing professional diagnoses of individual procedures and steps of learning. There is a strong demand for individualised and tailored training offers that cannot be covered because suitable instruments of diagnoses and managing differentiated ↑ didactical arrangement are not available or known to the teachers. This problem is going to become urgent in the context of trials to implement complex situated ↑ learning environments aiming for ↑ self-reliant learning. The results from these trials show that it is possible to avoid the genesis of ↑ inert knowledge to some extent. But the problem arises that learners with high prior achievements have strong benefits from these arrangements. On the other hand learners with weak prior achievement and preconditions do not profit from the arrangements. By using additional instructional aids (e. g. use of hypermedia, multimedia-sets of data networks, shaping of individual interactive ways of acquiring information allowing free navigation through domains of knowledge) significant progress even for retarded learners are possible (SCHROER 2002, 284–340). A sustainable and professional use of computer-aided, individualised situated teaching-learning arrangements like this requires deep-rooted changes of existing curricula, ↑ didactical concepts and above all TVET-teacher education.
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vance of the arrangements for real work in companies and the qualification demands. (2) Diagnoses, accreditation and assessment of given individual preconditions and achievements of leaning. (3) Elements and structure of complex learning arrangements enhancing motivation, ↑ commitment and achievement of learners. (4) Strategies for arranging coherent phases of practice and theoretical learning. (5) Differentiated and individualised shaping of learning arrangements and organisation of feedback by using suitable tools. The most important questions in the phases of implementation and dissemination are (1) Depth, grade of elaboration and type of acquired knowledge. (2) Teachers’ professional competence for shaping and implementing complex situated learning environments. (3) Instruments and procedures for developing and evaluating curricula for learning in complex situated arrangements. The decisive criterion for evaluation is the ability to acquire new knowledge through independent and self-reliant learning, to be able to solve vocational core-tasks by using this knowledge and to apply it to other comparable tasks and cases. The evaluation on the impact of complex didactical arrangements should focus on how far the results depend on matters such as the contents of the learning, the motivation and the medial aspects i.e. (interactivity of programmes, feedback, recognition of didactic principles in software-tools for programme design).
3.7.4
Desiderata in the Field of Developing and Evaluating Complex Situated Teaching-Learning Arrangements The most important questions for evaluation in the phase of development are: (1) Acceptance of ↑ situated learning arrangement by the learners, including the relation and rele-
Shaping Learning Environments Peter Dehnbostel
3.7.4.1
Background
Since the 1990s, we have been witnessing a revival of ↑ on-the-job learning. As a result of changes in society and industry, this form of learning has
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become an important competitive advantage for companies. Improvement and optimization processes, ↑ quality assurance, knowledge organisation and other current management concepts and methods require learning processes that take place during work. For the most part, on-the-job learning is felt to be more important than the courses and seminars that still dominate the field of vocational ↑ further education. This shift of perspective in further education is reflected in the way that “skills development” has nowadays come to replace the term “qualification”. Analytically defined qualifications from educational establishments have given way to holistic skills that can only be acquired through learning at home and at work. Although it is generally recognized that ↑ on-thejob learning now plays an increasingly important role in reorganisation and restructuring processes, this tells us little about the scope and quality of on-the-job learning or about its relevance and role in personal development. In addition, on-thejob learning also has its disadvantages: the situational dependence of work assignments and working conditions, their economic determination, the coincidental and arbitrary nature of the learning processes, and the fact that many workplaces are not conducive to learning. By shaping ↑ learning environments, we can therefore make a significant contribution towards increasing ↑ learning potential at the workplace and towards encouraging and facilitating learning. In terms of the criteria, processes and concepts involved in ↑ shaping learning environments, however, there are major differences between disciplines such as vocational education, ↑ ergonomics, and industrial and organisational psychology. This is evident not only in new learning methods such as coaching, ↑ learning islands and quality circles but also in forms of employment such as group work, rotation and networks, where deliberate attempts are made to create ↑ learning-oriented work structures. We are no longer concerned here with learning environments in the narrower sense of the term but also with the shaping of wider learning and working environments. These reach far into everyday life as a result of the breakdown of borders between gainful work, types of work, and learning locations.
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3.7.4.2
On-the-Job Learning
Until well into the 1980s, discussions of vocational education were based on the assumption that learning potential and learning opportunities at the workplace would continue to decrease as they had in the wake of the industrialization and Taylorization of work in previous decades. Learning at work was considered less and less justifiable not only for didactical and methodical but also for organisational and economic reasons. Off-the-job training measures showed, however, that while ↑ systematic learning was feasible in centralized educational centres, too little attention was being paid to practical and experience-oriented learning. It also became clear that the complex demands of modernday workplaces were becoming increasingly difficult to anticipate and simulate. It was eventually acknowledged that new work and organisational concepts make increased learning potential and learning opportunities possible within modern ↑ work processes. As a result, companies increasingly placed more emphasis on qualification and skills development at work. Decentralized training concepts were used to achieve this goal (see DEHNBOSTEL / HOLZ / NOVAK 1992). The main reason for reconsidering on-the-joblearning was not educational arguments but rather economic considerations. Conventional forms of industrial rationalization are not as effective as they should be. This is a result of our increasingly knowledge- and service-based society with its new ↑ information and communication technologies and because of the decrease in manual labour and the increase in knowledge-based tasks. In terms of added value, knowledge is becoming an increasingly important resource. The ever-increasing speed at which economic, technological and socio-cultural changes are taking place is constantly forcing organisations and companies to adapt and innovate. It is hoped that continuous learning in and from organisations will pave the way for innovations, increase and expand knowledge and, last but not least, enhance ↑ performance and competitiveness. For many experts from different fields, onthe-job learning and the knowledge gained from it has nowadays become the most important productive force in an increasingly customer-orient-
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ed and globalized economy (see also JAEGER 1999; NONAKA / TAKEUCHI 1997; WILDEMANN 1994). Another issue is how these learning processes should be judged in terms of quality and implementation. This touches upon what is probably the most decisive issue for the present situation of onthe-job learning. Do modern work processes actually offer the broad range of learning options that are clearly available today, and how effective and sustainable are these options? This discussion has been underway since the beginning of the 1990s and has focused on the key words “coincidence” and “convergence” of economic and educational rationality (see also ACHTENHAGEN 1990; HARTEIS 2000; HEID 1999). Analyses have indicated the advantages and disadvantages of corporate change and its effect on learning in modern ↑ work processes. On the one hand, globalization, new ↑ information and communication technologies, and increased productivity have led to massive personnel cuts, increased stress, unstable employment conditions, and task-oriented learning. On the other hand, dehierarchization and decentralization provide better conditions for holistic work, higher levels of freedom, increased involvement and active ↑ participation by employees, and improved learning conditions and ↑ learning potential. Regardless of the current discussion, industrial and educational psychologists consider the chances of ↑ on-the-job learning for personality development to be important (see also HACKER / SKELL 1993; WÄCHTER / MODROW-THIEL 2002). In terms of the importance of work and work-related learning, this view has much in common with reformist education and ↑ classical vocational education theory of the early 20th century. Accordingly, on-the-job learning is seen as part of the human development process and as a major contribution to self-actualization. This is related to the conviction that the conditions under which work is performed are of elementary importance to the individual and society. In order to make these conditions as conducive to learning as possible, there must be criteria for learning content and ↑ learning environments.
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3.7.4.3
Criteria for Establishing Learning Potential
The task of creating ↑ learning-oriented working conditions and learning environments always involves some tension and contradictions. Workplace tasks are subject to economic criteria and factors, while individual and personality-related goals must be seen primarily in the context of human-oriented ↑ personnel development and professional development and advancement options. The criteria that serve as a constructive basis both for analyzing learning potential on the job and for creating ↑ learning-oriented working environments have been defined in several studies (see BERGMANN 1996, 173 ff.; FRANKE / K LEINSCHMITT 1987; SONNTAG 1996), mainly from the perspective of industrial and organisational psychology. As an example I would like to examine the criteria formulated by G. Franke, which to a large extent conform with those in other studies. Based on previous research, Franke identifies (1999, 61 ff.) seven criteria or dimensions as relevant conditions for on-the-job learning: – Experience with problems, which in essence comprises the complexity of experience and the extent of thought processes within the work itself; – Scope of action, which tells us about levels of freedom at the workplace and, in connection with this, about the various possibilities for taking competent action; – Centralized variability, which refers to the handling of tasks that have the same basic structure but different conditions for implementing them, and which therefore indicates options for making changes at the workplace; – Integrality, which comprises holistic tasks in terms of “complete action”; – Social support, which entails communication, suggestions, and support with and by colleagues and superiors; – Individualization, which relates tasks to the development stage of the individual; and – Rationality, which uses the Dreyfus/ Dreyfus model to classify employees according to development stages – from novice to expert. Franke believes that these criteria are decisive for learning potential and for “developing strategic potential for taking action”. They cannot, howev-
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er, count as ↑ quality criteria per se. Whether they have a beneficial or detrimental effect on learning depends on larger circumstances such as corporate culture, the way the work is organized, and ↑ work tasks. This is made clear in the brief description of “individualization:” depending on the development stage of the individual, tasks can be either too demanding or too simple. In other dimensions such as “experience with problems”, “scope of action” and “rationality”, conduciveness to learning mainly depends on individual disposition. Depending on personality and skill, the degrees of problem content, scope of action and rationality can benefit or hinder learning. In addition, the interplay between the individual dimensions is important. From a constructivist viewpoint, it is necessary to fulfill similar requirements to make learning-oriented workplaces and ↑ learning environments effective (REINMANN-ROTHMEIER / MANDL 2001b). The working/learning process must have certain levels of freedom: new developments should not appear as an enclosed system and the learner must take over control processes. The learner must be able to gain experience, collect knowledge, and reach his own conclusions. These levels of freedom must be experienced, used and structured consciously. For this to work, learners must be motivated and have or develop an interest in the work or learning activities; they should also guide themselves through the learning process. Learning is always a social process in which learners and their actions are influenced interactively and socioculturally. The principles for ↑ shaping learning environments are summed up as follows: – Authenticity and situational context; – Multiple contexts; – Multiple perspectives; and – Social context. Besides the main objective of modern vocational training, i.e. achieving comprehensive professional skills and using the reflexive capacity for action, there are two other criteria for identifying ↑ learning potential: reflexivity and the innovative content of work. Reflexivity covers both structural reflexivity and the self-reflexivity of the person taking action (compare LASH 1996, 203 f.). According to this definition, reflexivity at work means reflecting about work structures and environments
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as well as about oneself. The innovative content of the work depends on the innovative ability of each individual. This innovative ability is the objective of continuous and reflexive learning at work. Innovation is the interconnection and implementation of knowledge, experience and vision to create something new. This can take the form of products, services or even work structures and organisations. 3.7.4.4
Developing and Shaping Learning Environments
As the description of the general criteria for establishing learning potential clearly shows, there is no one best way to create ↑ learning-oriented working conditions and learning environments. Each company and each area of work requires a solution specific to it. In addition, the complexity of post-Taylorist work structures means that in many cases it is only possible to identify and shape the tasks as group work in a holistic and complete sequence of events. When shaping learning environments, it is therefore necessary to take into account ↑ work processes and working environments that extend beyond individual workplaces and into everyday life. Learning environments at work are characterized mainly by the positive conditions and options that exist to make ↑ on-the-job learning possible. These conditions and options are determined on the one hand by concrete factors such as company size, company branches, job assignments, the way the work is organized, and qualification requirements. On the other hand they are also determined by measures aimed at developing and shaping work processes and learning environments. In this context, ‘developing’ involves examining and selecting the workplace as a learning facility and learning environment. ‘Shaping’ refers to the targeted creation of learning-oriented structures, which is mainly achieved through personnel-related measures and by providing sufficient learning material. In the following, ↑ work and learning tasks and ↑ learning islands will be presented as two generalized examples for developing and shaping work processes and learning environments (see DEHNBOSTEL 2003, 6 ff.).
Areas of VET Research
The qualification concept of work and learning assignments involves selecting and didactically preparing ↑ work tasks in order to develop and organize the workplaces concerned as learning facilities and learning environments. One example of this is the model of work and learning tasks in several small- and medium-sized companies (see also WILKE-SCHNAUFER 1998). In order to identify the work situation in the companies concerned, a multi-stage process of company and qualification analysis was carried out as were analyses of work assignments. The latter involved identifying “typical” tasks, i.e. not only conventional company tasks to which work structures and work material are tailored but also tasks that should be characteristic of and can to a large extent be applied to the qualified job or the job training profile. In the analysis of company-specific tasks, the production of an axle or rotary component, for example, was identified as a task that is relevant to learning. In order to prepare the task didactically, it was analyzed and divided into individual stages: the receiving and preparation phases, the actual production and quality control phase, and last but not least the completion stage. An examination was carried out to determine which qualifications are necessary for each individual work stage and for all the work stages as a whole, and what needs to be added for vocational education and training purposes. To make life easier for training staff, the ↑ work and learning tasks were written down in a curriculum. The planning and production process of an axle was prepared in such a way that it can be applied to a number of related products as a work and learning task entitled “rotary components” and can be used in several companies. In general, work and learning tasks are based on the principles of – The authenticity of the ↑ work tasks; – Conformity with the respective job profile; – Gearing the ↑ teaching and learning processes towards experience-related learning; – Increasing independent group work; and – Making use of individual educational rights. The decisive factor for this systematically designed method of work-based learning is that the respective task or the work and learning assignment derived from it corresponds to holistic work
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and learning stages that can be carried out in the respective learning/working environment. With the installation of ↑ learning islands and similar educational methods such as learning stations and learning circles, workplaces are systematically developed and shaped as ↑ learning facilities and ↑ learning environments; as with work and learning tasks, formal and ↑ informal learning are integrated. A tried and tested model containing five phases has been prepared for developing and shaping the learning environment, the latter being referred to as “learning island” (DEHNBOSTEL 2001b, 80 ff.; 2003, 7 f.). The first phase involves analyzing the workplaces and work assignments and establishing the qualification requirements and work conditions that are associated with them. Based on the abovementioned criteria, an examination is carried out to determine ↑ learning potential and learning options. A second phase takes into account vocational and educational training aims and determines whether the workplace under examination will be selected as a learning environment and learning island. A third phase determines the structure, equipment and organisational principles and creates a working and learning infrastructure. Learning aims, learning contents and methods are then determined on the basis of the working/learning situation, the organisational backgrounds and the personnel and social objectives. The fifth and last phase involves planning the work and processes in the learning island and preparing a model to assess the quality of the work that has been carried out. The quality of the learning processes and skills development are also examined on the basis of specific criteria. Various versions of this model are used. It has been shown that criteria are needed to analyze learning potentials for setting up learning methods such as learning islands because many workplaces and ↑ work processes are, for various reasons, unsuitable as learning environments. In contrast to actual workplaces, learning islands provide learning environments in which there is more time to perform the desired qualification and learning processes despite the fact that they deal with the same work tasks. For this purpose, learning islands are equipped with material such as educational software and visualization options. On the basis of the
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above-mentioned criteria, efforts are also underway to ensure that the work tasks of learning islands meet the criteria that apply to the work as a whole, i.e. that they offer effective learning options and incentives through complexity, problem content and plenty of variation. To a great extent, the learners plan, perform and evaluate the work tasks themselves. The work in the learning islands is characterized by a high level of independence, responsibility and close group cooperation. In charge of the learning islands is a training specialist, who primarily plays the role of a process and development supervisor and who is generally qualified in vocational and educational training. His main challenge is to provide knowledge and skills not by applying conventional methods of instruction but by allowing the learner to be largely in control of his own work and learning processes. Learning situations and learning milieus are created that allow learners to work alone and in groups and, to a great extent, to acquire specialized, social and personal skills independently. Learning and instruction methods of the past are replaced by accompanying, moderating and coaching processes that require appropriately-developed ↑ learning environments. 3.7.4.5
Concluding Remarks
The trend towards ↑ on-the-job learning will continue in the foreseeable future. Despite the benefits of the options available to shape learning environments at the workplace, there are two aspects that we must not forget. First, company innovations are facing increased pressure from market competition and cost-saving measures. As a result, learning at the workplace and newly created learning environments are facing increasing pressure from outside. Learning may be limited to immediate corporate benefits and may be superseded by purely short-term measures and actions that improve a company’s competitive advantage. Secondly, restricting skills development to on-the-job learning would be untenable from an educational point of view. This would be tantamount to detaching onthe-job learning from the structures of the general education system. It would prevent employees from attaining certified qualifications in order to advance professionally and from receiving general
educational qualifications at a later stage. Against this background, efforts to connect informal and formal learning acquire additional importance. It is necessary to link learning facilities and learning environments in companies to external learning facilities and secondary and post-secondary education. It follows that comprehensive vocational skills and the reflexive capacity for action can only be acquired by linking learning by doing or ↑ informal learning with formal learning in appropriately organized learning environments inside and outside companies. When it comes to developing skills, formal and informal learning are two sides of the same coin; separating them is a forced undertaking in which the learner suffers. The principle that non-organized learning implies organized learning and vice-versa is confirmed by the learning environments I have presented and explained in this essay.
3.7.5
Task-Oriented Learning Falk Howe
3.7.5.1
Introduction
The rapid technological, economic and social change at the beginning of the 21st century also poses the question as to which didactic concepts or which learning and training strategies can help to realise an adequate and effective vocational education and training. In nearly all economic sectors and ↑ occupational areas there are now new or fundamentally changed qualification requirements. At the same time, with the increased use of ↑ information and communication technologies, the opportunities to shape workplaces, working environments, working conditions, progress planning, work sequences etc. also grow. Besides, recent forms of working organisation with distinctive ↑ process orientation shift competence and responsibilities to the value-adding shop-floor-level. The employees are confronted with demanding expectations such as independency, sense of responsibility, cooperation, communication and interac-
Areas of VET Research
tion ability, understanding of operational workflows and context, flexibility, creativity. In many cases, such developments are also reflected in ↑ vocational curricula. Meanwhile it is an important aim of vocational education in Germany, for example, to enable the trainees to play their part in shaping the world of work and society in a socially and ecologically responsible way (agreement on ↑ vocational schools of 1991). 3.7.5.2
Conceptual Clarification
Against this background, task-oriented learning is a ↑ didactical concept that supports coping with the given challenges with a work- and ↑ work processrelated learning. Accordingly it is a cornerstone of modern vocational education and training, based on the interaction between learning and working. Task-oriented learning is performed in the manner of projects which refer to problem-containing situations of operational reality. The assignments are normally selected from among the typical tasks of enterprises involved in the vocational training. Learning and working as well as the vocational training elements from both vocational education schools and companies are combined. By shifting learning into work processes the tasks constitute a link between the world of vocational training and the world of work: The educational and qualification potential of the reality of work is used for vocational learning. The fundamental characteristics of task-oriented learning is that the trainees are encouraged to discover and use the freedom of action to accomplish the tasks, to seek alternative solutions, often through a teamwork approach, to evaluate the various proposals and, therefore, to become capable of making well-grounded decisions. Trainees cooperatively agree to their proceeding among themselves and with their trainers and teachers. The assignments have to be designed in order to provoke the trainees to ask themselves the following key questions: – Why is the technique structured like this and why does the enterprise use it in this manner? – Why is work organized in precisely this way in the enterprise? – Could the job be done in another way? What alternatives are there?
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In other words, the trainees learn how to tackle job tasks critically (with respect to the applicable techniques, work organisation, working conditions), and are able to put them into a reflective practice. They understand clearly what they are studying for. In this framework, the role of the trainers and teachers is basically that of “assistants” and they assume the functions of moderators and advisors. In Germany the concept of task-oriented learning disseminated very quickly during the 1990s. In a huge number of ↑ pilot projects the role of the central didactical-methodological instrument was also added in order to increase the quality of vocational education and training. If one compares the individual approaches, conceptual differences arise first between the type and range of the relation between work and learning. The range reaches from an immediate assignment of the trainees under real operational conditions up to an intermediatory work relationship where occupational working tasks are prepared didactically and competence is promoted regardless of operational requirements (cp. MALEK 1996, 27 f.). Beyond this, the single approaches differ concerning the amount of freedom and tolerance they offer to the learners. While there is a rather narrow guidance in the form of leading texts on the one hand (e. g. so called “order manuals”, NICOLAUS /K ASTEN 1999), on the other hand it is didactic intention to allow the learners a great latitude and to encourage them to find and realise alternatives in the solution of tasks and problems in an independent way (e. g. so called “shaping-oriented ↑ learning and working tasks” HOWE 2002; 2004). Thirdly differences appear in the systematisation of the single tasks: E. g., the complexity of the tasks (cf. WILKE-SCHNAUFER / SCHONHARDT / FROMMERT 1998, 25– 29), the main focus of the learning intended with the task (cf. MEERTEN 1999, 144–152) or so called “learning areas” based on a logic of development (REINHOLD / HAASLER / HOWE ET AL. 2003, 29–40; → 3.4.1) serve as structuring elements. 3.7.5.3
Importance, Aims and Benefits of Task-Oriented Learning
The ↑ teaching and ↑ learning strategies in vocational training and education range from a decided “project-oriented and work-related” approach,
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i.e. the training is almost exclusively carried out through projects in operational reality, to a general “course-oriented” approach, i.e. the training is based on a set of rather theoretical classroom courses. The goal of task-oriented learning is to contribute to increase the amount of “project-oriented and work-related” vocational education and training. The inclusion of vocational training in enterprises’ work and business processes makes it possible to conduct the hands-on parts of training at the workplace, using state-of-the-art technology. By taking part in the actual ↑ work processes, in fact, trainees gain “first hand” experience of the job techniques and work organisation and of how the desires, interests and (regulatory, administrative, etc.) requirements become a part of the goods and the work process. Furthermore, this on-site work experience also gives trainees the opportunity to learn how to affect these development processes. Besides the above-mentioned integration between learning and working and the consequent improvement of the quality of vocational training, task-oriented learning also produces other benefits, namely: – If the projects also envision the development and ↑ performance of job tasks, it may contribute to the value-creating process within the enterprise; – Inasmuch as the project materials are usually made available by the customer, this allows the reduction of ↑ training costs; – Training tasks allow professional trainers and teachers to further investigate the state-of-the-art work and business processes adopted by the enterprises, as well as their operating contexts. This important training knowledge may then be transferred to the apprenticeship workshops and vocational training schools, i.e. to institutions traditionally far removed from the actual workplace; – Trainers and teachers highlight, in particular, the strong motivation this type of vocational training produces in trainees. Trainers and teachers, in fact, receive from the trainees, who collaborate in their training with noteworthy creativity and a great deal of ↑ commitment, positive feedback on their work.
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3.7.5.4
Conceptual References
One of the main challenges of vocational education and training is the question of the relation between practice and theory. Depending on the learning venue (↑ vocational schools, enterprises, industry-wide training centres) there is a more or less complete separation. Among other things didactical and curricular reform projects of the past were designed to overcome this separation of practice and theory and thus to increase the quality of vocational education and training. Task-oriented learning connects with these efforts and takes up the actual findings of ↑ curriculum research, competence research and learning and teaching research. Their didacticalmethodological adjustment continues to create different innovative drafts of VET practice as well.
Situated Cognition Learning and teaching research (→ 3.7.7), especially findings of ↑ Situated Cognition (COLLINS / BROWN / NEWMAN 1989; ROGOFF 1990; THE COGNITION AND TECHNOLOGY GROUP AT VANDERBILT 1990; LAVE / WENGER 1991; GREENO / SMITH / MOORE 1993), provide links for task-oriented learning. In spite of different emphases these theories, simplistically summarised, emanate from the common acceptance that learning is an active, individual construction process in connection with already existing foreknowledge and experiences of the learner. According to these theories the acquisition of competence can’t be separated from the practical application, and competence depends on the context in which it was acquired as well as that in which it should be used. To allow the transfer of the learned, the learning situation has to be as similar as possible to the later application situation, i.e. it has to be shaped in a “situated” way. Hence, the learning occasion should be an interesting, authentic problem. For the comprehensive development and adaptable transferability of knowledge, multiple perspectives or contexts are open to the learner, and he is offered the possibility for a continuous articulation and reflection of his action (compare GERSTENMAIER / MANDL 1995, 879; MANDL / GRUBER / RENKL 2002, 141, 144).
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Decentralised Learning Learning and working have always been more or less closely associated. However, from the 1920s onwards German industry, for example, increasingly shifted its training activities to the apprenticeship workshops, where so called “basic qualifications” were achieved through the completion of special training courses. Through the years, therefore, the relationship between learning and working gradually disappeared. In the 1990s it was recognized – and is increasingly so today – that basic (and further) vocational training should become a part of the enterprises’ ↑ work processes (→ 3.6.4), supporting classroom instruction as far as possible. With it, the connection of learning and work had a revival at the end of the 20th century (compare STREUMER 2001; BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002; FISCHER / BOREHAM / NYHAN 2004). Against this background the approach of ↑ decentralised learning deals with four main subjects that fix a framework for developing appropriate learning concepts: new learning venues and new combinations of them, new methods and ↑ didactical concepts, modified training of the trainers and teachers and analysis of the workplace and working environment (DEHNBOSTEL / MOLZBERGER 2004, 291). It is the basic intention to integrate the workplace and the work processes into vocational education and training measures to enable trainees to cope with changed qualification requirements (→ 3.7.4).
Action-Based Learning and Vocational Competence In the 1980s the concepts of the integral work process and action-oriented learning become more and more important (cf. HACKER 1986b). Activated by the debate on so-called “↑ key qualifications” as an answer to the changed qualification requirements, the vocational training in companies became action-oriented through methods like project work (compare LAUR-ERNST /ALBERT / GUTSCHMIDT 1996) or leading texts (compare REETZ 1990). In particular, action orientation aims at the integrated mediation of theoretical knowledge and practical abilities through a reality- and problem-
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related learning, which simultaneously integrates social action and is controlled by the learners themselves (compare WITTWER 2000, 13; PÄTZOLD 1992; ADOLPH 1996). The support of the ability to plan independently, of ↑ performance and appraisal of vocational activities is the main goal of this approach. However, the idea that ↑ vocational competence is more than only a sequence of action steps based on the principle of the total work process has been criticized (compare RAUNER 1995b, 5). According to the “Pedagogical Anthropology” (ROTH 1971) and the “Shaping Orientation” (R AUNER 1988a; → 5.1.4) the concept of comprehensive vocational competence set out as the ability and readiness to pursue an independent, proper, professional as well as personally thought-out acting for social responsibility (compare BADER 2000, 39). Vocational competence encloses the dimensions of professional, social, human and methodical competence and moves the individual development of the personality into the focus of the vocational training processes.
Theory of Development Tasks According to the theory of ↑ development tasks (HAVIGHURST 1972), everyone has to solve distinctive tasks on the way to becoming an adult (compare BREMER 2004b, 329). Therefore, vocational educational backgrounds can be designed as a process of development from novice to expert by facing the learners with distinctive working tasks that build on each other (DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1987; RAUNER 1999a). If the news content and the claim of the tasks pose a challenge to the learners that can be tackled based on already acquired competence, they can support the vocational development as a “Development Task” (HAVIGHURST 1972) or a “Paradigmatic Assignment” (BENNER 1997; → 4.2). Competence is extended, available action drafts and well-rehearsed behaviour patterns are reconsidered, complemented and modified. Development tasks are not only suited to the ↑ competence assessment, but likewise to the designing of ↑ vocational curricula (→ 3.4.1) and with it to the shaping of task-oriented learning.
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Ideal Type of Realisation of TaskOriented Learning
Task-oriented learning has to be “developed”, “performed” and finally “appraised”. This division, however, misleadingly suggests the close-cut separation between the various parts of a project, which does not exist, at least not in these terms. The various phases and the relative sub-divisions, in fact, are “permeable”; they influence and intermingle with each other. Their characteristics, however, change from task to task: task-oriented learning never follows a pre-determined model. The following brief summary is based, primarily, on ideas from (HOWE / HEERMEYER / HEUERMANN ET AL. 2002) that resulted from the ↑ pilot project GoLo (cf. BAUERMEISTER / HOWE / RAUNER 2000; HOWE 2001a).
Development of Task-Oriented Learning Task-oriented learning is based on occupational working tasks. Consequently, the starting point for its development is the assessment of the work and business processes of the enterprises where the training is to be carried out. The decision for a task is made easier by a list of choice criteria. Such a list should check if the task adequately takes into account the ability and skills of the trainees, the requirements and conditions of the enterprise and the vocational training schools, the exemplarity for the occupation, and the reference to the occupational ↑ training regulations. Task-oriented learning doesn’t limit the trainees’ activities to the gaining, application and consolidation of skills and knowledge for solving the practical problems. The personal, social and methodological abilities are supported, too. Every task offers manifold learning opportunities, so that the learning state of the trainees can be focused on. After a task is selected, the prerequisites are checked as to whether they are necessary for a ↑ performance by the trainees (learning and working environment, personal and financial resources, responsibilities, required information, timetable etc.). While preparing the task-oriented learning it is recommended that as much room as possible should be left for trainee activities.
When the preparation is complete, the next step is to put the assignment in writing to the trainees. It is an important guide, not only for the trainees, but also for the trainers and teachers. In order to comply with the requirements, they must first of all have a clear grasp of the scope and goals of the task.
Performance of Task-Oriented Learning The performance of task-oriented learning is basically the responsibility of the trainees, it’s “their project”. Trainers and teachers aren’t supervisors who show the trainees what to do, or do their job for them, but they take on the role of experts, moderators and consultants. It is very important that they do not provide predetermined solutions and concepts. They instead illustrate organisation and planning methods to be applied in the performance of the task and make them available to the trainees. This procedure is also new to the trainees, who are often not used to studying and working independently, an issue that is a legacy of traditional schooling. Initially it is not uncommon for them to assume the role of “consumers” and to expect complete and detailed instructions from the trainers and teachers. Performing the task, trainees must be left sufficient freedom of action, so that they can learn from their own experience. That means that there is the possibility of making mistakes, of making wrong or inadequate decisions, of creating misunderstandings, of inappropriate undertakings or plans, of noticing shortcomings or deficits too late, etc. After they have received the assignment and become familiar with it the trainees may assemble the first development, processing and solution proposals. They establish the knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as the resources and information, which will be necessary to cope with the task. In order to make a grounded choice between the alternative options, and ultimately decide on the implementation of one or another, it is necessary to establish criteria. These criteria may be drawn from the requirements that the various “parties concerned” (e. g. customer/client, standardisation rules, requirements associated with environmental and social aspects) relate to the goods or service.
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In this phase, the assessment criteria for individual performance are established, too, so that the trainees know, throughout the complete process of the task-oriented learning, in which way their work will be measured. The practical implementation of task-oriented learning basically refers to producing goods or providing a service. Of course, this also requires continuous planning, monitoring and documentation of the agreements, decisions, procedures and provisional results. This will, again, affect the subsequent progress of the work so that this process is a process of permanent development and improvement. In the course of the project, the trainees largely develop the necessary competence required for the practical implementation of the task on their own. Furthermore, missing skills may be learnt and exercised by attending appropriate courses. Task-oriented learning cannot totally replace “traditional” training methods. In fact, traditional class teaching and lectures as well as demonstration and imitation also have a role to play in the teaching and training process. The context, however, is fundamentally different, because the trainees need the contents to cope with the task.
Appraisal of Task-Oriented Learning The appraisal of task-oriented learning is an important part of the teaching process. It is not only a simple appendix of the ↑ performance. Because the preparation of an orderly and accurate documentation is part of the work of skilled workers and craftsmen, for example, in connection with support services or customer relations, it is advisable, additionally, to provide for documentation in connection with task-oriented learning. Experience tells us that the following presentation plays a particular role relating to the motivation of the trainees and the reflection of the entire project. At the deadline the trainees present the performed occupational working task, the procedures adopted to accomplish it and its output. Beyond that, the trainees point out which learning opportunities, subdivided into professional, social, human and methodical competence, were realised by performing the task.
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The final appraisal by the trainers and teachers pursues three different objectives: first the rating of the trainees’ performance is based on the criteria established by the trainees. The consideration of criteria like the quality of the goods or services, the accomplishment of the requirements, the use of alternative processing methods and solutions, the collaboration, the individual contribution and performance, and any problems and troubleshooting gives the appraisal the necessary transparency. The fact that trainers and teachers should act as moderators and consultants obliges them secondly to reflect on their own role in a self-critical way. They have to consider whether the trainees have been given sufficient freedom of action or if they have been given too explicit instructions and if, on the contrary, the trainees were overtaxed because of too-confusing learning and working situations. Third, a completed task provides the opportunity to use the completed experiences for the shaping of task-oriented learning in the future. To develop a grasp for one’s own learning processes a ↑ self-evaluation is very important in this connection (compare DUBS 1995, 891). The self-evaluation enables the trainers and teachers to develop appropriate task-oriented learning, to maintain the qualitative level of their vocational training or to identify deficits or improvement options (compare HOWE / BAUER 2001). 3.7.5.6
State of Research
The testing and evaluation of task-oriented learning from the part of ↑ VET research that is related to practice. Findings and insights are often gained in ↑ pilot projects and are used, primarily, to sustainably implement and to disseminate innovative vocational training approaches. Research results and reports of experience of appropriate pilot projects can be summarized by the appraisal that the concept of task-oriented learning has proved its worth. In particular it is emphasized that taskoriented learning leads to an improved quality of vocational training and education which is much more adequate to the actual challenges of the world of employment. On the one hand trainees who performed task-oriented learning usually achieved better results in examinations. The young persons were confident
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at the end of their training that they had acquired competence that enables them to cope with occupational everyday life and with future developments. On the other hand, too, owners of companies and enterprises were very satisfied with the young skilled workers because they found their way in the companies and enterprises without any bigger problems. Besides the work relation of the didactical approach the high motivation and the great ↑ commitment of trainees, trainers and teachers were seen as decisive for this training success (compare, for example, ARENDS / EHRLICH / MEYER / UHLIG-SCHOENIAN 1998; BUNZEL / SCHÄFER / BRETHEUER 1998; HÖPFNER 1998; HOWE / HEERMEYER / HEUERMANN 1998; JENEWEIN 1999; MALEK / PAHL 1998; WILKE-SCHNAUFER / SCHONHARDT/ FROMMERT 1998). In spite of these predominantly positive findings there is (still) no comprehensive and far-reaching implementation of action-based or ↑ work process-oriented approaches like that of the task-oriented learning in the practice of vocational education and training. Investigations referring to this reveal, rather, a dominance of traditional teaching and learning methods. Furthermore, the survey of the BIBB (BMBW 1993) as well as the inquiry of Pätzold (PÄTZOLD /K LUSMEYER / WINGELS 2003) show that teacher-centred lessons in the ↑ vocational schools and the demonstration and the fourstep-method in in-company-training prevail as traditional drafts.
learning processes as a common challenge for all persons and parties involved. Trainers and teachers need enlarged or even totally new competence in relation to a comprehensive support and assessment of learning and competence development. Otherwise, the learners are confronted with the situation that first of all they are themselves responsible for their learning and their learning success. They have to change from the role of a rather passive learning consumer into that of an active learner. Regarding the organisation and development of the school and company as learning venues above all there are changed requirements because of teamwork. To realise task-oriented learning common work groups of both trainers and teachers are very helpful. These work groups can develop the institutional basic conditions, provide the ↑ learning environment, put the occupational training standards into action, prepare, perform and assess the education measures and many more. Besides openness and tolerance appropriate team competence is necessary to be able to shape and reflect such processes (compare VOLLMER / BERBEN 2002; SCHLEY 1998). At the same time trainers and teach-
3.7.5.7
Perspectives
The concept of task-oriented learning, with different arrangements and emphases, plays an important role in numerous pilot projects and it is being further developed and evaluated (in Germany compare, for example, EULER 2004b). In Germany task-oriented learning is partly established in former pilot project regions (e. g. Wilhelmshaven or Duisburg) as a vocational education and training standard. Here the new demands on the trainers and teachers as well as on the trainees are confirmed. These, primarily, consist in overcoming rehearsed, familiar ↑ performances of vocational education and training at schools and in companies and in understanding the ↑ teaching and
ers have to be given sufficient room for manoeuvre and more autonomy by the administration. That way the work groups can be involved in the development of a learning organisation (compare SENGE 1998; BERBEN /K LÜVER / MILEVCZIK 2001; GERDS / ZÖLLER 2002). It has turned out that task-oriented learning is very suitable for comprehensive vocational education and training processes. It allows effective common developing work towards a prospective and trendsetting vocational training and education. This should be continued in the future.
Areas of VET Research
3.7.6
Self-Directed Learning – Conceptual Clarifications, Theoretical Perspectives and Modelling Martin Lang and Günter Pätzold
3.7.6.1
Objectives and Relevance for Vocational Education and Training
In recent years there has been intensive research into different aspects of ↑ self-directed learning (e. g. BOEKEARTS / PINTRICH / ZEIDNER 2000; ZIMMERMAN / SCHUNK 2001). The fact that this subject receives such great attention in different domains of pedagogical practice (school, higher education, initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training, ↑ adult education) can be attributed to various possible reasons. On the one hand there is a consensus about the high relevance of ability to and readiness for self-directed learning especially in the context of ↑ lifelong learning. In this regard the ability to learn in a self-directed way is even viewed as a fundamental cross-disciplinary competence; and its promotion is regarded as “one of the fundamental tasks of future education policy and educational practice” (KMK 2000b, 2). Moreover, the legitimacy of promoting self-directed learning is asserted by making reference to the changes in economic policy, society and work organisation. These changes can be characterised by the following catchwords: ↑ globalisation, customer orientation, low hierarchies, lack of predictability and planning reliability, individualisation and ↑ employability. Along with these developments comes the demand for greater flexibility, for selfinitiative and eventually for the ability to self-reflect and self-direct. Learning theoretical foundations of self-directed learning are also achieved through examining the different learning preconditions, learning abilities and learning styles of the learners. The acquisition of self-learning competence, which allows the learners to shape their learning processes on their own and to use appropriate ↑ learning strategies and learning and working techniques according to their learning type, offers the opportunity to make allowances for heterogeneity (cf. BRÄU / SCHWERDT
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2005). From a didactical point of view this objective is based on a constructivist view of learning that interprets learning as a process in which the learner constructs his knowledge in a goal-oriented, reflective and responsible way by means of various intellectual operations and strategies as well as practical activities if possible. He does so by linking his knowledge to prior knowledge, by expanding and differentiating his knowledge. This requires that the learners are able to direct their learning on their own. An education-theoretical legitimation of self-directed learning is drawn from the assumption that the self-direction of one’s own learning process is in line with the pedagogical ideal of promoting individual maturity and autonomy. To do something “autonomously” or “in a self-directed way” is therefore regarded as better and more positive than doing the same thing “heteronomously” or “under guidance”. This assumption, however, must be viewed critically, insofar as “the defining feature ‘self’ is in itself no quality criterion for an action or for learning. The quality of an action is not determined by the performing subject, but must be measured according to the contents and ends of the agency in question” (K RAFT 1999, 837).
Against the background of these objectives it becomes clear that self-directed learning is a precondition as well as a goal of vocational education and training. Given the difficulty of predicting future challenges and given the dynamic change in the world of work, the ability to learn in a self-directed way must be viewed as a central momentum in the process of continuous learning, relearning and further learning across the lifespan. As a result of numerous research activities different theoretical positions emerged (see ZIMMERMAN 2001), which serve the description and analysis of the phenomenon. Different aspects and key processes of ↑ self-directed learning were identified via the comparison of learners with “good” and “bad” self-directing skills, the connections between self-direction, motivation and learning were studied, the development of self-learning competence over a particular lifespan was investigated, and intervention techniques to promote self-directed learning in the school context were developed and tested (SCHUNK 2005, 174). It must be admitted that research on self-directed learning is con-
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ducted by a number of different disciplines (e. g. pedagogy, learning psychology, organisational psychology, labour studies) and that it is quite segmented so that there are only few results on the commonalities and differences concerning self-directed learning in different domains (BOEKEARTS / MAES /K AROLY 2005). Nevertheless these different foci of research, as a whole, led to an improved understanding of self-direction processes in learning and gave important impulses to pedagogical practice. 3.7.6.2
Self-Directed, Self-Organised, Self-Regulated…? – Conceptual Clarifications
When it comes to the definition and theoretical modelling of the concept of “self-directed learning” and its synonyms there is far less agreement than on the assertion of its necessity. For even though there is consensus on a descriptive level about the functional definition of self-directed learners it is difficult to find a definition that not only gives a functional description of the different steps of the processes involved in self-directed learning (see also BAUMERT /K LIEME / NEUBRAND ET AL. 2000, 2). For instance, Weinert (1984, 97) defines self-directed learning with the qualification that “the agent has a targeted and far-reaching influence on the decisions whether, what, how and to what end he or she learns”. For the theoretical foundation and conceptual specification we will select approaches from different research disciplines. The objective is to achieve a clearer picture on what are the differences between the concepts of self-directed, self-regulated and self-organised learning, which are frequently used in the literature and often interchangeably, and to
justify why in this article the term “self-directed learning” was chosen. If one consults cybernetics, for instance, one finds that the distinction between “direction” and “regulation” is that “direction is … an informational command to a system and an interference with a system to have it operate in a particular way and to achieve a goal”. Regulation, in contrast to this, is “an informational feedback triggered by a deviation from a desired operation or objective” (ULRICH / PROBST 1991, 79). By checking and reporting back whether the regulatory measures taken have led to the desired change or whether there are deviations that necessitate the initiation of further measures, “regulation” integrates the reaction to disruptions into the course of the process. Miller, Galanter and Pribram’s regulation model (TOTE) that was published in 1960 is regarded as a landmark of the cognitive turn in learning research. The improvement of learning activities that is achieved through autonomous tests and operations supplements the alternative model of external control (MILLER / GALANTER / PRIBRAM 1960). The relationship between self-directed and selfregulated learning becomes clear when one bases an understanding of self-directed learning on, for instance, the early definition by Knowles, who conceives self-directed learning as a process “in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and material resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes” (K NOWLES 1975, 18).
At the beginning of the self-directed learning process the learner defines directive measures for the achievement of an objective he has set. During and after the learning process there are learning
Tab. 1: Comparison of external and self-direction as well as external and self-organisation
Areas of VET Research
tests, which may lead to a correction of the learning activities undertaken. In this sense regulation can be understood as a prerequisite for direction – and thus as a necessary part of self-directed learning – for it can provide information for new directive measures in subsequent learning activities (STRAKA 2006, 399). This conception of the learning process as a cyclical and reflective sequence of steps in an action (ZIMMERMAN 2000, 15 ff.; WINNE 1996, 331) also explains the possibility of using the concept of self-direction despite the clear presence of regulatory measures. With regard to the demarcation of the terms “selfdirection” and “↑ self-organisation” we will refer to the arguments of Erpenbeck and Heyse (1999, 130). According to the authors the concept of “direction”, referring to contexts of learning, always implies the direction towards a goal that was, at least in its basic shape, fixed in advance. This goal may be set by another person or by the agent himself. Erpenbeck and Heyse also identify as components of direction, in addition to the learning objectives themselves, the “operations and strategies of information processing (in order to achieve these objectives), targeted control processes (comparison, assessment, evaluation of feedback) and … the degree of openness of learning objectives, operations/strategies and control processes” (ERPENBECK / HEYSE 1999, 130).
In contrast to this they speak of “organisation” when the four aforementioned components cannot be determined and, predominantly, such options for agency are at hand that make it possible to cope with the open future. A contrastive juxtaposition of externally directed and ↑ self-directed learning as well as externally organised and self-organised learning is provided by the following table: From this portrayal of the extremes “externally directed” versus “self-directed” learning it already becomes clear that in real learning processes there is never the question of either-or. Instead, the question of the share of the positions sketched above in the learning processes has to be answered. How much responsibility the learners take for the learning processes or how strong their directive contributions are should emerge from the negotiaton processes between the agents involved in the ↑ teaching and learning process. In these negotiations all relevant aspects of the teaching practice
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are treated, and the result is a framework for selfdirected learning accepted by all stakeholders. As to the question whether one may speak of selfdirected or self-organised learning processes, the context in which the learning process takes place is of particular relevance. It has to be presupposed that self-organisation processes can be realised predominantly in contexts external to the school (e. g. in processes of ↑ in-company training), whereas in school-based learning processes the given curricular and institutional circumstances prevent the realisation of complex and completely open situations. Therefore in the context of school-based learning a rather self-directed learning has to be expected. Further theoretical foundations of self-directed and self-organised learning can be for instance synergetics (HAKEN 1996) and the theory of autopoiesis worked out by Maturana and Varela (1987), which was developed further in ↑ constructivism (ERPENBECK / HEYSE 1999, 136 ff.; MINNAMEIER 2003). According to this theory complex systems can react to the external dynamics of the environment with an internal dynamics in such a way that the variable linking of the components secures the stability of the system. Human systems are complex systems and therefore unpredictable. The intelligent subject, on the basis of its cognitive structure, constructs new knowledge in its interaction with the environment. The learner is viewed as a subject that has an individual history, constructs their own world interpretation and constructs of meaning, builds upon the latter when facing new demands, is capable of active learning and builds their identity in this process. Accordingly, teacher activity must individually build upon the basis of the things learned so far and facilitate interaction among the learners as well as between the learners and the teacher. The recurrence to these ↑ theories of self-organisation is by no means arbitrary as an ever more complex environment requires the development of competence in the sense of dispositions for self-organisation, as explained in the beginning. “The more open the creative options for thought and action, the more dynamic the systems of market, individual and enterprise are and must be, the more important self-organisation processes become” (ERPENBECK / HEYSE 1999, 26).
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It has to be noted that the two theoretical approaches discussed are not congruent, but make considerably different contributions to the explanation of self-organising processes. In this regard it is necessary
process of developing new, emergent structures takes a self-organised course. “The system finds … its particular structure on its own under the new control parameters” (HAKEN 1996, 588).
“to find out which theoretical instruments from which contemporary self-organisation theories are particularly appropriate for modelling the functions and forms of competence and competence development” (ERPENBECK /HEYSE 1999, 136).
3.7.6.3
A comprehensive analysis of the approaches cannot be given here, but in summary the strong point of synergetics is in the description of structuralfunctional principles (e. g. the principle of ordinal parameters), while the autopoiesis approach contributes predominantly to issues of cognition, selfreference and autonomy. According to the two theoretical approaches, ↑ selforganisation processes of competence development start under very specific conditions. More precisely, it is, at bottom, the necessity to overcome environmental restrictions or obstacles that triggers learning processes. As long as agency schemes lead to the desired outcome and are thus viable there is no need for the individual to extend the cognitive reference system. The individual finds himself in an intrapersonal and interpersonal equilibrium. This behaviour changes only when obstacles come up that cannot be dealt with by means of the existing repertoire. Autopoiesis theory speaks of perturbations, which are perceived as milieu changes and lead to the initiation of cognitive processes that aim at the restoration of the equilibrium. In synergetics it is assumed that changes of so-called control parameters lead to an instability of an existing equilibrium (HAKEN 1996, 588). The increasing entropy (“in cognitive systems this is information that can be interpreted only insufficiently or even contradicts the convictions of the individual in question” (MINNAMEIER 2003, 6)) leads to a distortion of the system,
to entry into chaotic states, which ultimately forces the individual with evolutionary pressure to develop his or her own cognitive system further. This phase shift to a higher cognitive level causes new forms of information processing and problem solving and is the expression of a related competence. At the same time the system – in physical terms – has entered a state of low entropy at a higher level of order, which leads to a new equilibrium. This
Modelling Self-Directed Learning
Following the conceptual clarification and the theoretical foundation we now wish to present a theoretical framework by which, on the one hand, the demands can be described whose mastering is expected from individuals when they engage in ↑ self-directed learning. On the other hand this model of self-learning competence will also provide scientifically justified ideas concerning what degrees self-learning competence can have or what degrees and levels can be identified in individuals (BMBF 2003a, 74). “It is only models as specific interpretations of a theory that build the bridge to empirical observation. A meaningful discourse, a rational measurement of competence accordingly presupposes a suitable competence model that allows for empirical prognoses within the theoretical framework” (ERPENBECK / ROSENSTIEL 2003a, XII).
Even though numerous theoretical models can be found in the literature (ZIMMERMAN / SCHUNK 2001; NÜESCH 2001, 22 ff.) that view the concept of selfdirected learning from different perspectives (e. g. the operant, phenomenological, cognitive-constructivist, volitional, social-cognitive theories), it is nevertheless possible to identify commonalities in these positions. For instance, self-directed learning is unanimously perceived as active and constructive shaping of the process of knowledge generation. In this shaping activity the learners orient their attitudes, positions and actions towards the needs of learning and motivation, and they autonomously define goals and use adequate strategies for their achievement (PINTRICH 2000, 452 f.). Most definitions of self-directed learning emphasise the importance of cognitive, motivational, volitional and metacognitive processes for self-directed learning (e. g. PINTRICH 2000; BOEKEARTS 1999; SCHIEFELE / PEKRUN 1996, 258). Even though there are particularly extensive research activities about ↑ learning strategies and metacognition this should not lead to an overemphasising of the cognitive aspects of self-directed learning at the expense of the other processes (see BOEKEARTS 1999).
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For it could be sufficiently demonstrated in empirical studies that comprehensive declarative knowledge of adequate learning strategies does not automatically entail the application of these strategies (see ARTELT 2000a, 100). “The investigation of self-regulated learning processes has to consider, besides (meta-) cognitive components, especially motivational-emotional components of the learning processes” (BAUMERT / K LIEME / NEUBRAND ET AL. 2000, 3).
For the theoretical modelling of ↑ self-directed learning therefore a framework model is suggested that takes the equivalence of cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational components into account. A model of this kind can be found, for instance, in Boekearts (1997; 1999). At the core of this three-layer model is the choice of cognitive ↑ learning strategies that serve the examination of the learning content in question as well as the understanding and retaining of the latter, and that enable the learner to exercise targeted influence on the learning process. These learning strategies are also termed information processing strategies (FRIEDRICH / MANDL 1992) and can be differentiated, according to a taxonomy by Weinstein and Mayer (WEINSTEIN / MAYER 1986), into repetition, organisation and elaboration strategies. Repetition strategies keep new information, e. g. by memorising or repeated reading of text passages, in the short-term memory until they are permanently stored in the long-term memory. As repetition strategies concentrate merely on the acquisition of factual knowledge without achieving a deeper understanding of relationships they are also termed surface-oriented strategies. Organisation and elaboration strategies, on the other hand, support a deep processing of the learning matter with a view to understanding, and this is why they are also termed depth-oriented strategies. “Organisation strategies stimulate the learner e. g. to structure the learning matter and to make himself aware of the relations between the relevant concepts (e. g. by working out a mind-map). Elaboration strategies stimulate the learner to link newly acquired knowledge to his prior knowledge, e. g. by developing concrete examples of the application of newly acquired knowledge” (LEOPOLD / LEUTNER 2004, 365).
It is necessary for the effective self-direction of learning that the learners have a sufficient reper-
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toire of strategies at their disposal, from which the appropriate strategy for a specific context of application can be selected. The choice and the effective use of learning strategies depend on several factors. Due to the fact that self-learning competence is to a large extent ↑ domain-specific, it has to be expected that learners work differently on learning tasks in different domains, and that their learning style depends on specific technical contents and environmental requirements (BOEKEARTS 1999, 448 f.). Moreover, motivational and emotional factors also influence the selection and use of the learning strategies. It has been empirically proven that the use of depth-oriented strategies is correlated with an intrinsic motivation while the use of surface-oriented strategies is correlated with an extrinsic motivation (SCHIEFELE / SCHREYER 1994, 9 f.). The middle layer of Boekarts’s framework model takes up the particular importance of metacognition for a successful learning process (cf. SCHIEFELE 2005, 36). An important precondition for self-directed learning is the presence of ↑ metacognitive knowledge, which can be differentiated into a declarative and an executive part. The declarative part is the knowledge about one’s own cognitive system (more or less stable task-specific strong and weak points, learning habits), the knowledge about characteristics and demands of tasks (type of task, difficulty), and the knowledge about the utility and application of specific strategies (characteristics, area of application, experiences with the use of strategies) (FLAVELL 1984, 24 f.). The executive metacognitive knowledge supports the learner in the selection and the adequate use of the learning strategies. By means of so-called metacognitive strategies the learning process is planned (e. g. learning objective and means that are necessary to achieve it), controlled (e. g. learning progress), directed (e. g. through revision of the means) and evaluated (assessment of the achievement of objectives) (K LIEME /ARTELT/ STANAT 2001, 211). Self-regulation strategies of this type are also termed control or resource strategies (FRIEDRICH /MANDL 1997, 251) and have the function to regulate cognition, motivation and behaviour.
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“Therefore they have an overarching relevance and are in some sense the tools by means of which a learner directs his motivation, his cognitions and his behaviour towards a goal that he himself has set” (LEOPOLD / LEUTNER 2004, 365).
With the increase in learning experience and the changes in individual efficacy expectations and attribution patterns a declarative and executive strategic knowledge develops, which leads – especially “via the increase in knowledge on the utility of strategy application” (BAUMERT /K LIEME / NEUBRAND ET AL. 2000, 7) – to a differentiated employment of learning strategies, because of the existence of an elaborate strategy repertoire. The outer layer of this framework model according to Boekearts takes into consideration, via the regulation of the “self”, the motivational and volitional aspects of ↑ self-directed learning. “As self-directed learning usually requires a certain persistency it makes sense to also consider temporally stable motivational components as influential factors. The description and analysis of these structural learning prerequisites is served by motivation theoretical concepts like needs, thematic interest, objectives and self-efficacy convictions etc” Friedrich/ Mandl 1997, 243).
Deci and Ryan (1993, 236) identified in their empirical studies the experience of competence, selfefficacy, autonomy and social embeddedness as being important conditions for the development of motivation based on self-determination. Self-efficacy convictions (SCHWARZER /JERUSALEM 2002; BANDURA 1997) are an especially important determinant of self-directed learning since they influence, via the included assumptions, the choice of tasks, the readiness to work hard, and the duration of efforts under unfavourable circumstances. Besides the cognitive and motivational aspects, the volitional processes, which consist of the directive and control processes that take place before, during and after the actual ↑ performance of an action, are a necessary condition for self-directed learning (CORNO 2001; HECKHAUSEN 1989, 212 ff.). As a framework model the three-layer model by Boekaerts illustrates the processes and regulatory systems of self-directed learning quite well. The analytical distinction of the different regulatory systems, however, cannot be maintained in practice. Instead, each of the three layers in this framework model is interdependent with the oth-
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ers. There is, for example, a high correlation between motivation and the use of elaborate in-depth strategies as mentioned above. 3.7.6.4
Concepts for the Promotion of SelfDirected Learning
In principle one can distinguish direct and indirect concepts for the promotion of self-directed learning, which have different consequences for the shaping of the ↑ learning environment (NÜESCH 2001, 101 ff.; FRIEDRICH /MANDL 2006, 10 f.). The idea of the direct approach is to equip the learner with a comprehensive repertoire of strategies and techniques for self-directed learning through a ↑ learning strategy training in instruction-oriented learning environments. The learners can make deliberate and targeted use of this repertoire in order to be successful in self-directed learning. Cognitive strategies for knowledge acquisition are imparted as well as metacognitive strategies for the planning, direction and control of the learning process and motivational strategies for the initiation and continuation of the learning process. With regard to the implementation of a direct training of learning strategies it must be borne in mind that the key to learning to learn lies not in an abstract, context-independent communication of learning strategies, but in the reflection on one’s own work and learning experiences and the associated individual development of work and learning strategies (metacognition). This allows the learners to reflect, and to select successful strategies with a view to concrete learning situations and their individual preconditions (prior knowledge, learning habits, motivation). Moreover, it cannot be expected that single training measures are sufficient for a sustainable change of the learning behaviour since “the acquisition and utilisation of learning strategies … is not the result of short-term strategy training or single instruction sequences, but rather the result of long-term habit formation” (FRIEDRICH / MANDL 2006, 17).
A programme of learning strategy training is successful only if it is adapted to an authentic context of utilisation or application and if a high level of learner activity and metacognitive awareness
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is promoted. Additionally the initial external support should be reduced in the course of the training process. It is also necessary that appropriate motivational preconditions are created and maintained, and that not only declarative, but also procedural and conditional strategy knowledge is created so that the learners become aware how, when and why a strategy is applied. The successful implementation of learning-strategy training programmes may also mean under certain conditions that the learners first have to develop the awareness that their existing learning strategies need a revision or extension. Especially weaker learners often underestimate this need because in most cases they lack sufficient abilities for selfmonitoring and self-assessment. In this case it can be quite helpful first to learn appropriate forms of self-monitoring prior to intervention programmes for ↑ learning strategy training. This way the learners can learn more about the extent and the ↑ effectiveness of their existing learning strategies before they are encouraged to change them or to learn new strategies (ZIMMERMAN 1999, 549). Unlike the direct approach the indirect approach is characterised by the fact that self-learning competence is not explicitly trained in strategy training courses. Instead, the ↑ learning environment is shaped in a way that implicitly offers the learners the opportunity for ↑ self-directed learning. This requires that in the learning environment there is a certain degree of flexibility and room for manoeuvre. The learning environment should motivate self-activity and enable individual decisions of the learners with regard to learning objectives, learning paths and learning tempo. This profile is matched particularly well by learning environments that follow the paradigm of a moderate ↑ constructivism (e. g. cognitive apprenticeship (COLLINS / BROWN / NEWMAN 1989), cognitive flexibility (SPIRO / FELTOVICH /JACOBSON / COULSON 1992) or anchored instruction). What these learning environments have in common is that they provide complex starting problems, allow for multiple perspectives, follow the principle of authenticity and situatedness, feature reflexive learning in the social context and provide assistance if necessary (REINMANN-ROTHMEIER / MANDL 2001a, 627 f.). Especially learners with lower self-direction skills
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can benefit from forms of social learning when they are encouraged by the exchange with and the support of other learners to apply more effective self-direction strategies (ZIMMERMAN 1999, 549). Social learning also helps those who already practice self-directed learning to deepen their understanding of learning by explaining their concepts and strategies to other learners. “The general understanding is that collaborative learning supports self-regulation because peers model and discuss their own learning and motivation strategies, which are then ‘distributed’ across the group for individuals to pick up and modify to suit their own needs” (BOEKEARTS / CORNO 2005, 220).
In the context of the shaping of learning environments with a view to the implementation of indirect support approaches, ↑ e-learning concepts with hypermedia structures seem to be particularly appropriate, for their characteristics (e. g. free choice of learning paths and tempo, independence from location and time, multimodality, cognitive flexibility), in principle, enable or even demand a farreaching self-direction of the learners (FRIEDRICH / MANDL 2006, 18; LANG 2004, 123; LANG / PÄTZOLD 2002). On the basis of the existing studies and meta-analyses (NÜESCH 2001, 102; FRIEDRICH / MANDL 1992, 33) no preference of one approach compared to the other can be established a priori. Rather there is some evidence that it makes sense to link both approaches regarding the support of self-directed learning to each other, depending on the existing self-learning competence of the learners. That is to say, that in the beginning there should be direct strategy training, which can afterwards be reduced and gradually replaced with problem-oriented learning environments according to the advancing competence acquisition of the learners (FRIEDRICH / MANDL 2006, 16 f.). However, the indirect approach using open and complex problems is the one that best suits the postulates of competence development as the latter always depends on the self-organised examination and handling of tasks in specific contexts. “Competence is the link between knowledge and skills and must be regarded as the ability to master situations or tasks” (BMBF 2003a, 73). When it comes to the question that is fundamental for the design and implementation of support
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schemes whether the application of specific learning strategies ultimately leads to better learning achievements, the results of recent studies are, at first glance, not very impressive. Artelt (ARTELT 2000a, 176) observes, in this regard, that there is “a considerable discrepancy between relationships theoretically deduced and those that were found empirically”. However, a differentiated analysis shows that the strength of the correlation nevertheless depends on how learning achievements and the application of learning strategies are measured. Therefore it is natural to expect that the chosen criterion for successful learning has direct effects on the utility of learning strategies. “If the acquisition of factual knowledge is used as an indicator there is no significant correlation with strategy application. If, on the other hand, the intellectual ↑ performance in a problem solving task is used as a criterion, then there is a significant correlation with the application of strategies” (FRIEDRICH / MANDL 2006, 13).
The correlation between learning success and strategy application also depends on the way the application of ↑ learning strategies is operationalised. If the application of strategies is measured near the process one can demonstrate clear relationships with learning success, whereas retrospective instruments detect rather weak relationships. A more detailed description and comparison of these different methods is given in the following section. 3.7.6.5
Diagnostics
The recording of ↑ self-directed learning is, for several reasons, not trivial. On the one hand the highly complex construct requires a more process-oriented ↑ diagnostics, which takes into account all components (cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, volitional) of self-directed learning (BOEKEARTS 1999). On the other hand ability and readiness for self-directed learning is shown only in the successful solution of a concrete problem (↑ performance). Further difficulties in the selection of adequate measurement instruments lie in the fact that the available methods are different in their relevance depending on the function and the context of the evaluation (cf. METZGER 2006) and also in the fact that “the type of survey has influence on the signif-
icance and the generalisability of the results” (A R2006, 339). In practice the measurement and evaluation of selfdirected learning is still dominated by questionnaire inventories (e. g. “Learning and Study Strategies Inventory” (LASSI) (WEINSTEIN / SCHULTE / PALMER 1987), “Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire” (MSLQ) (PINTRICH / SMITH / GARCIA / MC K EACHIE 1991), “Kiel Learning Strategy Inventory” (Kieler Lernstrategie-Inventar, KLI) (BAUMERT / HEYN /KÖLLER 1992), “Inventory for the Measurement of Learning Strategies in Studying” (Inventar zur Erfassung von Lernstrategien im Studium, LIST) (WILD / SCHIEFELE 1994), “How do I learn?” (Wie lerne ich?, WLI) (METZGER 1995) or “Trait Self-Regulation Questionnaire” (TSRQ) (O’NEIL / HERL 1998)), even though the search for a valid measurement of ↑ self-directed learning by means of questionnaires has many problems (PÄTZOLD / LANG 2005, 6). For example, the use of questionnaires as a type of retrospective self-report presupposes an elaborate declarative and procedural meta-memory for the ↑ abstraction of one’s own learning activities, which normally cannot be expected from the learners (ARTELT 2000b). Moreover, a certain temporal proximity of the survey to the learning process is required in order to secure the significance of the self-reflection. In the case of a period between the performance of the action and the recall which is too long, there could be errors in statements due to an insufficient memory of the interviewee. The learners must also be aware of the processes of applying learning strategies. Routines that are conducted automatically often cannot be verbalised. Another methodological shortcoming of questionnaire inventories is the fact that questionnaires mostly register the use of learning strategies without considering the learning context. Accordingly, the learning strategies surveyed this way are regarded as strategies for dealing with any learning matter whatsoever and the learner’s generally favoured learning style, as it were. What is neglected in this case is that the learning behaviour is to a large extent determined by the specific conditions of application. Depending on the setting one and the same learner may show a totally different learning orientation. TELT
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“However, students who self-regulate on one occasion may not self-regulate their studying on another occasion, despite the acknowledged benefits. It is argued that self-regulated learning can be domain-specific or domain-transcending, and that competent performers in a specific domain rely on different types of prior knowledge related to that domain” (BOEKEARTS 1997, 161).
Depending on the domain, specific learning strategies are applied that pay adequate attention to the particular conditions of the ↑ learning environment (e. g. criteria for success, teaching methods, expectations, type of examination, specifications of the domain etc.). Not least, one must bear in mind that learners also tend to answer a questionnaire on learning strategies in the way they believe to be socially acceptable. As a result of these methodological limitations it can be asserted that as a rule questionnaires can only diagnose to what extent the learner fulfils the prerequisites for self-directed learning by possessing a certain knowledge about the use of ↑ learning strategies. “Besides the measurement of motivational preferences and interests a questionnaire makes it possible to gather information about the learners’ preferred learning methods, their strategic knowledge as well as their relative strengths and weaknesses” (K LIEME /ARTELT / STANAT 2001, 212).
Strategy inventories thus measure rather general learning preferences, but this survey method does not allow conclusions with regard to the actual learning behaviour, let alone the learning success. The knowledge about the application of specific learning strategies is a necessary, but by no means a sufficient condition of self-directed learning, and it gives no clue concerning the actual application – in terms of frequency and ↑ effectiveness – in the learning process: “Strategical knowledge does not ensure implementation of strategies: to be effective, cognitive strategies must be adapted to specific behavioral contexts that learners encounter” (ZIMMERMAN 1999, 550).
The sketched methodological weaknesses of questionnaire surveys to describe learning behaviour also explain why a correlation between a learning strategy use determined by ↑ self-evaluation and a learning success measured by external evaluation could hardly be empirically detected (ARTELT 2000a, 76).
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As a consequence of these findings on the deficiencies of purely questionnaire-based surveys of learning strategies it would make sense to supplement, in the sense of empirical ↑ triangulation, the current research practice with action-oriented instruments in the shape of a ↑ performance measurement in order to improve the validity. And indeed the theoretical development of self-directed learning has also led to the development of this kind of measurement instruments. While the ability to self-directed learning is understood less as a stable characteristic of the learner, but as a dynamic development process in scholastic and extrascholastic contexts, the inventory used for the measurement of self-learning competence has developed further. In the beginning the focus was on a decontextualised measurement by means of generalised questionnaires that viewed the ability to ↑ selfdirected learning as a habitual feature of the person, but, by and large, ↑ domain-specific and later context-sensitive survey methods were developed. These new ↑ diagnosis instruments (e. g. method of thinking out loud, retrospective self-report, stimulated recall, qualitative interviews, observations, learning diary, portfolio, computer-based process measurement, traces of mental events and processes), which are used in combination with each other wherever possible, aim at capturing the process of self-direction through the analysis of a concrete behaviour (BOEKEARTS / CORNO 2005, 209 ff.; Artelt 2000a, 91 ff.). The aim is, for instance, to analyse how learners act when solving complex problems with the help of computer programmes. The programme records what text passages the learner marks, comments or reads repeatedly by scrolling back, and the traces that the learner leaves in the material are clarified, quantified and analysed. This way mental processes that are normally invisible, like the application of cognitive and volitional strategies, are made explicit (WINNE 2005, 236). In all these considerations, however, the idea that, especially for school contexts, the rule must always apply that the instruments employed must be workable for teachers and learners in application and analysis, must not be neglected. In this regard it is no surprise that so far it is still the case that “the number of studies in which the questionnaire-based survey of learning strategies is supplemented by actionoriented analyses so that the predictive validity of the
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learning strategy inventory is also tested is very small in comparison to the numerous statements in the literature that it is necessary to do just this. This is the case because, above all, an action-oriented survey of learning strategies is methodologically very sophisticated and also time-consuming” (ARTELT 2000a, 106).
There is, especially, a lack of long-term studies and ↑ pilot projects in vocational education and training, which could provide information on how selflearning competence changes and develops over the learning biography. In the meantime the BLK (Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung/Federal and State Commission for ↑ Educational Planning and Research Support) pilot programme “Self-directed and Cooperative Learning in Initial Vocational Training” (Selbstgesteuertes und kooperatives Lernen in der beruflichen Erstausbildung, SKOLA) investigates how an optimal balance between self-directed work on contextualised tasks on the one hand and support from the teachers in decontextualisation can be established for different contents and learning preconditions. The programme, which includes 21 pilot projects in 12 of the German Länder, is equally supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the participating Länder. The coordination of the programme was assigned to the Universities of Dortmund (Prof. Dr. Günter Pätzold) and St. Gallen (Prof. Dr. Dieter Euler) (cf. BLK 2006).
3.7.7
Learning and Teaching Research Gerald A. Straka
3.7.7.1
From Research on Teaching to Learning and Teaching Research
“Lehr-Lern-Forschung” is a genuine German term that was disseminated throughout the West German pedagogical discourse in the 1970s. The English translation “learning and teaching research” captures the corresponding perspective even better, as will be shown below, if the aspect of integrating learning and teaching is taken into consideration as well. Up to that point only “research on
teaching” had been conducted worldwide, as proven by the American ↑ Educational Research Association’s (↑ AERA) handbook of the same title edited by Gage (1963). In the Federal Republic of Germany research on teaching was on the one hand boosted through Heinrich Roth’s path-breaking inaugural lecture in Göttingen (1962) with its plea for a “realistic turn in pedagogical research” that received throughout the German-speaking countries attention. On the other hand the scientific connection of West Germany to international empirical research on instruction was established by the German adaptation (not translation) of the abovementioned AERA handbook, which was inaugurated by Karlheinz Ingenkamp (1972). Theoretical and methodological considerations, however, gave rise to doubts against the explanatory value of comparing teaching methods (GAGE 1963). The arguments put forward were the often deficient control of distorting factors (laboratory experiment) and the indeterminacy of the realised treatments like “traditional instruction”. These were considered inadequate to explain the numerous conditions and processes that were regarded as influential on learning. In general the lack of learning theoretical foundation of the measures was criticised, as was the fact that they were largely dependent on one specific learning concept, e. g. on Skinner’s operant conditioning in programmed instruction. Concepts of this kind were regarded as too narrow for the explanation of the multidimensional interplay between learning and teaching. The critique of the explanatory power of this undifferentiated comparison of teaching methods and the demand for a stronger consideration of cognitive processes (WEINERT 2000) contributed to the effect that in the Federal Republic of Germany the term “teaching research” (Unterrichtsforschung) was replaced with “learning and teaching research”. The latter expressed a shift of perspective: teaching is not only to be viewed under the aspect of teaching theory, but also under the aspect of learning theory. Both aspects have to be integrated and the interplay of teaching and learning has to be studied empirically. The sequence of terms “learning-teaching” instead of “teachinglearning” expresses the idea that empirically validated knowledge on learning is the reference for
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teaching and not vice versa in the tradition of German didactical thinking. 3.7.7.2
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levels of external conditions, internal conditions and actual processes:
Topics of Research
In the search for a “pedagogically oriented concept of learning” Heinrich Roth – now considered the doyen of West German learning and teaching research – made a distinction, on the basis of learning theoretical findings from outside Germany, between the “initial” and the “final state” of the learner as well as the “steps” that the learner has to take in order to proceed from the initial to the final state. It is the task of the teacher to use “learning aids” for triggering and supporting the learning steps he deems necessary (ROTH 1957). A few years later Gagné’s “Conditions of Learning” (1st ed.1965, 4th ed. 1985) – translated into German (1969) upon Heinrich Roth’s initiative – drew a strict distinction between “external” and above all “internal” conditions of learning, which substantially influence behaviour. Gagné also maintained that there are as many types of learning as there are identifiable conditions of learning, a view that was supported by empirical findings from learning research (GAGNÉ 1965). This way the American style of learning research with its predominantly behavioural orientation and its focus on specific learning types was overcome, and the path was made for the cognitive turn in this domain. Building on this achievement Gagné developed his “instructional design” approach together with Briggs (GAGNÉ / BRIGGS 1974). In the meantime the revised fourth edition is available (GAGNÉ / BRIGGS / WAGER 1992), which is being distributed to the present day. Compared to Gagné (1965) the initial and final state in Roth (1957) correspond to the internal conditions and the learning steps correspond to the “behaviour” as an individual, actual, observable and non-observable process. The “learning aids” of the teacher belong to the external conditions, which are captured by the term “teaching” in this case. Moreover the internal conditions at the beginning of the learning process have to be distinguished as “learning prerequisites” from the “learning result”. The topics of teaching and learning research are thus learning conditions, learning results, behaviour and teaching, which are assigned to the three
Fig. 1: General framework for learning and teaching
This model helped to overcome the predominant West German discussion on teaching methods with its “freedom of method” perspective, a teaching concept that completely neglected results of learning research (OSER / BAERISWYL 2001). What is particular about this framework for learning and teaching is that the levels of external conditions, actual processes and internal conditions are on the one hand defined independently of each other, but on the other hand brought together in a functional relationship (K LAUER 1985). Teaching then comprises an arrangement of external conditions – from teaching activities to multimedia materials – that are assumed to influence learning processes. Learning itself has taken place only if the person in question has realized a sustainable change in her/his internal conditions. This is the effect of current processes including observable and nonobservable (learning) behaviour (GAGNÉ 1977; K LAUER 1973a; STRAKA / MACKE 1979a). 3.7.7.3
Historical Development and Current State of Research
Learning and teaching research experienced a boom in the Federal Republic of Germany in the course of the Priority Programme with the same name of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) that began in 1974 and was to run for six years (DFG 1974). This ↑ research programme was inaugurated by the fact that up to that point the consideration of learning theories in German pedagogy had occurred rather accidentally, and the assumptions on the relationship of teaching and learning had lacked empirical confirmation. Moreover there had been only shortterm experiments, a neglect of curricular contexts,
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a lack of attention towards the influence of teaching material and individual differences (treatmentaptitude-interaction) (CRONBACH / SNOW 1977), and finally an undifferentiated concept of “learning ability”. The criteria for the selection of tenders were the reference to cognitive theories (including emotional, motivational and social variables), the applicability in schools on the basis of long-term field experiments, and the consideration of individualisation and differentiation (DFG 1974; ACHTENHAGEN 1995; ACHTENHAGEN / GRUBB 2001). The ↑ research programme focused on mathematics and English in the 5th and 6th grades in schools of general education. The teaching and learning theoretical discussion that was triggered by the programme also diffused, albeit slowly, into West German TVET research (e. g. SCHELTEN 1977; 1980; 1981; STRAKA / MACKE 1979b; STRAKA 1980). The projects that were supported in the Priority Programme on Learning and Teaching Research of the DFG extended from formal teaching and learning time models (TREIBER 1980) to interactionistcommunicative models (WIENOLD /ACHTENHAGEN / BUER ET AL. 1985) to teaching and learning theoretical models “in the narrower sense”. However, even these projects were characterised by a wide range of research topics like action theoretical studies in teaching (HOFER 1981), cognition theoretical ↑ structuration of teaching material (NIEGEMANN / TREIBER 1982) or cognitive-motivationally structured instruction (EIGLER / MACKE / NENNIGER ET AL. 1976). Despite this heterogeneity of ↑ research questions some common research paths can be identified. These include the attempt to clarify the cognitive processes in problem solving and action control; the systematic description of learning material and learning objects in instruction; structural and summative analyses of students’ learning outcomes; the analysis of long-term teaching sequences; the inclusion of motivational and affective factors; simultaneous analyses on different levels (individual students, classes etc.) (BUER / NENNIGER 1992). In 1990 a study of the German Research Foundation on “TVET Research at Universities in the Federal Republic of Germany” was published (DFG 1990). The paper identified considerable research deficits and thus gave rise to the DFG Prior-
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ity Programme “Teaching-Learning Processes in Initial Business Education”, which was a unique programme in vocational education and training. Within this programme 18 projects were supported, which investigated different research questions at different degrees of detail. With a certain generalisation these projects can be classified as follows (BECK 2000b; 2002; 2003, 233): From the DFG Priority Programme “Teaching-Learning Processes in Initial Business Education” (BECK 2002) and reviews on the state of the art in teaching and learning research (ACHTENHAGEN / GRUBB 2001; EFKLIDES 2006; ATKINSON / DERRY/ R ENKL / WORTHAM 2000; DECI / KOESTNER / RYAN 2001; DOCHY/ SEGERS / VAN DEN BOSCHE / GIJBELS 2003; ILLERIS 2004; NIEGEMANN 2001; WEIDENMANN 2000; WEINERT 2000; RENKL 2002; BRANSFORD / BROWN / COCKING 2000; KOCK / SLEEGERS / VOETEN 2004; HIDI 2006; K RAPP 2005; GOETZ / HALL / FRENZEL / PEKRUN 2006; NICKOLAUS /K NÖLL /GSCHWENDTNER 2007; PEKRUN 2000; SCHNOTZ 2006; MAYER 2001; STERN / HARDY 2004) the following generalised thematic developments and contributions to knowledge can be established: – modelling and empirical validation of the interplay of working or ↑ learning strategies, metacognitive strategies, motivations and emotions and their support through complex ↑ learning environments; – self-directed, self-regulated or autodidactic learning and their supportive external conditions; – conceptualisation of interest, self-determination and learning emotions, their validation as well as their change in longitudinal perspective in relation to external conditions in school and work; – design of media, individually or as integrated multimedia teaching programmes, including fundamental principles like differentiated visual presentation of identical contents and the related learning effects; – development and testing of flexible and open learning environments as a supplement to the instructionally, planned and controlled learning arrangements that were predominant in the 1980s; – studying examples of problem solving in general and with worked out examples of fostering adaptive, flexible transfer;
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Fig. 2: Research topics of the DFG Priority Programme
– the effects of ↑ situated action oriented external conditions on ↑ vocational competence are lower compared with rather traditional instruction in industrial domains; – the demonstration that measures of school organisation do not automatically lead to a qualitative improvement of teaching-learning processes; – the proof that learning support by relevant subject-related prior knowledge normally cannot be always compensated for through general abilities; – research findings according to which an externally stimulated, systematically organised knowledge acquisition controlled by teachers is consistent with intrinsic motivation, concentrated attention and mental learning activities; – classification of ↑ learning environments according to learning goals, definitions of teachers’ and learners’ roles and of roles of learners in relation to each other; – learning and acting as a multidimensional dynamic process of information, observable and nonobservable behaviour, emotion and motivation. Such a view of learning led to the abandonment of the search for a generally effective form of learning and to the investigation of functional relations
between intended internal conditions (= learning objectives), learning activities and teaching conditions. This was exemplarily realised with the “choreographies of teaching” to bridge the gap between instruction and learning (OSER / BAERISWYL 2001). 3.7.7.4
Methodological Particulars and Implications
For a long time teaching and learning research built upon Hilgard’s (1948) definition according to which learning is the process by which behaviour is generated or modified in a relatively permanent way through interaction with the environment or reactions to a situation. In the course of the cognitive turn the internal conditions like structures of knowledge, skills and motivation, and the internal processes like cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies, motivations and emotions moved into focus. Learning was conceived as an active, constructive operation of processing individually generated information that leads to understanding via the connection of the things to be learned with the existing knowledge and experiences of the learner (RENKL 2002; ANDERSON 1995b; STRAKA / MACKE 2002). With the emergence of constructivist ap-
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proaches it was sometimes questioned whether there are actually stored, abstract and decontextualised representations (= knowledge) that are acquired in one context and can be applied in another (CLANCEY 1993; LAVE 1988). Learning is conceived as dealing with situative options for and constraints on agency. The associated assumption of situatedness therefore focuses in learning on the ↑ domain-specific dimension and especially on the socio-cultural dimension of interaction and communication. The consequence is that learning is viewed as enculturation into social communities (LAVE / WENGER 1991). In this approach therefore the actual processes as well as the features of external social conditions and their perception move into the foreground. This shift of perspective in the learning concept is reflected in methodological trends. The behavioural learning concept of the 1960s mostly opted for simple experimental settings (field experiment) and measurement instruments for undifferentiated total scores. Observations and analyses of the teacher-student-interaction flourished at that time (FLANDERS 1970; BROPHY/ GOOD 1974; 1986). With the cognitive turn, experimental studies and correlative case studies experienced a growth in relevance (HESSE / WOTTAWA 1997; RENKL 2002). The vision of mastering learning (BLOOM 1976; CARROL 1963), Gagné’s approach of cumulative learning (1962) and his concept of learning hierarchies (GAGNÉ 1968; EIGLER / MACKE / NENNIGER ET AL. 1976; SCHELTEN 1980) suggested on the one hand a differentiation of the summative scores, and on the other hand the classical measurement model was made obsolete by the mastery learning (EIGLER / STRAKA 1978). A consequence was the development of probabilistic measurement models like the binomial model (K LAUER / FRICKE / HERBIG ET AL. 1972). These models define competence as the probability of solutions. This perspective was completed for the time being by more differentiated probabilistic measurement models like item response theory (LORD 1980). The analysis of knowledge structures and their details by means of concept-mapping (WEBER 2004; SCHNOTZ / VOSNIADOU / CARRETERO 1999) led to the development of alternative procedures and the refinement of existing methods in educational ↑ di-
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agnostics (SOLANO-FORES / SHAVELSON 1997; DUIT 1995). The growth in knowledge on the relationship of teaching and learning led to its further differentiation on the one hand and to a growing complexity of the interplay of the involved variables on the other. Simple correlation analyses and even analyses of covariance – the “peak” of data analysis at the time of teaching research – reached their limits. The further development and invention of statistical methods like multiple regression analysis, factor analysis and cluster analysis up to structural equation models equipped teaching and learning research with powerful instruments that allow for a more adequate analysis of the complexity of teaching-learning processes (STRAKA / LENZ 2005). Whereas the “methodological picture” of teaching and learning researchers with internationally recognised standards like the “Standards for educational and psychological testing” (AERA 1999) used to be clear and unequivocal before the emergence of constructivist approaches, this can only in part be stated for the situative approach. In this approach a variety of qualitative methods is employed, the adequacy and persistence of which still remains to be proven. One can mention design experiments (cf. BROWN, A. L. 1992) or interactive research and design (cf. GREENO /MMAP 1998), which assign high priority to the cooperation of science and practice. They show some proximity to the action research of the 1950s (COREY 1953; SHUMSKY 1958; TABA / NOEL 1957), which seems to have faded into oblivion. The future will show whether the ↑ research approaches that are currently in practice will share the fate of action research (STRAKA 1978). Especially the valid evidence of processes and effects beyond the single case is the Achilles heel of constructivist teaching-learning concepts. Perhaps it was this situation that prompted the National Research Council (PELLEGRINO / CHUDOWSKY/ GLASER 2001) to commission a state of the art report on relevant assessment methods. Nevertheless a core finding of the report “Knowing what students know”, according to which an assessment method is not appropriate for all purposes, suggests that standards for constructivist ↑ research designs will be developed only in the future (RENKL 2002).
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Fig. 3: Relationship of learning and teaching work environment in dual vocational education and training
3.7.7.5
Problems and Development Perspectives
The different research school of thought and the voluminous empirically verified, but sometimes contradictory findings from general and vocational learning and teaching research in the meantime allow for a differentiated view of the general framework for learning and teaching. With the cognitive turn “behaviour” became an element of a more comprehensive action concept. For the latter, experience is constitutive, which is differentiated into the dimensions of cognition, emotion and motivation. The observable dimension of behaviour comprises aspects like motor ones. The cognitive dimension focuses on work and control strategies. Referring to the groups around Weinstein/ Mayer (1986), Metzger (1997), Boekearts (1999), VanderStoep/ Pintrich (2003), Zimmerman/ Kitsantas (2005) one can subdivide these strategies into organisation, planning, processing, concentration and metacognition. These categories can be further differ-
entiated in turn, as is indicated by the lines (cp. Fig. 1). The emotional dimension, which consists of arousal, distinguishes between types and extent of activating and disactivating non-cognitive states like joy, anger and boredom as they were modelled by the group around Pekrun (PEKRUN 1992; PEKRUN / GOETZ / TITZ 2002; GOETZ / HALL / FRENZEL / PEKRUN 2006). The dimension of motivation consists of interest (K RAPP 2002; 2005; HIDI 2006), achievement orientation (VOLLMEYER / RHEINBERG 1999; RHEINBERG / VOLLMEYER / ROLLETT 2002) and attribution (WEINER 1986). Interest is process and/ or content related (STRAKA / NENNIGER 1997). The achievement orientation focuses on a quality criterion. The concepts of interest and achievement orientation are modelled with Atkinson’s (1964) value-expectancy considerations to content, process and quality criterion. Attributions for success and failure share these common properties like locus, stability and controllability (WEINER 1986). An action, however, can be realised only with reference to something. In the behavioural paradigm
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this was the stimulus. From the angle of a cognitive and/or constructivist view the point of reference of an action is the individual or idiosyncratic (AUSUBEL 1968) creation of information about things, other persons or the self. Such information may include facts, state or process concepts (cf. ANDERSON /K RATHWOHL 2001). Action and information are therefore constitutive elements on the actual process level of the general framework for learning and teaching (cf. Fig. 1). Actions and information are according to this modelling transient, a characteristic which implies the concept of internal conditions. The internal complements of information are knowledge of facts, state and process conceptions knowledge. The equivalents of the dimensions of an action are motor, cognitive, motivational and emotional dispositions. These internal conditions – currently subsumed under the concept of competence (ACHTENHAGEN 2004; DELAMARE LE DEIST / WINTERTON 2005; SPENCER / SPENCER 1993; STRAKA 2002; 2005) – are persistent on the one hand and subject to change through learning on the other. External conditions consist of tasks. Only if a barrier is encountered while performing a task, does the task become a problem for the agent (DÖRNER 1976). A task or a problem can be characterised by features like complexity, intransparency, dependency, a momentum of its own and a multitude of objectives and ends (K LUGE 2007). It is a part of the particulars of learning and teaching processes in vocational education and training and especially in dual vocational training that these processes are embedded in the contexts of companies and schools. These contexts feature structurally similar properties: behaviour of teachers and work colleagues, type of instruction in school and of organisation in companies, tools and learning from, in and with media (JONASSEN 2001). Despite these analogous commonalities there are differences between the learning venues company and school. The arrangement of environmental conditions in the company is derived from the company’s goals, which do not primarily consist in the ↑ promotion of learning. Unlike this, school contexts are primarily organised for the support of learning, or at least they should be. If these aspects are taken into consideration, the relationship of learning and
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teaching in dual vocational training can be modelled as follows on the basis of empirical research findings: This modelling entails research perspectives for learning and teaching theory in the domain of vocational education and training. It has to be investigated whether and what company related and school related external conditions are connected to what dimensions of professional competence development. This requires a further specification of those potentially learning-supportive external conditions. In addition differentiated taxonomies for factual, state and procedural knowledge for occupational domains have to be developed. On this basis the missing measurement instruments (BAETHGE / ACHTENHAGEN /ARENDS ET AL. 2006) would have to be constructed, which meet the “standards for educational and psychological testing” (AERA 1999) or are compatible with a “learning integrated assessment system” (BIRENBAUM / BREUER / CASCALLAR ET AL. 2006). From this the following conclusion can be drawn: there are substantial achievements in the domain of vocational learning and teaching research, but much more work remains to be done.
3.7.8
Research on Disadvantaged Groups Arnulf Bojanowski, Peter Eckardt and Günter Ratschinski
3.7.8.1
Defining “Disadvantaged” Groups
The term “↑ disadvantaged” was introduced into the ↑ vocational pedagogy discussion in 1980, with the establishment of the programme for the disadvantaged (BIERMANN / RÜTZEL 1999, 13). The term disadvantaged has largely replaced the terms unskilled, ↑ young worker or fringe group for example. However, the term was only able to provide a temporary outline in this field. From initial research, it became apparent that it primarily describes youth without regular professional training. In the educational science discussions, other categories of reference such as Youth ↑ Social Work
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(FÜLBIER / MÜNCHMEIER 2002; HERRMANNS 2002), youth vocational help, ↑ vocational preparation, vocational preparation year or vocational preparing measures, indicates that they only deal with a partial vocational educational influenced field of research. Even the term disadvantaged is questionable within the professional discussion, because it is “out of focus” (relational), and it is also discriminating (BIERMANN / RÜTZEL 1999). Furthermore, support of disadvantaged youth takes place in a – as generally and appropriately stated – “jungle” of various measures. To simplify this we talk about ↑ disadvantaged support programmes as being a simple universal term for the promotion of vocational courses both within and outside of school offered by the various carriers, actors and institutions. Even the term ↑ disadvantaged support programme is not used uniformly. Some texts use terms such as “Youth with a need for special pedagogical promotion”, “Youth with a difficult chance of starting”, or speak of “vocational integration promotion”. Despite the varying terminology, one could say: as a rule, promotion measures refer to a group of young people, who because of individual problems (e. g. ↑ learning problems or behaviour problems) or because of unfavourable social living conditions (family problems, unemployment, poor relationships at home, etc.), have got into difficulties. With the term “research on ↑ disadvantaged groups”, the scientific research activities in this field are to be made accessible. 3.7.8.2
What is “Research on Disadvantaged Groups? Occupied with” the Disadvantaged Support Programme Target Groups
Even though the term “disadvantaged” is inconsistent and debatable – the underlying premise is not. The disadvantaged support programme occupies itself with programmes of provision for the vocational and social integration of youth and young adults “in difficult situations” (MOLLENHAUER / UHLENDORFF 1992). The disadvantaged support programme’s learning groups are, as a rule built up heterogeneously. This means the scheme primarily consists of pupils from secondary modern, special needs schools, youth with migrant backgrounds
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(e. g. ethnic immigrant children with a German identification card, youth refugees or applicants for political asylum) youth with social inadequacies (truants, young people with health limitations) and adolescents without a chance of professional training or a place of work (GÖGERCIN 1999, 100). As a rule, it must be presumed that these young people have a considerable deficiency within their “learning biography”. There are no clear and determinable factors to explain these young people’s difficulties and problems in life. Within the relevant pedagogical discussions, there has been discourse about the accumulation of problematic circumstances. The young people themselves feel like “↑ school failures”, and consider their failure, that has more than likely come about from “outside circumstances”, as their own individual failure. The quantitative meaning of the disadvantaged support programme is not adequately taken into account in public or in pedagogical discussions. In 1998 a representative random telephone survey was carried out by EMNID on 14,782 young adults according to age, sex and nationality; they were between the ages of 20 to 29: 19.3 % were carrying out vocational training, 68.4 % had completed their vocational training, and 11.6 % had no vocational training (BMBF 1999). One can claim, in an impromptu way, that these 11.6 % are the typical target group of the disadvantaged support programme. However, only tenuous estimations of the actual quantitative dimensions of disadvantaged youth are possible (LAPPE 1999). Approaches are provided in the vocational education report 2003: nationwide, there were more than 75,000 young people in ↑ vocational preparation arrangements within schools alone (BMBF 2003c, 124). Besides that, there are nationwide 136,000 young people participating in vocational preparation arrangements provided by the employment exchange (BMBF 2003c, 152): In the meantime the disadvantaged support programme has, “on the quiet”, become a decisive socialisation and educational entity for a substantial number of youth (GESSNER 2003). However, no clear outlines or even binding pedagogical concepts inherent in other sections of the educational system have evolved here. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning how little the development of a new
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sector within the educational system is “officially” recognised by educational politics and educational science. It is also worth mentioning how little scientific ↑ vocational pedagogy has perceived the “lively criticism” made by the disadvantaged support programme about the ↑ dual system of vocational training, let alone seizing it as a concept (RÜTZEL 1995; SCHIERHOLZ 2001). 3.7.8.3
Who does Research on the Disadvantaged”? Overlapping and Delimitations to (Educational Scientific) Research Disciplines
Within the pedagogical discourse, it is possible to find a minimum of four different “authorities” (FÜLBIER 2002a). (1) ↑ Social pedagogy makes the question of the ↑ disadvantaged a subject of discussion mainly in the field of “Youth ↑ Social Work” (GÖGERCIN 1999). Those who work in this traditional area stress the extra-curricular, consultative, leisure-oriented aspect and are impartial in their criticism of gainful employment and vocational orientation, unfortunately without acknowledgement of the vocational pedagogical discourse (e. g. GALUSKE 1993; K RAFELD 1989; GÖGERCIN 1999). Scientific research in this field refers, for example, to the question of the target groups (GÖGERCIN 1999, 105; FEUERSTEIN 1991) or the ↑ professionalism of the practitioner in “Youth Vocational Assistance” (K RAFELD 2000, 113 ff.). (2) Anyone who comes from the area of special pedagogy will, more than likely, take the needs of the youth (especially from schools of special needs) and subsequently every day life or “life’s company” into focus. Research carried out in this partial discipline is, as a rule, concentrated on the secondary stage I, or more than likely during the transition from the special needs school to the phase of vocational training (e. g. BRANDT 1996). The literature around the area of vocational rehabilitation focuses on the transition of handicapped people into professional life (ELLGER-RÜTTGARDT 1982). (3) ↑ Vocational pedagogy has its emphasis on the (older) discussion about ↑ young workers “and youth unemployment” (see BLANKERTZ 1960;
NOLTE / RÖHRS / STRATMANN 1973; SCHWEIKERT 1974; SEUBERT 1984). New basic approaches to vocational pedagogy for questioning the disadvantaged are rare (an instructive example is ECKERT/ ROST/ BÖTTCHER ET AL. 2000). Most studies develop only a minor relationship to social pedagogy or even special pedagogy. As far as we are concerned, there is a great need for vocational pedagogical research. For this reason we stand in contrast to the opinion of vocational pedagogical experts: in this way the DFG senate committee named several possible vocational pedagogical priority programmes without even presenting the ↑ disadvantaged support programme (DFG 1990, 116). During an evaluation of former operations, a certain width and differentiation became apparent concerning the research on the ↑ vocational preparation year, on learning impairment and on youth unemployment (DFG 1990, 20). During the vocational education research ‘↑ Delphi 2001/2002’, 800 experts were to assess the urgency of research in 250 given areas. The topic of support of fringe groups or the disadvantaged is not represented amongst the 15 first mentioned research desiderata. Based on this study, the topic of support of fringe groups or the disadvantaged will not be explicitly taken into consideration within the mid-term research concept of the BIBB (BROSI / BRANDES 2003). (4) Explicit educational pedagogical approaches to vocational disadvantaged support programmes are, as far as we know, non-existent. Educational pedagogy is implicitly significant of course, when one includes the empirical results of the international educational pedagogical ↑ comparative studies such as TIMSS, PISA or recently, IGLU. All studies show with a dramatic amount of coincidence, that the German education system is itself at fault for the development of a strong disadvantaging of complete groups of young people. For example, the lack of encouragement in preschool, extremely arbitrary allocation from primary to secondary and ↑ further educational schools, extremely early sorting of pupils after the fourth year, distinctive “class specific” reproduction in ↑ school systems, insufficient and low competenceconstructive lessons. Such criticism points out that schools are continuously producing an increasing number of drop-outs, who then at the age of 16
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to 18, end up in the disadvantaged support programme, where deficiency compensation is only possible under extremely difficult individual conditions within an inadequate supporting system. This state of affairs has, within the research on the disadvantaged, (still) not specifically been adapted to international studies or even led to a widely arranged international comparison of support systems for the disadvantaged.
great extent, excluded from the employment mar-
3.7.8.4
are useful for the ↑ statistical analysis of the subject
Where is Research Carried Out? Institutions and Locations of “Research on Disadvantaged Groups”
(1) The Federal Institute for Vocational Education (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, BIBB, based in Bonn) has, for over 30 years now, been carrying out model tests for ↑ disadvantaged support programmes. From the 30 years of research, an abundance of conceptual basic approaches have been derived. (ZIELKE / LEMKE / POPP 1986). With the BIBB-initiated model tests and the appropriate scientific accompanying by-products, a multitude of productive suggestions for the ↑ disadvantaged programme could be gained and fed back into the practical experiences of the disadvantaged support programme. For this purpose, the BIBB provided a much-used guide. Thus BIBB is held in high esteem as the inspiration of research and innovations through the use of model testing (ZIELKE / LEMKE / POPP 1989). Through the so called GPC (Good Practise Centre) a new basic approach has arisen, to use the Internet as a possibility for creating a comprehensive database. Research results are however, not correlated in the GPC. During the 1990s, the German Youth Institute (Deutsches Jugendinstitut, DJI) had concentrated mainly on the transition of disadvantaged youth based in the context of the “working world of Youth ↑ Social Work”. The studies of the DJI contain important sociological material that has influenced the debate on the role of the disadvantaged support programme within the whole of the education system. It has been empirically proved that the “transition system“, secondary stage I into the vocational training and then subsequently into the employment market, has erected new barriers for the target group, the disadvantaged. The youth not only had to clear new “hurdles” but are now, to a
ket. The Institute for employment research (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, IAB) has concentrated heavily on the quantitative analysis of the employment market and can deliver useful information concerning the actual numbers of disadvantaged young people. The corresponding studies matter (e. g.: SCHOBER 1992), but were not able to inspire intensive research activities. (2) Alongside these important public research establishments are the social- special- and vocational pedagogical institutes at the polytechnics and universities, which are to be listed as locations of research on the disadvantaged. However, publications by vocational pedagogues concerning disadvantaged support programmes are rare. For example, there were no articles concerning the topic of “disadvantaged fringe groups”, or similar amongst the 31 articles of the 2001 edition of the German “Zeitschrift für Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik”. (3) Research on the disadvantaged is not only carried out on the public side of things, but also in the “private economics” sector. First of all, the three nationwide operating institutes BBJ/CONSULT, HIBA and INBAS institutes have, in part, participated in the construction of the disadvantaged support programme. They have contributed by means of concept development, ↑ further education and empirical examinations, to the structuring and stabilisation of the field (good examples are the works: LIPPEGAUS 1994; BMBF 2002b, authored by INBAS). These institutes have collected a great deal of experience gathered from model projects, and presented it to the expert audience. Thus, a certain research-supportive experience safeguard has been created.
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3.7.8.5
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What is the Research Investigating? A General View of the Subject Fields and the Situation of the Research on the Disadvantaged
Basic Approaches to the Development of Theoretical Concepts “Formation of theory” means that the conceptual efforts refer explicitly to the disadvantaged support programme and do not just deal with the adaptations or further developments achieved with knowledge taken from other areas. (1) From a biographical perspective, there is already a salient concept theory from HILLER for our target group. His theory provides stimulation for empirical research and pedagogical practice. The framework of the theory mainly refers to sociological concepts: The main thing for the youth is that they are able to attain the necessary economical, cultural and social “capital” (as per Bourdieu). Thereby, the objective is to partition their life’s career into “partial careers” within which the various “capital types” can be acquired (as per Luhmann). Hiller’s question goes further, asking how can the specific partial career be attained and the “capital” be made fruitful for another partial career (“converted”) (HILLER 1994). With this theoretical concept, micro-sociological hypotheses offer themselves for the analysis of the life careers of ↑ disadvantaged youth. (2) This thesis is, from a macro- respective, educational-sociological point of view, more to be understood as a “stable temporary solution” of the disadvantaged. Frank Braun (from DJI) postulates – and we are able to agree – a gradual familiarisation of the public to the provisional vocational education system for the disadvantaged within the educational system (BRAUN 2000). He can make this educational sociological theory gained from the empirical results of the DJI plausible, so that in the mean time this “mixed entity” of various institutes is able to influence the “transition example” of a large group of adolescents. Once again from a macro-sociological theoretical point of view, one questions the “orientation dilemma” of the “Youth Vocational Assistance”. This is where the vocational pedagogical orientation (“fixation”) of the ↑ disadvantaged support
programme for (employment) work and (life) occupation, is questionably and heavily criticised due to the changes within working society (GALUSKE 1993; H AUNERT / LANG 1994; GALUSKE 1998). With similar aspirations, Franz Josef Krafeld developed various conceptions for disadvantaged youth (K RAFELD 1989; 2000), in which he concentrates on the “activation of the rural surroundings” in connection with conceptions of “useful unemployment”. (3) From a pedagogical point of view, there are a great deal of individual studies and pedagogical conceptions. Inspiration is provided by a plethora of “didactics of the disadvantaged” (BIERMANN / BONZ / RÜTZEL 1999). However, the sections from vocational-, social-, special-, and educational pedagogies, do not combine to make a consistent theoretical framework. Independent of closer scientific discourse, the practice of out-of-school support of disadvantaged youth becomes more concrete through the work of the HIBA, INBAS and the BIBB – the “Social-pedagogical Vocational Education” conception (BMBF 2002b) develops the various references for special pedagogy (individualising, promotion planning) ↑ social pedagogy (accompanying, advice, common wealth orientation) and ↑ vocational pedagogy (vocational reference, work pedagogy). The conception has a special position within the development of theory, because it has gathered many productive pedagogical elements together. It could, within a medium-term time period, function as an integrative pedagogical theory for the disadvantaged.
Empirical Orientated Research The empirical research findings include both quantitative and qualitative information, which has built upon practical experience. (1) The beginning of important quantitative empirical research. This is marked by a study from the seventies carried out by Elfriede Höhn (1974) with the topic of “↑ young workers and the unlearned”. She carried out research on representative random sampling of n=1000 unlearned young adults between the ages of 18 to 25. Contrary to all expectations, the group proved to be non-homogeneous. Every second person had training ex-
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perience. HÖHN identified three types of the “unlearned”, “the abdicator” (40 %), “the abandoner” (34 %) and the “switcher” (25 %). In an earlier (in the seventies) widespread studies by the IAB, included a total of 62,825 pupils from the ninth year, and a representative random sampling of 33,021 school leavers from general education schools. The study provided firsthand information concerning the problems of high birthrate age groups during the transition into vocational training as well as into working life (SATERDAG / STEGMANN 1980). This was able to provide indicators about young people who had dropped out of the educational system. A significant rift was created by two sociological argumentative quantitative studies that caused a furore (in each case, a temporary one) in the political arena: the so-called BIBB/EMNID-study detected in 1991 that 14 % of an age cohort consistently did not enter vocational training or employment (BMBW 1991). A replication of the analysis in 1999 (see above) produced virtually the same results (BMBF 1999). Both studies were widespread and representative. In this case the study was able to indicate where educational-political problems or failures were to be found and that there was in fact a need for action. The results were at the same time able to be supplemented by employment market projects (TESSARING 1991; TESSARING 1994), and with pedagogical analysis of the “Cellar Children” (K LEMM 1991; summarising FÜLBIER 2002). (2) The main focus of the empirical research activities is encapsulated by the term “↑ transition research”, significant for this would be the abovementioned study of the German Youth Institute (DJI). (Partially together with the Institute for Employment Research, IAB) tried nationwide to conduct research with an emphasis on the transition at the important thresholds of the educational system based on extensive quantitative research projects: from general schools into vocational training: (1) threshold, then the transition into working life: (2) threshold (BRAUN / LEX / RADEMACKER 1999; FELBER 1996; LEX 1997; R AAB 1996; R ADEMACKER 1999). During this, one study was outstanding: TILLY LEX questioned 2,230 persons between the ages of 18 and 25, in writing, who at the time of the analysis were taking part in a project being run by
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the Youth Vocational Assistance. Stages of vocational integration were included as illustrations of biographical time series. LEX is able to illustrate that there are people with varying types of behaviour who make their chance of using the transition into the working market more of a problem, sometimes even extremely difficult (LEX 2002, 477). During the 1990s, the topic of “↑ Transition Research” empirically confirmed that a long term active “parallel system” of the ↑ disadvantaged support programme had pushed itself alongside the dual education system of vocational training. Basic approaches to sociological research within the sphere of transitional problems are important strands in the research on the ↑ disadvantaged. For this reason a large amount of (regional) studies exist (WOLF 1986; ECKERT 1989; INSTITUT FÜR ENTWICKLUNGSPLANUNG UND STRUKTURFORSCHUNG AN DER UNIVERSITÄT H ANNOVER 1994) concerning “transition problems”. An important role is played by subjective coping with the transition. A good example is provided by the analysis of the processing and coping strategies of disadvantaged youth during the transition. At a secondary modern school, Heinz et al. (1987) carried out a study on the “junction processes” made by secondary modern pupils into the working world, which were carried out under difficult conditions. In a qualitative longitudinal section design, interviews were carried out during the years from 1979 to 1983, always one year apart, at first with 208 secondary pupils from Bremen. The main result was that the situation on the employment market dominated all vocational perceptions. It is not interests or abilities that determine the career aspiration, but what the employment market has to offer. Entering the employment world doesn’t take place because of interests, but through assignation (HEINZ /K RÜGER / RETTKE ET AL. 1987). The question of subjective accomplishment is researched in numerous further studies (KOHLHEYER / WESTHOFF / SCHIEMANN 1983; FRIEBEL 1983; DIETZ / MATT/ SCHUMANN / SEUS 1997; BYLINSKI 2002). Hiller and his colleagues carried out ↑ qualitative research on the “transitions problems” with questions in a different direction. Their “longitudinal section-research” follows the “career examples” of young men during their ↑ vocational preparation
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year and their subsequent “life accomplishment” (HILLER 1997; GIEST-WARSEWA 2000; FRIEDEMANN / SCHROEDER 2000). The results make it clear: due to the employment market situation today, there is just about no hope when trying to enter an apprenticeship or even a working career after taking part in a vocational preparation activity. This ↑ research approach draws attention to the theoretical orientation and the repeated replication in various German regions (Reutlingen, Rostock, Hamburg, Hannover: FRIEDEMANN / SCHROEDER 2000; BICKMANN / ENGGRUBER 2001). (3) Apart from this widely-applied research dimension of “transitions”, much empirically-orientated research has been recorded. This meant that there were often problems in exactly defining the disadvantaged support programme target groups (FELD 1981), in respect to the heterogeneity of the ↑ vocational preparation year and the ↑ disadvantaged support programme (FEUERSTEIN 1991). Considering the fact that the term ↑ disadvantaged has just recently and only gradually presented itself, there are studies that are searching for instruments which are able to detect the target groups (HENNIGE / STEINHILBER 2000; GÖGERCIN 1998). A further important field of research about the disadvantaged support programme that has come into view in recent times is “cooperation and network construction in a regional context”. A qualitative case-study (WEIBLEN 1997) has proof of the necessary regional cooperation relationships on the basis of 20 years of experience. This awareness is strengthened by a widely arranged, qualitative analysis of selected regions carried out concerning cooperation (MÜNDER / SPITZL /K RETSCHMER 2000). The study highlights the deficiencies which correspond with other data (compare SECKINGER / WEIGEL / SANTEN / MARKERT 1998), but it is also able to make many suggestions about cooperation which are able to push things forward (compare also WEBER 2001). The topic of the ↑ professionalism of the pedagogical personnel is, surprisingly, only dealt with on a marginal basis when taking the various pedagogical occupational categories within the disadvantaged support programme into consideration. The qualitative analyses refer, for example, to the selfconcept of social pedagogues within the disad-
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vantaged support programme (BÖTTCHER /KÖSTER 1986; GESSNER 2003), the experiences of instructors of association with disadvantaged youth within ↑ further education (BOJANOWSKI 1988), or the stress felt by teachers in the vocational preparation year (GÖHRLICH 2001; GÖHRLICH 2002). The results herald a great ability to reflect, as well as a great deal of professionalism and empathy and a surprisingly high grade of satisfaction within this occupation. It also makes obvious the need for intercommunication and further education (compare K RAFELD 1997), which is not surprising, when taking the inadequate preparation of social pedagogues during their work within the disadvantaged support programme carried out on polytechnics into consideration (CHRISTE / ENGGRUBER / FÜLBIER / MERGNER 2002). Taking the demands for high quality into consideration for an establishment that is supported by the Federal Office for “promotion of the disadvantaged”, it is surprising how few studies there are that deal with this topic (compare ENGGRUBER 1989; BAUDISCH / BOJANOWSKI 2002; NICASE / BOLLENS 2000; BYLINSKI 2001). (4) Very surprising is the result that the pedagogical didactical “core business” of the disadvantaged support programme (lessons, training, support, advising etc.) has only been minimally researched, and that basic systematic checks of previous supplementary concepts are absent. It deals with either an analysis of the disadvantaged support programme and the secondary expansion of model testing (ZIELKE / LEMKE / POPP 1991), which are just interesting ad-hoc-evaluations of current programmes (BRATER 1983; SCHROER 1991; BOJANOWSKI / CARSTENSEN-BRETHEUER /K IPP 1996), or comparisons with various types of programmes (GREINERT / WIEMANN 1992; PETERSEN 2003), that draw on pedagogical consequences, or make constructive suggestions. A few programmes rely at least on secondarily tested concepts. Sometimes assistance is sought by falling back on tested psychological behaviour-therapy concepts. The support plan for apprenticeship-accompanying assistance (BONIFER-DÖRR 1992) for example, leans on behaviour therapeutic programmes for support of the work and social behaviour of youth (PETERMANN / PETERMANN 1992). In addition, in handouts for
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the work in the vocational preparation year, many group dynamic and experience-activating methods are recommended by practitioners, for example, to provide a trustworthy class atmosphere (NLI 1994). Approaches that empirically and theoretically capture the choice of occupation and vocational orientation problems, apart from a very few approaches to the topic (R ATSCHINSKI 2000; 2001), do not exist.
Research on the Disadvantaged by Use of Model Testing, Model Projects and Single Intentions Model projects or experiments are a constructive feature of practice in the disadvantaged support programme. This makes them an important part of this field of research. (1) The model testing research within the ↑ disadvantaged support programme can be isolated by the series of model tests carried out by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education (BIBB – Model Testing) during the 1980s and 1990s (e. g. ABEL / BRANDES /K ISSLER 1983). At the beginning, model testing, its scientific backing and the results were more singular, meaning that they were oriented to the respective model tests and were only presented tentatively at expert conferences. During this phase, the objective use of publications within the framework of the series of model testing, was to secure the benefits of and to integrate elements of the model testing programme through mental conflations and generalisations (ZIELKE / LEMKE / POPP 1989). (2) Model tests and single projects were the decisive instruments of the disadvantaged support programme for providing the pedagogical arrangements of the disadvantaged support programme with helpful suggestions. During this pioneering work it has without doubt been possible to assemble a rich body of suggestions of a vocational support pedagogy. 3.7.8.6
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sis theorems between the affected sciences of special-, social-, school- and ↑ vocational pedagogy. There is also no recognised research-organisational structure. It is necessary to strengthen the empirical research, and at the same time tackle “pedagogical basis research” for the ↑ disadvantaged area. A systematic question strategy that is in excess of the previous research practice must be developed for a programme supported by vocational pedagogy. As far as we are aware, whole areas of the disadvantaged support programme have been faded out. This means that there are no studies concerning knowledge production and ↑ knowledge management in the disadvantaged support programme or studies dealing with regional economy or with the regional economic importance of the social and vocational integration of difficult youth, or about the complicated legal and financial conditions of the disadvantaged support programme. Therefore: in this field, there is little securely structured knowledge. When taking the requirements of an “Europeanised Knowledge-Based Society” into consideration, the disadvantaged support programme cannot afford, for the “promotion of ↑ human capital“, to work in such a disparate field. A new systemisation and a supply of collectively agreed-upon ↑ research programmes are needed. Otherwise the disadvantaged support programme will have to rely on the pragmatic settings of practice. The challenge for a disadvantaged support programme inspired by vocational pedagogy is to develop content-related criteria such as reliability, long term, transparency, stability, and a systematic approach – for a good and sustainable disadvantaged support programme.
3.7.9
Media Research and Development
Outlook
Overall, our brief sketch shows ↑ research fields that are in great need of development, especially regarding pedagogical questions. There are no systematic points of linkage and no collective ba-
Antje Pabst and Gerhard Zimmer The field of ↑ media research and development in vocational training will be described in the following few pages, based on four questions:
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(1) What do the terms “medium” or “media” generally mean and what do they refer to in vocational training? (2) Which forms of media have been developed for vocational training processes and what functions do they assume? (3) What developments have shaped media research and what is expected of the use of media in vocational development processes? (4) What possible perspectives are there in media research and development in vocational training? 3.7.9.1
Definition of the Term “Medium” or “Media”
In colloquial language, the term “media” designates systems that mediate information and it has been considerably extended by the emergence of computer- and internet-based “new media”. Common media in vocational training are educational and specialised books, films, audio samples, pictures, drawings, maps, workbooks, guiding texts, reference books, gearbox models, machine tools, laboratory equipment, instructional software, and simulations. These media are either developed explicitly for vocational training processes, or, while developed for other purposes, are useful in vocational training processes. Even teachers can be regarded as media, and professionals in their capacity as persons acting in a vocational context can equally become media for trainees (see AUSTERMANN 1996, 1036). The term “media” as it is used today is of Latin origin and can, on the one hand, mean “intermediate”, “midway”, “in-between”, “mediating” (root: “medius”) and, on the other hand, “public“, “common welfare” or “common property” (root: “medium”). Media are objects, instruments or forms of expression that stand between the people and the world and transmit information about the world. This information, however, is at the same time a cultural product and a representation of public facts and forms. Media are thus always mediation systems created by people for people or previously existing objects or phenomena turned into a medium for people by people. Information and interpretations are inscribed in their forms by means of the perception of culture and the world that is to be
communicated. This general definition of media not only applies to mass media but also characterises the position and function of media in ↑ teaching and learning processes (ZIMMER 2000; 2001; 2002a; 2002b). There are, however, other aspects of the concept of “medium” or “media” that are relevant in the context of vocational teaching and learning processes and that frequently fail to attract attention. In Greek, the term has been preserved as a “genus verbi”, expressing the ↑ participation of the grammatical subject in an action. This function becomes apparent in reflexive statements such as “I wash myself”. Furthermore, a distinction must be made between the reciprocal medium, which denotes the reciprocity of the effect, and the causative medium as the cause of an effect (BROCKHAUS 1971, Vol. 12, 322; ibid. 1991, Vol. 14, 373 f.; ibid. 1996, Vol. 14, 409). These further aspects of the concept, such as participation of the subject, reciprocity or the causing of an action, can also be applied to the significance or function of media in vocational training. Media are thus not only culturally generated mediators of information between teachers and students, but also stimulators or initiators of actions relating to the self or others. Phenomenological approaches claim that modality – in other words the question of which senses are addressed (MAYES 1994) – as well as the encoding of information and the navigation within the medium are crucial for the perception of the world that people develop by means of these media. In terms of contents, encoding, modality and navigation, media are developed by people, who thus contribute to the shaping of these media with their personality and their perception of the world (K RON 2004). Cognitive science suggests that the result of learning processes is the cognitive accumulation and restructuring of explicit and ↑ implicit knowledge. Knowledge consists of facts and practical actions, the meanings of and the relations between these. It is embedded in society and culture and depends on the particular learning and application context. Knowledge not only is subjective property but it is also determined intersubjectively and is thus transferable (PERKINS 1992; SALOMON 2003). Conse-
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quently, media intersubjectively communicate information about the world. Also, in constructivistic learning science, it is assumed that media cannot transmit information directly from one individual to the other. The perception of modally encoded information, however, can stimulate and initiate the construction of information (or knowledge, meanings, motivations, etc.) in the mind of the recipient (FUNKKOLLEG 1990, 51 ff., quoted in A RNOLD / MÜLLER 1992, 7). This means that information about the world is not transmitted by media, but in fact the world is subjectively constructed by them (JONASSEN / PECK / WILSON 1999). In vocational training, media are more than special mediation systems standing between the learning individual and the working world. Rather, the actual ↑ performance of work and the direct experience of work and the subject matter connected with it represent the original medium for vocational ↑ teaching and learning processes. This is reflected in the fact that the actual work experience is used as a training medium more often than in other educational environments. In this process, the people that have created the medium vanish behind the actual objects, instruments and processes. Their intentions, knowledge and skills are inscribed in the types of use of the objects in question. These are individually and subjectively reconstructed in the course of the actual work experience in cooperative and communicative working contexts, supported by other, more competent workers or accompanying instructors. Didactic and methodological arrangements used in this context can for example be “training islands” (working stations for trainees). However, some media is remote from human access. In automated processes based on ↑ information and communication technology (PAQ 1987), which can rarely or not at all be observed or experienced directly, the objects, instruments and processes can no longer be a direct medium for vocational learning processes. Even traditional media such as educational books, pictures, films or models do not provide sufficient support in this case. “New media” must instead be developed and integrated on the basis of the same information and communication technology, such as ↑ computer-
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based training, computer simulation, online communities, etc., which are creating new forms of integration of work and learning, and can make the knowledge required to be learnt more accessible to students. 3.7.9.2
Forms, Functions and Categories of Vocational Training Media
An initial categorisation of the multitude of media in vocational training can be achieved by dividing them into groups according to their external form, the physical medium, for example: worksheet, book, slide, film, CD-ROM, computer or machine. Alternatively, they can be sorted according to their form of presentation, for example: text, picture, drawing, symbol, model, instrument, experimental facility or educational software. Or, they can be categorised based on the senses they address: visual media (e. g. map, picture, graphic), aural media (e. g. audio sample of a motor) or audio-visual media (e. g. film, educational software). Other possibilities are olfactory, gustatory, tactile or even kinaesthetic media (BONZ 1999, 167 f.; SCHELTEN 1994, 214). Media represent a central element in the causal link between teaching and learning arrangements. In this way they are components of those arrangements along with the aims, contents and methods, the individual qualifications of teachers and learners as well as the socio-cultural environment and the prevailing teaching/learning culture. Which medium is applied, when, and how, is thus subject to didactical and methodological considerations. In this respect, the following functions of media can be distinguished: mediation of information (e. g. demonstration, illustration); transfer to a different level of ↑ abstraction or to another dimension of experience (e. g. experiment); encouragement for learning (e. g. problematisation, presentation of a particular situation in the operating process); working equipment (e. g. educational software, task book, reference book, experimental equipment); control and feedback support in the learning process or promotion of the learning process through repetition, practice, and exchanges with other learners (BONZ 1999, 173 ff.). A single medium can frequently assume various functions, depending on the extent of its universality,
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its utilisation and enactment by teachers, and its engagement by learners. The decision as to the function of a particular medium in the vocational training process is contingent on decisions at other levels. Depending on whether approaches from learning theory, educational theory or interactional theory, cognitive or situational approaches are preferred, certain media will be used often, rarely or not at all, or their application will differ. Key determining factors for the choice and application of a medium are, for instance, the particular motivation based on the teaching and learning theory, the class arrangement chosen for teaching and learning (e. g. group work, lecture format, individual work) and the teaching and learning culture actually experienced. Media are thus also categorised according to their fundamental didactical functions. One of the bestknown and probably the oldest didactical categorisation is that based on ↑ distance or proximity in relation to direct experience, in other words the level of abstraction. The key question here is whether the medium should illustrate a subject and make it more tangible, or if the medium should be a means of revealing the abstract principle behind the subject. This is the criterion that Dale (1950) applied in his “Cone of Experience” (quoted in BONZ 1999, 170). Here, media are arranged qualitatively by the decreasing experience of reality. At the tip of the cone, we find the media permitting the least experience of reality. At the bottom of the cone, those media are listed that enable the greatest experience of reality. A similar categorisation has been established by Tulodziecki (1999, 293 f.). He distinguishes between media: (i) in their real form, for example when working with a machine; (ii) in model form, for example when dealing with a gearbox model; (iii) in graphic form, for example when using diagrams of machines; and (iv) in symbolic form, for example when applying physical formulae. Each of these categories, therefore, has a particular orientation and utility. Other possible didactical categories are the ways of interaction that are supported by media in the teaching-learning process. Here, interaction refers to communication made possible by media between the learner and the teacher, between the
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learner and other learners, between the learner and the object of learning, and between the learner and the medium used for learning through the freedom the medium provides. Generally, it is assumed that media that permit only little experience of reality (such as symbolic or graphic representations) produce a smaller learning effect than media that enable direct experiences (as for instance experiments, simulations or roleplaying) (ARNOLD / MÜLLER 1992, 7 f.; BONZ 1999, 169 f.; EICKER 1983; MINGZHONG 2003). Teaching and learning situations largely based on symbolic and verbal media might therefore be of limited or specific benefit. The categorisation of media according to class arrangement, way of interaction, and freedom provided by the medium is based on current developments and debates in the field of vocational training and on recent findings in teaching and learning research. These lead to a differentiation of media into explicit teaching aids and explicit learning aids (BONZ 1999, 177 f.). Explicit teaching aids can only be applied by the teachers in the teaching process, since they possess the further information required to adequately use the medium. Explicit learning aids are applied by the learners to support them during the learning process, supply necessary information, help in conducting inquiries, give ideas on how to continue, and provide feedback through the automatic checking of learning results. Furthermore, they can encourage learners to acquire and apply ↑ learning strategies. Modern media concepts are designed to follow the principles of learner-centred learning and enable learners to comprehend the object of learning on their own. They should leave enough room for learners to engage in searching, collecting, researching, discovering, lingering, sorting, structuring and visualising – either individually or in groups. These principles require an open design of media, which is realised today in the context of ↑ e-learning concepts based on computer networks (ARNOLD /K ILIAN / THILLOSEN / ZIMMER 2004). With the development of computer networks during the past decade, new teaching and learning media have emerged that present entirely new possibilities. For the first time, computers integrate the different symbolic systems such as fonts, graphics,
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tables, pictures, images, language, film, etc., and their dynamic linking within different, multimediabased types of presentation and interaction, such as hypertext, animations, models, simulations, etc. They make numerous new forms of synchronous and asynchronous communication possible, as for instance e-mail, chat, discussion forums and video conferences, thereby opening up entirely new options for media design (ASTLEITNER 2000; CRAIG / GHOLSON / DRISCOLL 2002; FISCHER / MANDL 2000; HOHENSTEIN / WILBERS 2002; NIEGEMANN / HESSEL / HOHSCHEIT-MAUEL /ASLANKI 2004; PEKRUN 1999; WEISS /K NOWLTON / MORRISON 2002). For this purpose, concepts for a systematic instructional design were developed early on (GAGNÉ / BRIGGS / WAGER 1979; GAGNÉ / BRIGGS / WAGER 1992; DICK / CAREY 1996; HEINICH / MOLENDA / RUSSELL / SMALDINO 1999; MERRILL /LI /JONES 1990), even if these were initially difficult to put into practice (DICK 1991). Based on these concepts, an automatic construction of learning units was attempted in order to reduce the considerably greater efforts connected with the creation of new media; this attempt, however, was unsuccessful (LOCATIS / PARK 1992). “New media” integrate all traditional teaching and learning media. They also provide the possibility of overcoming formerly restrictive requirements connected with learning and teaching processes, such as the requirement to meet at the same place at the same time or the need for different physical media containing acquired knowledge (on paper, video, audio, etc.). The new synchronous and asynchronous forms of communication allow for different times and types of response in teachers as well as learners, reaching from situationally motivated/spontaneous to specifically prepared responses. In particular, models and simulations as new forms of mediation permit learning in preparation for real situations without risking the unwanted consequences of errors. This is the case, for instance, when learning to operate computercontrolled machine tools, or when acquiring decision-making skills in task-specific learning by using financial or economic simulation models (FISCHER / BOREHAM / NYHAN 2004). The new media include, among others, ↑ CBT or ↑ WBT (computer-based training or web-based training = complete multimedia-based and interac-
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tive educational software distributed on CD-ROM or via the Internet), simulations or entire teaching and learning arrangements on virtual ↑ learning platforms. This is what terms like multimedia-based and hypermedia-based learning refer to, and they involve computer-based media in different combinations. Examples are telematic learning, which, on top of various media, includes communication technologies; e-learning, which comprises the forms of learning mentioned above; and blended learning, which represents a combination of the use of new media and traditional ways of teaching. These new media can create an environment for individual learning. Midoro/ Olimpo et. al. (1991, 181) divide this learning into three dimensions: (i) adaptivity = adaptation to learning requirements; (ii) reactivity = interaction modes between learner and system (e. g. simulation, game and microcosm); and (iii) navigability = navigation comparable to a book, dictionary, hypertext or database. ↑ Media competence is, therefore, increasingly required in order to deal with new media in particular and with technological media such as tools and experimental facilities used during training. This applies not only to teachers, but especially to learners, since they are now also being encouraged to learn independently and autonomously. However, as discussed above, some of this knowledge is difficult to be secured through mediational forms alone. Consequently, media competence involves the skilful handling of the medium, its correct classification within the didactical process, and the mastering of the communication process related to it. For teachers, it also involves complementing and actively shaping multimedia. For learners, it involves using multimedia to present the knowledge they have acquired and the projects they have completed (ZIMMER 2002b, 2003). 3.7.9.3
Developments and Expectations
Historically, ↑ media research has only existed in Germany since the introduction of television as an educational medium in the 1960s and 1970s. The possibility of using television in teaching led to a multitude of studies regarding the success of different media as learning aids. At that time, the question was which position within the mediation
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process each medium should ideally occupy. The learning effect produced by media was explained mainly by the reciprocal action between the personality of the learner and the medium in question (TULODZIECKI 2001, 747). The first meta-analyses of what was to become computer-based training were carried out by Kulik/Kulik (1987). The primary medium of vocational training in crafts and industry, and even in the initial phase of industrialisation, was work itself. Vocational knowledge and skills were imparted mainly through ↑ participation in the operational process (learning by doing). The explicit development of ↑ educational media in vocational training only began towards the end of the 19th century. At first, these educational media were applied in addition to learning by doing in the operational process, in the form of rather theoretical lessons (PLOGHAUS 2003). Around the turn of the century, industrial companies started to introduce systematic vocational training in training workshops, using educational models that were independent of production. In Germany, with the founding of the Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB – Federal Institute of Vocational Training) in 1969, an institution was created that carries out ↑ media development and research while taking into account practical aspects (BENNER 1993, 14 f.). Educational media are also developed by external educational institutions, operational departments for basic and advanced training, or ↑ vocational schools and universities, and then distributed for example through publishing houses. For a long time, media research seemed to have been marked by the hope to finally find the perfect teaching and learning medium that would make complicated content matter easily comprehensible to all those receiving vocational training (i.e. ↑ efficiency criterion). Media were then expected to optimise the ↑ teaching and learning process (i.e. in ways characterisable as depersonalisation, decontextualisation and objectivisation) and rationalise it, since media are reusable (BONZ 1999, 169). The use of media makes possible the separation of certain teaching functions from the person performing the direct teaching process. The subject matter thus taught becomes detached from the possible inadequacies of a teacher. Subject matter, im-
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pulses for learning, and possibilities for the control of learning results can be stored on a physical medium during the teaching and learning process. In particular, the possibility of applying computers in the teaching and learning process raised hopes of objectified and efficient instruction (BONZ 1999, 169; SCHELTEN 1994, 214 f.). There were even considerations to completely do without teachers or persons accompanying the learning process. This theory has been found in the didactics of programmed instruction as early as the 1960s. Within certain boundaries, this is possible when teaching standardised, fundamental subject matters, but certainly not throughout the entire ↑ teaching and learning process (SCHNEIDER 1999, 254). Media have always played a special role in vocational ↑ distance learning and correspondence courses. Sparkes/ Kaye/ Hitchcock (1992) analysed the systems and strategies of distribution, the ↑ efficiency achieved and the trends emerging in computer-based distance learning on the basis of ten international case studies.. Among other things, they concluded that “there are many ways of achieving effective distance teaching and learning so there are no prescriptive formulae for achieving success” (91).
Therefore, the expectations that used to be directed at educational media in terms of making complicated subject matters easily comprehensible to almost all learners through depersonalisation, ↑ objectification, rationalisation and standardisation are unlikely to be realised. They have reached their limits as a result of certain relevant aspects inherent in the teaching and learning process. The learning process itself is always a subjective process, and while it can be supported and promoted by media and arranged teaching and learning situations, it cannot be enforced (GROTLÜSCHEN 2003). Due to their inbuilt adaptability, the new media are considered to have the potential to support learning processes in a more adequate and individualised way. Above all, they permit the verbal and graphic presentation of subject matters at the same time, which is said to considerably improve learning processes in terms of memorisation. In addition, by making new forms of mediabased communication possible, they can stimulate participation and cooperation (CROOK 1994; SINKO / LEHTINEN 1999; TENBERG 2001). Lehtinen/ Lehti/ Salmi (2003, 266–268) list five aspects that
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are required for the successful didactical design of new media: They must start with complex problems, combine discovery with instruction, balance practical examples and systematisation, permit social interaction and cooperative problem solving, and place the tasks to be completed in context (also see ARNOLD 2003; DILLENBOURG 1999; ZIMMER 2003; 2004). These then stand as a basis to consider how media might be effectively integrated into the teaching-learning process. 3.7.9.4
Current Research
Since the 1980s, ↑ media research and development in Germany has been oriented towards the individual learner. Modern ↑ educational media should be geared to the principles of reality-based, learner-centred learning and as far as possible enable learners to comprehend the subject matter on their own. Individual ↑ learning strategies and problem conceptualisation, subjective creativity and selforientation are increasingly taken into account in the development and design of media, thus facilitating autonomous learning through experience. Euler (2003c, 303 f.) identifies three types of innovation: (i) instructional software as an addition to existing components of the learning and teaching process, (ii) the development of new ↑ learning environments (e. g. for in-service training); and (iii) the shaping of the cultural and organisational/institutional framework of vocational teaching and learning (e. g. to support learning in the operational process; see also NYHAN / CRESSEY/ TOMASSINI / K ELLEHER 2003). A fourth type of innovation attempts to describe the new media by means of sets of metadata in order to automate their researchability, exchangeability and further application or re-use in autonomous learning processes (BAUMGARTNER / HÄFELE / MAIER-HÄFELE 2002; BREMER, C. 2002). These types of innovations can be summarised by the following questions: how must media be designed so that the learner becomes or remains the main player in the ↑ educational process? What didactic considerations permit ↑ interdisciplinary and individualised media designs? How can media enable the integration of the reality of working life into learning arrangements? Or rather: how can the reality of work become a learning situa-
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tion with the help of media? Which structural and physical properties must media possess to acquire a greater openness and flexibility of application in integrated ↑ educational processes? (ARNOLD / MÜLLER 1992, 7 f.; HARRISON 1999; LAUR-ERNST 1993, 9 f.). As noted, considerable progress has been made in the emerging field of new ↑ media research and design in recent years. In the past decade, the development of didactial concepts and models (learning environments, scenarios and media) has been promoted on an international level (ARNOLD 2001). Models have been created and insights gained in order to employ their possibilities and potentials – didactically sound and based on learning theory – particularly those of virtual learning environments into which all other new media can be integrated (ARNOLD /K ILIAN / THILLOSEN / ZIMMER 2004; K ERRES 2001; SCHULMEISTER 1997). Key questions in research deal with didactic approaches to begin with, since it is possible to deduce from these the way a ↑ learning platform and the knowledge elements and communication options contained in it should be designed. Two basic approaches are distinguished here: the cognitive and the situational approach. In the cognitive approach, it is assumed that mental structures and processes can be systematically assisted through instruction. For this purpose, different models of instructional design were developed (DIJKSTRA / SEEL / SCHOTT 1997; REIGELUTH 1998). Here, the new educational media are designed in a way to address individual cognitive processes and support changes in the cognitive structure. The situational approach is regarded as a critical response to the cognitive approach. It takes the view that learning processes are always bound to the context they occur in and that various types of interaction and communication are embedded in them. Acquiring theoretical and practical skills particularly depends on the authenticity of the tasks (BOSHUIZEN / SCHMIDT / CUSTERS / WEIL 1995; THE COGNITION AND TECHNOLOGY GROUP AT VANDERBILT 1997). Key models of situational learning are the Anchored Instruction Model, which, among other things, takes into account the complexity of problems and the proximity to personal circumstances; the Cognitive Apprenticeship Model (COLLINS / BROWN /
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NEWMAN 1989), in which novices learn from experts; and the Scaffolded Knowledge Integration approach, which attempts to make thinking “visible” (FISCHER / MANDL 2002, 625; MAYER 2005). Other ↑ research questions are concerned with the combination of text, sound and images, in other words the media-based design of the ↑ teaching and learning process in multimedia-based ↑ learning environments. An interesting aspect in this respect for instance is that text and images create two different types of mental representation and, if combined favourably, have positive effects on learning and comprehension processes. The use of animation can also have a stimulating effect on comprehension, but as regards learning results, there seems to be no difference between animation and images in connection with complex subject matters. Learners whose learning preferences are more visual will benefit from additional visualisation, while learners with a well-developed sense of space will find graphic presentations more useful (FISCHER / MANDL 2002, 626 f.). Learning with new media is said to have great potential for autonomy and personal organisation. Numerous studies show, however, that multimedia-based learning environments, in particular, place many demands on learners so that ideal autonomous learning processes can rarely be put into practice at present (reference an example of these studies). It is often unclear to learners which point within the overall structure they have reached or how they should progress to other points. As a result, many learners may simply collect data without reflecting on it or focus on minor details. Furthermore, the aids provided, such as glossaries, background information or instructions on further work, are not always used. It has been shown that not unlimited freedom but appropriate, autonomous learning sequences lead to success in learning processes (LEHTINEN / REPO 1996; LEHTINEN / RUI 1996). Direct and indirect aids have been developed in recent years to improve the support of autonomous learning processes. Direct aids employ cognitive and motivational strategy training while indirect aids for example use think-aloud protocols or structural/graphical representations to elaborate a ↑ learning strategy. Guiding texts or mapping techniques can equally be employed to represent,
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structure and categorise subject matters (FISCHER / MANDL 2002, 627 f.; MANDL / FISCHER 2000). The promotion and the limits of autonomous learning fundamentally alter the role of teachers and the skills required of them (BATTEZZATI / COULON / GRAY ET AL. 2004). Not only do the cooperative aspects of new media make learning more flexible in terms of time and space, but they also improve quality as these new forms of cooperation go much further than traditional teaching and learning situations. This does, however, only apply as long as the types of network-based communication are put to appropriate use (GAISER 2002; LEHTINEN 2000; LITTLETON / HÄKKINEN 1999). For instance, the unequal distribution of communicative contributions rather frequently encountered in traditional teaching and learning contexts is found considerably less in network-based cooperation. Furthermore, a greater flexibility can be noted when learners use the computer to communicate with others in written form. The simultaneous contact with many learners, however, as well as the higher effort that must be put into exclusively written communication can also hamper cooperative learning results. Additionally, it has been established that network-based verbal contributions often refer less directly to previously discussed issues and instead contain more complex references, which impedes the continuation of the discussion and makes moderation more difficult.
Practice When considering research and development of new media, their implementation into educational practice must equally be taken into account (MCCULLOUGH 2002a; 2002b; HASEBROOK / HERRMANN / RUDOLPH 2003). It has often become apparent in the past that projects, once initiated, are rarely followed by processes that promote continuity. Considerations regarding this issue are based on multidimensional approaches that aim at a change in the entire educational system in terms of altered curricula, adequate qualification of teaching personnel, preparation of learners, etc. instead of simply a change in media. This means that mediabased infrastructures for learning and operational processes must be created for example through re-
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gional networks, while at the same time a change in teaching and learning culture must be promoted (SALOMON 1994; 2003; SINKO / LEHTINEN 1999). This also includes the evaluation of learning
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results by means of new media (ZIMMER / PSARALIDIS 2000) to improve the development, didactic quality (ARNOLD / THILLOSEN /K ILIAN 2003) and use of the new media.
3.8.0 Introduction: Shaping Work and Technology Peter Brödner and Paul Oehlke 3.8.0.1 New Challenges for Production and Work Taylor’s principles of scientific management, which later materialised in car production by Ford, led to pre-determined standard operating procedures for highly specialised work which aimed at management control of obstinate ↑ work processes (TAYLOR 1911; FORD 1922). They are rooted in the rationalistic assumption that the world is fully comprehensible in objective terms and, hence, that work can be entirely modelled, controlled and removed. This ambition of ultimately replacing humans by machines culminated in the conception of CIM (Computer Integrated Manufacturing) and flourishing illusions about ↑ expert systems (BRÖDNER 1990). Under the historic circumstances of volume production in growing markets for rather simple mass products, this approach could be exploited to its full potential. With increasingly saturated markets and varied consumer demands, however, the pressure for generating complex and rapidly changing products required more manufacturing flexibility and corresponding production strategies. In the long run, this shift of paradigm stimulated new design solutions of work and technology giving a boost to ↑ human resource development and vocational education and training (VET).
Crisis of Mass Production and Early Redesign Approaches On the micro-economic level, strong horizontal and vertical divisions of labour hindered the development and use of human skills and competence needed for more flexible reactions to market demands and at the same time impaired the workers’ comfort and motivation, as was shown by growing absenteeism, fluctuation and recruitment prob-
lems for industrial work. Early responses to these challenges were documented by the publication of 500 company projects of organisational renewal by the Swedish Employers’ Association (SAF 1975) and the worldwide promotion of new work structures by the car manufacturers Volvo and Saab (NORSTEDT/AGUREN 1973; AGUREN / HANSSON /K ARLSSON 1976). Hence, the conceptions of ↑ Quality of Working Life (QWL) and Socio-Technical Design (STD) were on the agenda of European work and technology research. Radical redesign approaches, creating complex tasks in simple organisations rather than simple jobs in complex organisations (SITTER / HERTOG / EIJNATTEN 1990), were found appropriate for the demands of a more diversified quality production relying on functional flexibility and competence development (PIORE / SABEL 1984; K ERN / SCHUMANN 1984). The new production schemes stimulated a practice- and process-oriented shift of ↑ VET research and of their subject- and domain-related ↑ research methodologies (→ 5.1.1; → 5.1.4).
Scientific Criticism and Quality of Working Life Research From the very beginning, ↑ quality of working life research has taken up scientific criticism based on a broad range of social and psychological findings (FRIEDMAN 1946; ULICH 1998). The ↑ comparative studies of the London Tavistock Institute for Human Relations in British coalmines revealed that the collective self-regulation of semiautonomous work groups was much more productive than systems based on high division of labour (TRIST/ MURRAY 1958; EMERY/ TRIST 1960). However, it was a long way from the initial investigations via larger-scale experiments in Norway (EMERY/
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THORSRUD 1964) to modern variants in Sweden (ENGELSTAD / GUSTAVSEN 1993) and the Netherlands (SITTER / HERTOG / EIJNATTEN 1990), even in ↑ Australia and North America (DAVIS / CHERNS 1976; EMERY 1989; PASMORE 1988; TAYLOR / FELTEN 1993; TRIST 1981). In the course of working life research, the emerging STD approach created a comprehensive conception of integral organisational renewal based on democratic dialogue procedures (EIJNATTEN 1993). Particularly in Germany, participatory design processes opened up new perspectives of individual competence development, experiencebased knowledge acquisition and the work and technology design approach in VET (→ 3.8.2).
New Demands for Applied and Interdisciplinary Research Publicly funded research and transfer activities helped to develop and test innovative, skill enhancing and competitive model solutions. Moreover, these challenges demanded from the strictly compartmentalised science systems with their sharp demarcation lines between ↑ subject areas that they cross their epistemological and methodological borders and overcome their traditional fragmentation by cooperating with practitioners and other disciplines (HERTOG / SCHRÖDER 1989; CORBETT / RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1991). Analysing existing work and management practices as well as developing new real-life solutions for coping with new demands called for a combination of analytical and applied research in ↑ interdisciplinary project designs which balanced the different needs of scientific autonomy and social change. Manifold problems were still breaking out, however, when in concrete research and change processes controversial objectives had to be brought in an always fragile equilibrium within and between scientific disciplines, social partners and governmental policies (GUSTAVSEN 1993; OEHLKE 1994), particularly in ↑ VET planning and ↑ occupational research on educational profiles (→ 3.4.2). 3.8.0.2
From National Working Life Programmes to Innovation Strategies
While the history of national labour research activities started in the late 1960s with efforts for in-
dustrial democracy and humanisation of working life, the perspective shifted to shaping work and technology according to human needs and flexibility requirements in the 1980s (OECD 1988). With the wider diffusion of ↑ IT and the debate on insufficient productivity growth, emphasis of programme makers further turned towards organisational ↑ innovation strategies and national innovation systems (DOSI / FREEMAN / NELSON ET AL. 1988; LUNDVALL 1992). In contrast to Nordic countries, however, these efforts lost momentum during the 1990s in big European economies like those of ↑ France and Germany, which focused on cost competition policies rather than labour process developments.
Emergence of Work Life Activities in Europe Embedded in mutual negotiation practices and work-related legislation, diverse national activities and programmes for industrial democracy and work-life reform prospered and spread from Scandinavia to Germany and France in the 1970s, to Belgium and the Netherlands in the 1980s, a decade later to Ireland, and finally, with a vigorous incarnation, to Finland, which became a small giant of innovative workplace development at the turn of the century (ARNKIL 2003). All these activities generally aimed at improving poor working conditions as well as productivity growth. With the spreading of IT in the 1980s, new demands for design of work and technology came onto the agenda, in particular, to cope with the unsolved flexibility problems of CIM that still incorporated traditional organisational patterns (→ 3.8.5). Thus, the widely discussed IT productivity paradox facilitated the dissemination of lean production schemes of Japanese origin (WOMACK /JONES / ROOS 1990), which revived the debate on modern forms of work organisation. During a decade of confusion, a great number of allegedly new management doctrines like business process reengineering (HAMMER / CHAMPY 1993), total ↑ quality management or agile manufacturing appeared that mostly presented well-known organisational principles under new labels. However, sound analysis of real organisational practices led to the basic distinction between two adverse strategies: while low road strategies are solely directed towards numerical flexi-
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bility and overall cost-cutting by downsizing and outsourcing, the high road primarily aims at expanding value creation by developing human and innovative potentials in respective organisational patterns (BRÖDNER / GARIBALDO / OEHLKE / PEKRUHL 1998; WORK & TECHNOLOGY CONSORTIUM 1998) dealt with in particular in some areas of the section on Occupational Work and Competence Development (→ 3.6).
Developing and Shrinking Work and Technology Programmes Norway played a pioneering role in putting socio-technical design principles into a succession of R&D programmes since the late 1960s starting with the Industrial Democracy programme followed by the HABUT programme involving hundreds of SMEs in strategic search conferences and dialogue teams (ENGELSTAD 1991) while the SBA democratization programme aimed at local networks in a multi-level change strategy (QVALE 1989). Likewise the Swedish LOM programme on leadership, organisation and ↑ participation (1985–1990) practised such a democratic approach of industrial and local renewal in diagonal communication processes of managers, staff members and foremen (GUSTAVSEN 1992). On the other hand, the more design-oriented MDA (People, Computers, Work) and MTO (Man, Technology, Organisation) programmes called for close cooperation of different actors in STD like researchers of different disciplines, user groups, and component suppliers. Moreover, the Swedish government promoted, from the 1970s onwards, multifaceted development activities for occupational health, competence formation, and organisational and technological design, which culminated in the Swedish Work Life Fund (1990–1995) allocating around 30 billion SEK (more than 3 billion EUR) to 25,000 development projects all over the country (GUSTAVSEN / HOFMAIER / EKMAN-PHILIPS / WIKMAN 1996; RIEGLER 1998). Although never spending such critical masses for change, a holistic view of industrial renewal likewise emerged in the course of mainly experimental German R&D programmes (→ 3.8.1). However, with shrinking funds for transfer projects of the social partners and SME-focused branch projects in the 1990ies,
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the social impact of work-oriented ↑ innovation strategies declined (OEHLKE 2001b; FRICKE 2003). A similar fate had also occurred to corresponding Dutch, French and Belgian activities set up in the 1980s (HERTOG / SCHRÖDER 1989). In the Netherlands, the TAO (Technology, Work, Organisation) programme (1988–1993) like in ↑ France the programmes on Men, Work and Technology and Technology, Work, Employment and Forms of Life (PIRRTEM) were abandoned whereas the National Agency for the Improvement of Working Conditions (ANACT) established in 1973 still plays an important role in consulting unions and companies. Likewise the Flemish Foundation for ↑ Technology Assessment (STV) has survived carrying out social research on new organisational structures and working methods on behalf of the social partners.
Expanding Innovative Workplace Activities In contrast to these rather small or selective activities, the Finnish Programmes on Productivity, Aging Workers and Wellbeing at Work merged in 2004 into the enlarged and enriched Finnish Workplace Development Programme (Tykes) giving evidence of a meanwhile broad belief in Finnish society that organisational innovations may improve both business ↑ performance and ↑ quality of working life, supplemented by high investments on learning and research (ALASOINI / RAMSTAD / ROUHIAINEN 2005). The programme development is embedded in an institutional setting formed by the triple helix model of generating innovative solutions through the cooperation of companies, universities and policy-makers according to a successful Swedish approach (VINNOVA 2002). Such a grown interaction of the main social actors, in particular the social partners, forms the root of the hitherto extremely successful transition from a raw materialbased industrial to an innovative, knowledge-intensive economy while maintaining a socially responsible welfare infrastructure (CASTELLS / HIMANEN 2002). In order to cope progressively with similar challenges, Ireland launched a revised National Workplace Strategy in autumn 2005 to stimulate the shift to creative and innovative, more valueadded and high-skilled activities (NATIONAL CENTRE FOR PARTNERSHIP AND P ERFORMANCE 2005). It is
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based on experience from the New Work Organisation Programme (1995–1998) aimed at managing flexibility demands for change through productive workplace ↑ partnership models of high mutual ↑ commitment and trust (BUSINESS DECISIONS LIMITED 2000). 3.8.0.3
European Activities for Quality of Working Life and Organisational Innovation
The development of national QWL programmes has been reflected in European strategies from the very beginning. There is a broad range of research and information activities by European institutions. Regional and national programmes on working life issues, industrial and employment conditions were funded by the European Commission (EC) especially under the umbrella of the European Social Fund (ESF) thereby stimulating the ↑ Social Dialogue between trade unions and employers’ associations. However, the rare attempts to set up institutional links to the influential Research Framework Programmes (RFP) failed so far; but since 2004, the funding of networking national QWL programmes may pave the way for an integral European innovation approach on work, technology and organisation.
Scarcely Linked European Information Activities As early as 1975, the European Council set up the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (EF). In the same year ↑ CEDEFOP (Centre européen pour le developpement de la formation professionelle) was founded, followed by the European Agency for Safety and Health more than two decades later. All three institutions are organised on a tripartite basis comprising representatives of all EU governments and social partners, but without noticeable cooperation with each other. Their staff members are drawn from the member states and distinguish themselves by their professional experience. Moreover, they rely on a network of national experts throughout Europe who prepare case studies and conduct surveys on a broad range of topics. In particular, the EF maintains a number of key monitor-
ing tools dealing with industrial relations, working conditions, quality of life and social change thus supporting the formulation of EU ↑ labour market and employment policies.
Blocked European Initiatives and Programmes In the employment and social affairs arena, a wide range of funding activities (e. g. ADAPT, EQUAL) for multinational projects and national or regional projects has been launched for skill formation, modernising work organisation and creating employment without discrimination. Particularly in the framework of the European Employment Strategy, the ESF was authorized to promote skilled and trained workforces, to foster innovation and adaptability in work organisation, to develop entrepreneurship, to facilitate job creation and to boost human potential in research, science and technology. Moreover, the Green Paper on Partnership for a New Organization of Work (EC 1997b; 1998a) should stimulate a broad debate on economic reasons, policy challenges and social opportunities for a more flexible and productive, participative and learning-friendly organisation of work. However, some national governments and influential employers’ associations were reluctant to accept the Commission’s offer to co-finance national programmes by expressing their resistance to new regulations that might limit the prerogatives of management (EIROBSERVER 1999). Accordingly, the Europewide EPOC-survey (EmployeeDirect Participation in Organisational Change) covering more than 6000 firms in EU member states discovered only small progress in advanced forms of participatory, flexible and innovative forms of work organisation except for Northern Europe (EPOC Research Team 1998; ITPS 2001). Even networks of expert teams temporarily established by the European Commission (European Work and Technology Consortium 1995–1998; European Work Organisation Network (EWON) 1999–2002) to identify high roads of skill-based organisational innovation ran out for lack of further support contrasting to the manifold efforts of establishing a European ↑ VET research in the perspective of an integrated labour market (→ 2.5).
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European Work-Related Innovation Strategies at the Crossroads In spite of a series of analytical studies on anthropocentric production systems and work-oriented design of technologies (LEHNER 1992; RAUNER / RUTH 1991) by the FAST (Forecasting and Assessment in Science and Technology) programme only very few attempts to include ↑ human-centred shaping approaches could be realised in the large European production and ↑ information technology programmes. A prominent example was the ESPRIT project 1217 on Human-Centred CIM Systems with research groups from UK, Denmark and Germany (CORBETT / RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1991). For lack of coordination between the relevant policy arenas, knowledge on innovative work organisation and work-oriented technology design has been lost. Significantly, a recent Communication on Innovation Policy (EC, E. C. 2003c) appeared without any reference to the Green Papers on Innovation and on Work Organisation (1995b; 1997b), thus re-discovering innovation again as a complex change process, demanding joint technological and organisational efforts that “involve all employees in order to make work organisations a collective resource for innovation”. 3.8.0.4
Qualitative Results and Impacts of the Programmes
The activities of the EC and national programmes supporting industry-oriented research and development for improving ↑ quality of working life, ↑ human-centred design of work and technology and organisational innovations produced, despite all setbacks and differences in details, a number of common shifts in perspective, of procedures and of socio-political arrangements. These basic qualitative results of a human-centred shift in paradigm may be summarised as follows.
From Reactive Safety Protection to Preventive Health Promotion Throughout industrial development, occupational safety and health (OSH) issues have become ubiquitous as various machines transforming energy or matter and a growing variety of new or synthetic materials broadly penetrated ↑ work processes. Al-
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together they still hold manifold safety and health risks for the workers involved, ranging from accidental risks through noise to hazardous materials (PAOLI / MERLLIÉ 2001). The originally prevailing attitude towards OSH issues has been to protect the individual worker against risks of technical accidents or hazardous and poisonous substances after these risks have been identified. Thus, on the European level, an OSH Framework Directive of 1989 supplemented by individual directives, e. g. on machinery and VDUs, covers a broad range of working environment issues (BIENECK 1992). In the course of development, it has been realised, however, that it would be more effective and less costly to consider safety and health issues beforehand. According to this shift of perspective, work processes and technologies to be used should be designed in such a way that health and safety risks and hazards are a priori avoided or minimised already at the source (EUROPEAN AGENCY FOR SAFETY AND H EALTH AT WORK 2005). New types of cooperative intervention connected the design knowledge of engineers and of industrial OSH experts with the practical know-how of employees, works councils and management in health circles generating health reports (KUHN 1992; SCHRÖER / SOCHERT 2000; AUST/ DUCKI 2004). Accordingly, the European Network on Workplace Health Promotion (ENWHP) was established in 1996 to improve work organisation and working environments, to promote active ↑ participation of employees in health activities, and to encourage personal development.
From Specialised Qualifications to Comprehensive Competences New working tasks and procedures as well as the use of new technical devices require adaptations of workers’ qualifications. In a Tayloristic environment, where design of ↑ work processes and technical equipment is up to specialists in planning departments, qualification procedures used to be limited to adapting and training narrow and specialised skills for running the processes. As overcoming the disadvantages of strong horizontal and vertical division of labour is one of the programmes’ basic attempts, working tasks are being enlarged and enriched in semi-autonomous work
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groups so that they provide greater scope of action and more incentives for learning at work (FISCHER / R AUNER 2002b). Rather than limited training of specialised qualifications, the new approach emphases the development of broad competence in organisational settings that enable workers to perform a variety of tasks, to become cooperative and proactive members of working teams and to participate in processes of joint work design and continuous improvement (→ 3.8.3). The workers’ ↑ tacit knowledge (POLANYI 1966) based on practical experience has, combined with explicit knowledge, regained new importance in context-dependent design processes (SATO 1997). This particularly applies to software development and use in computer-supported work processes that require collaborative and discursive efforts of making sense of the artifacts (ENGESTRÖM / MIDDLETON 1996). Accordingly great emphasis needs to be given to the formation of ↑ work process knowledge and competence as well as to methodological and communicative skills in VET (→ 3.8.2).
From Techno-Centric to Human-Oriented Design of Technology During industrial development, technology has for a long time been seen as an exogenous, autonomously developing factor strongly determining the way work should be organised as well as the qualifications needed for effective use. This technological determinism turned out to be a myth, however. Research on the social shaping of technology revealed that technical artefacts themselves are a result of social interests and interactions in scientific research, technological development and design (NOBLE 1984; SALZMAN / ROSENTHAL 1994; BIJKER 1995). In this perspective, technical artifacts are seen as part of an organisation’s social structure, which they partially embody as coagulated experience through design and which, in turn, may effectively stimulate working and learning if designed as tools rather than means of automating routine operations (→ 3.8.5). To this end, the artifacts’ functions and human-machine interaction need to be designed in a ↑ human-centred way which supports rather than replaces human action in work (BRÖDNER 1990; A DLER / WINOGRAD 1992; GILL 1996). In particular, they must allow for and make use of the
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workers’ practical experience, their work capacity, motivation and ↑ commitment as main sources of productivity (BÖHLE 1994; MARTIN 1994). This not only increases quality of work but economic ↑ performance as well, as a number of projects – e. g. on work-oriented NC programming, CAD, or production planning and control – could demonstrate (BRÖDNER 1994). More generally, several work and technology design projects revealed that usability and economic ↑ efficiency of computer artifacts depend highly on participatory approaches and procedures of software development (MUMFORD 1983a; BJERKNES / EHN /KYNG 1987; EHN 1988) as carried out in projects of shaping Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (→ 3.8.4).
From Division of Work to Collective Self-Regulation Since the 1970s, increasingly significant indications can be observed for a radical change from industrial to knowledge-based production, in the course of which value-adding processes rely deeply on the creation, sharing and use of knowledge (HELMSTÄDTER 2003). They have become a methodological area of occupational education research which still differentiates between various mixtures of implicit, practical and scientific knowledge in occupational domains and profiles (→ 5.1.1). Since dealing with knowledge creates more knowledge, innovation, surprise and uncertainty will continue to exist. The new market-driven knowledge dynamics form the background against which cooperative and competence-based forms of work organisation such as semi-autonomous group work, cellular manufacturing or problem solving multi-functional team work (project-type work) have been implemented, not least to make more effective use of technology (BRÖDNER 1990; EIJNATTEN 1993; A N DR E ASE N / C OR I AT / H E RTO G / K A PL I NSK I 1995; NUTEK 1999). They have often been embedded in complementary ↑ organisational development projects to establish decentralised and flexible, customer-focused value-adding processes, mostly subsumed under the label of the learning organisation (SENGE 1990/1994). Comprehensive organisational and process innovations deeply challenge well-established routines of functional specialisation that emerged during industrial development
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and that now form a strong social inertia which is hard to overcome. Changing such grown interaction routines of exerting power and sanctions is a demanding effort of ↑ organisational learning (ARGYRIS / SCHÖN 1996).
From Socio-Technical Innovation to Cultural Change Traditional ways of looking at change emphasised technology as the driver and determinant and saw a more or less linear development process from scientific research via technological development and diffusion of technology to organisational consequences. The work and technology design approaches outlined here revised this technologycentred view and replaced it with a more comprehensive understanding of socio-cultural change. Innovation in this perspective includes all kinds of renewal, in particular new forms of organisation, new businesses and new organisational settings in connection with the design and implementation of new technologies (EC 1995b). The dynamics of ↑ knowledge creation, sharing and use compel firms increasingly to cooperate for problem solving, often in the form of temporary cooperation in networks of innovators (FREEMAN 1992, 93–120) as an intermediate governance structure between market and hierarchy (SYDOW 1996). As processes of innovation are embedded in a sociocultural context, from which they draw necessary resources, they require a great number of preconditions: actors involved need to agree on direction and objectives of the renewal, on the ways of organising collective learning, and on the material, social and institutional resources they need. In accordance with the principles of evolutionary economics they, thus, are part of a system of innovation that may provide them with rather conducive or impairing features and conditions (NELSON / WINTER 1982; LUNDVALL 1992). In a wider European frame, there is the task of balancing the outstanding challenges of innovative flexibility and social security in a distinct European Model built on cooperative work in teams, between companies and social partners (NEUMANN / HOLTI / STANDING 1995a; ROUILLEAULT/ ROCHEFORT 2005).
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3.8.0.5
New Challenges of Knowledge-Based Societies
In its Lisbon strategy of 2000, the European Council announced its plan to make Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy producing sustained growth, full employment and social cohesion. Real development, after half a decade, however, indicates an almost complete launch failure except for the Nordic countries. This is due to a confused and inconsistent macroeconomic and social policy, to a managerial crisis and neglect of work organisation issues and to underutilised and wasted human resources. As the nature of the emerging knowledge-based economy is characterised by unprecedented high dynamics and complexity, surprise and uncertainty are normal and inevitable phenomena, in particular under the conditions of deregulated markets and high competitive pressures. Coping with dynamics and uncertainty requires broad and continuous development of individual competences and collective capacities as well as new forms of support structures and of social security.
Competence-Based High Road Strategies Since knowledge creation, sharing and use are essential parts of value adding processes, building an effective knowledge infrastructure comprising high-capacity education and training systems as well as cooperative research and science systems is among the most important preconditions for dynamic growth and employment (LENEY/ AMMERMAN / BRANDSMA ET AL. 2004). Competencebased high road strategies strongly depend on this infrastructure that provides innovation competence on a broad scale. With respect to the dynamics of knowledge and learning requirements, competence formation must be organised in the form of ↑ lifelong learning schemes combined with skill-enhancing ↑ work processes, organisational settings and industrial cultures (RUTH 1995; RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1996); they become particularly relevant for ageing workforces in most European countries. Coping with the dynamics and uncertainty of innovation, knowledge creation and use puts extremely high demands on the action competence of individual knowledge workers. Since most of them are
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working in more or less traditional organisational structures, where they suffer from great discrepancies between high demands and available resources, they are increasingly exposed to enormous stress. This also applies to new forms of autonomous work that are more directly exposed to market and time pressures combined with regularly controlled ↑ performance objectives. These new forms of strain hold unprecedented mental health risks as indicated by rapidly growing numbers of mental diseases (PAOLI / MERLLIÉ 2001). This is another new challenge calling for revived forms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the development and exploration of ↑ sustainable work systems, in which individual and social resources for healthy work are being maintained rather than consumed (DOCHERTY/ FORSLIN / SHANI 2002).
Sustainability by Social Regulations and Support Systems Since in knowledge-based value adding processes, in contrast to industrial mass production for relatively stable markets, almost all determinants of work – working tasks, tools, processes, co-operations, and knowledge – are uncertain or subject to risky change, workers need at least some stable and reliable conditions ensuring a safe social existence. Otherwise modern knowledge workers, whether they are skilled craftsmen or senior professionals, will not be able to unfold the necessary creativity and motivation for continuous personal growth and ↑ lifelong learning to maintain ↑ employability and sufficient capacities for value creation. And they urgently need rules protecting them against the health risks of excessive demands, overload and stress connected with new forms of work (GABRIEL / LIIMATAINEN 2000). Moreover, workers are increasingly exposed to the repercussions of the new divide between a core and peripheral workforce subdued to casual and precarious work, restricted employment conditions and periods of unemployment, low wages and discriminating social support systems, growing poverty and exclusion. Personnel policies singling out older, female and immigrant workers have to be counteracted by creating legislative conditions, collective agreements and technical instruments for their integration and development at work (K ISTLER /
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OEHLKE 2003). Maintaining employability on a broad scale is dependent on regulated and certified systems of skill formation and lifelong learning to keep and develop occupational competence (STEVENS / MACKAY 1991). As the whole system of value creation and competitive business development depends on such frame conditions providing flexicurity, ↑ sustainability and personal development at work, there is a strong responsibility on the part of governments and the social partners to establish societal support systems in research, education and training as well as to push through basic regulations, e. g. on working time, minimum wages and social security.
Coping with Social Change in Europe It is no surprise that industrial organisations and institutions have great difficulties in coping with the ongoing fundamental change. While market requirements for flexibility, innovation and learning are universal, some regions persistently perform better than others. In particular, the Nordic countries have more conducive institutional settings for productivity and growth, for innovation and learning while maintaining social security and welfare, on the basis of which they outperform the rest of Europe on the way into the knowledge-based society. There is an uneven distribution of ↑ humancentred forms of work, organisation and technology use ensuring functional flexibility of companies for strategic operations which may open up new markets for products and services as an expression of employment-creating high road strategies to innovation across Europe with the Nordic countries on top and a distinct slope towards the South (EPOC RESEARCH TEAM 1998; NUTEK 1999; ITPS 2001; BRÖDNER / LATNIAK 2003). In other countries low road strategies more or less prevail, backed by long-term deregulation policies and downward adjustments of social systems. They determine the ultimate form of negative integration in Europe: “harmonisation by erosion” (EC 1998a, 47–49). However, the high ranking of Nordic countries according to criteria of human development as well as of international competitiveness gives evidence that positive forms of integration by sustainable ↑ innovation strategies, fostered by public interventions and work-oriented research policies might
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also have a future in other European countries. Moreover, the high road perspective of socio-economic development in the ↑ knowledge society demands a thorough shift of paradigm from the era of industrial division of labour in mass production to ever expanding cooperative forms of organising work and value creation built on participative design of work and technology, on intra-firm and inter-firm cooperation, regional and national settings for comprehensive innovation efforts and continuous VET opportunities as well as on corresponding development coalitions between main social stakeholders in a genuine European Social Model.
3.8.1
Work and Technology Research
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3.8.1.1
Conceptual Clarification
The rising demands for social integration of new technologies into ↑ innovation processes implicitly took into account the participative and design-oriented work and technology research in some European countries which has been conducted since the middle of the 1970s, funded by public programmes ranging from humanisation of work via innovative enterprise development up to regional development initiatives (→ 3.8.0). Here, these activities were strongly backed by the social partners’ making a compromise between better jobs and production flexibility which at the same time opened up new design approaches for vocational education and training (VET). These new departures have to be understood as forward-looking answers to the increasing social and economic problems which had been originally triggered off by strong labour unrest and shrinking capital ↑ performance.
Felix Rauner and Paul Oehlke In view of the emerging knowledge society, education and research are ingrained into the dynamics of industrial and social change which are essentially determined by the spreading and networking of pervasive ↑ information technologies (ITs). They have entered almost all areas of work, life and culture. However, the high expectations of rising quality and productivity of work have been counteracted by shrinking productivity growth and employment losses, not to mention rising environmental dangers. The reports of the Club of Rome on the limits of growth and the discussions on ↑ technology assessment (CARPENTER 1983; PASCHEN 1975; MEYER-ABICH / SCHEFOLD 1981; HASTEDT 1991) led to severe criticism of the dominant techno-economic paradigm which neglected controversial social and environmental effects and demands of institutional and organisational change (NELSON /WINTER 1982; DOSI / FREEMAN /NELSON ET AL. 1988; FREEMAN 1992, 73–92). Accordingly, the Sundqvist report on “socio-economic strategies for the new technologies in the 1990s” (OECD 1988) laid the focus on technological development as a social and cultural process, thereby including democratic values in the debate.
Coping with the ‘Scientific’ Division of Work’ The new design approaches encountered an organisation of work and technology that was deeply ingrained in social structures hitherto characterised by an unequal distribution of social resources, divergent positions in the layers of society and an asymmetrical distribution of public and private instruments of control (WEBER 1972, Chapter 8 and 9). Social discrepancies have strongly influenced the division between hand and head work which, in modern times, was evaluated as the basis of economic progress by Adam Smith (1776/1993), continued by Charles Babbage (BABBAGE 1832/1999) as analytical principle of technical development and, finally, culminating in the highly efficient organisation of production through Frederick Winslow Taylor’s scientific management (TAYLOR 1911/1993; Braverman 1974). It systematically transferred skills and knowledge from workers to management and engineers who transformed and incorporated those competences into procedural rules, work flows and especially technologically determined production processes (→ 3.8.5). Corresponding methodologies have dominated work studies in Germany since the 1920s (REFA 1971). Human labour became an exchangeable production factor without specific qualifications and
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skills or trades and ↑ professions in the pure, “liberal-capitalist type of business” nowadays again re-established, which definitely excludes ↑ participation, collaboration or co-determination of workers (GUTENBERG 1973, 486–512).
Shift to Higher Quality of Working Life In the context of rising social instability, however, there was a deepening gap to be felt in the aspirations of employees for a higher ↑ quality of working life with less strain and more work contents as well as in the competence of management to cope effectively with saturated markets demanding rising product change, variety and quality. Especially in Scandinavia, such deficiencies aroused widespread discussions within companies, especially the car manufacturers Saab and Volvo, the parties of the ↑ labour market and the players of political, economic and social institutions having influence in the area of working conditions. Accordingly, the pioneering collective agreement in the South German metal industry from 1973 onwards was distinguished by establishing hourly recreation breaks and longer operation times which improved the quality of working life as well as of production processes on the threshold of a broader implementation of ↑ IT.
Demand for Comprehensive Design Approaches Cost-effective disturbances and dysfunctions of IT systems that followed the traditional division of work, however, stimulated a certain, but still limited, change of perspective from ‘technological determinism’ to comprehensive development strategies (BRÖDNER 1990; CORBETT / RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1991; EHN 1988; RAUNER 1988c; ROSENBROCK 1980; 1983). This shift of design logic produced new challenges for scientific disciplines, in particular, the claim for ↑ interdisciplinarity of problem-solving affected by diverse interests, objectives and responsibilities. Such different and even divergent demands could only be sufficiently coped with by a strong interaction between engineering and social sciences which, at the same time, had to involve employees, works councils and management, and, moreover, the bargaining parties of the la-
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bour market including the public bodies responsible for work regulations and the curricula of VET. Taking up design orientations in the ‘medium of occupational activities’ (GRUSCHKA 1985), vocational ↑ work tasks as basic dimensions of industrial value creation and ↑ organisational development processes moved into the centre of vocational research and their ↑ domain-specific distinctions (DYBOWSKI / HAASE / RAUNER 1993; DYBOWSKI / PÜTZ / RAUNER 1995c). 3.8.1.2
Relevance of Research Programmes
Work and technology research has been depending on well-established industrial relations linked to political reform coalitions. These framework conditions explain why the industrial work restructuring and public work-life activities were mainly realized in Nordic countries, resulting in a NorthSouth-divide (BRÖDNER / LATNIAK 2003). Thus, occupational health and safety regulations, participatory labour laws and tripartite development agreements were considerably extended in Norway and Sweden, but also in the Netherlands and Germany (→ 3.8.0). In a favourable social climate of limited conflict, labour and production problems could be translated into work and technology programmes helping to improve working conditions and companies’ ↑ performance by implementing humanoriented design alternatives (OEHLKE 2007).
Institutional and Legal Framework Conditions In Germany, the responsibilities of the self-managed professional associations (Berufsgenossenschaften) were broadened; the trading standards inspectorate in the Federal States (Bundesländer) was given enhanced powers; and the new Occupational Safety Act of 1973 made provisions for medical examinations by company doctors and checks by health and safety officers which stimulated a broad range of research activities although these were controversially debated (ELSNER 1985; MILLES 1984; OEHLKE 1985). Moreover, the Works Constitution Act amended 1972 laid down the relations between management and works council giving the latter the right of codetermination and ↑ participation in social, personnel and economic questions which essentially influenced person-
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Fig. 1: Access roads and basic areas of the “Work and Technology” research programme
nel management and staff development. Moreover, it demanded proven scientific knowledge for the human-oriented design of work and technology. Thus, business, society and government were called upon to establish work and technology research activities which could open up new opportunities for improved working life and productivity growth (MATTHOEFER 1980).
Socio-Economic Rationale of Public Promotion In a period of accelerated industrial and social change, the established rulebooks, standards and controls, especially in the area of occupational safety and health, have to be increasingly supplemented by new scientific findings and foresighted model solutions of work and technology which appear to be too risky, especially from the medium and small-sized enterprises point of view because they go beyond their cost-benefit calculations (BMBF/BMA/BMBW 1990). It was thus a logical step to set up public programmes for developing alternative work and technology design solutions.
From the very beginning, the programme on Humanization of Work (HdA) jointly promoted by the Federal Ministers of Research and Technology and of Labour and Social Affairs tried to combine occupational safety and health protection with the design of work and technology (FRICKE /K RAHN / PETER 1985; NUTZINGER 1985; GEORG / SATTEL 1985). The social shaping of technology also became a programmatic approach for corresponding regional activities in the Federal States of North RhineWestphalia and of Bremen (FRICKE 1994; LATNIAK 1994; RAUNER / RUTH / DEITMER 1995).
Extended Design Challenges for Vocational Education Moreover, the expert panel “Work and Technology” appointed by the regional Government (Senate) of the Federal State of Bremen for the development of research perspectives formulated a categorical framework for combining work, technology and education paving the way to human-oriented ↑ innovation processes which included a broad range of needs and interests (SK 1986; 1988). Such an extended research concept which transcended
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scientific disciplines represented an extraordinary challenge for the system of vocational education, which was forced to adapt subjects, methodologies and instruments to an integral design perspective between technical feasibility and social desirability (RAUNER 1988b). Accordingly, the national Work and Technology programme superseding HdA in 1989 recognized the growing importance of on the job training and continuous vocational education for the preventive and innovative design of work and technology and, therefore, institutionalized the cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Education and Science and the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training. Qualifications are interpreted not only as resulting from the challenges of technical development and economic change, but also as a relative ‘independent variable’ stimulating the participative design of sustainable work contents and work-oriented innovations. Therefore, new extensive design solutions consider technical, organisational, health-related and qualificatory aspects within their complexity and interaction (BMFT/ BMAS/BMBW 1990, 29–34, diagram 31). 3.8.1.3
Main Subjects of Design and Qualification Research
In the further development of work and technology design research in Europe, the main subjects dealt with organisational renewal, integral task design and human-oriented technology shaping which altogether contributed to qualification processes and competence development. In Germany, this debate received a strong momentum from studies on technical and organisational change (→ 3.1.5) relying on former research on industrial work, in particular of Heinrich Popitz, Paul Bahrdt et al. (1957), Horst Kern and Michael Schumann (1970), and Burkart Lutz (1990). Changing demands on skilled work gave a big boost to ↑ VET research (BAETHGE / GERSTENBERGER /K ERN ET AL. 1976; GRÜNEWALD 1979).
Competence and Organisational Development Already in the early 1980s on the basis of empirical project experience, work psychologists and industrial sociologists came to the basic conclusion
that innovative qualifications and competence development of workers depended mainly on their broad involvement in work and technology design (FREI / DUELL / BAITSCH 1984; FRICKE / FRICKE / SCHÖNWÄLDER / STIEGLER 1981). However, an effective design competence needed two things in addition: opportunities for attaining renewed technical qualifications and for learning in ↑ work processes (GEORG / SATTEL 1985; MEYER-DOHM / SCHUETZE 1987). Therefore, the ↑ participation in developing and testing new work structures such as work groups and production islands have proved crucial from the very beginning for gaining work, technological and organisational design competence (BULLINGER /KOHL 1976; ROST-SCHAUDE /KUNSTEK 1982). In present, they empower employees for individual and collective self-regulation in an entrepreneurial sense, even in production and service networks with increasingly distributed workplaces and ↑ work processes often in trans-national dimensions (BAETHGE-K INSKY/KUPKA 2002; HAASE /LACHER 1993) thus laying the ground for a European ↑ VET research (R AUNER / HEIDEGGER 1994; RAUNER / SPÖTTL / OLESEN / CLEMATIDE 1994). In view of today’s international demands for organisational flexibility and business re-engineering, the rising needs for cooperative work have to incorporate more and more social and communicative competence combined with experience-based knowledge (BÖHLE / PFEIFFER / SEVSAY-TEGETHOFF 2004) enlarging the profiles of professional activities (SCHUMANN 2003b, 124–135).
Integral Task Design and Sustainable Quality Production For self-regulated work processes and comprehensive ↑ work tasks stimulating motivation and responsibility, Eberhard Ulich (1998, 161–364) developed integral design strategies relying on various international studies (e. g. EMERY/ EMERY 1974; HACKER 1986a; HACKMAN / LAWLER 1971; HACKMAN / OLDHAM 1976; HELLPACH 1922). In this context, a broad range of work and activity analyses formed a core of work-life research on avoiding stress and strain as well as enriching the scope of actions and decisions (e. g. → 3.6.2; K ARASEK 1985; SONNTAG 1987; VOLPERT 1974; 1987c). This concept-driven research supported an increasingly diversified
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quality production that induced the re-integration of the formerly outsourced functions of repair, maintenance and quality control (K ERN / SCHUMANN 1984) demanding renewed process competence and respective ↑ learning strategies under the impact of ITs (DYBOWSKI / HAASE / RAUNER 1993; LANGEMEYER 2005b). However, such upward spirals have been, since the middle of the 1990s, undermined by growing market and financial pressures creating unstable company perspectives and precarious employment conditions combined with new forms of control and constraints through intensified work and longer working times (PICKSHAUS / SCHMITTHENNER / URBAN 2001). Rising stress and strain are putting the design of sustainable work organisations and socio-economic systems on the research agenda which provide enough individual and collective resources (→ 3.6.3) for continuous learning, empowerment and employability (DOCHERTY/ FORSLIN / SHANI 2002; MOLDASCHL 2005).
Human-Oriented Technology Design and Experience-Based Knowledge The rising flexibility imperatives on labour, production and organisations challenged the design competence of industrial stakeholders who had to cope with techno-centric images of unpopulated factories, modules of computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) and data-processing production units (NOACK / WEGNER / GLUCH / DIENHART 1990). They have led to a rigid dead end for centrally steered production processes with countless interfaces between the system’s components which were not able to match effectively the new situations which had not been provided for (WARNECKE 1992). Increased economic problems stimulated an anthropocentric turn in industry and engineering research institutes that was fostered by the national programmes on HdA, Work and Technology and Manufacturing Technologies funding new production concepts in manufacturing and services (BRÖDNER 1990; 1994; OEHLKE 2001b; 2004, 15–38). In terms of productivity and ↑ efficiency, on-the-spotprogramming in workshops proved more effective than in remote planning departments which, therefore, were partially dissolved. Herewith, Polanyi’s (1966) elaboration of tacit knowledge stimulated experiments on computer-supported experience-
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led work (→ 3.8.5) which demanded a new mix of process competence and technical qualifications, implicit and explicit knowledge or integrated ↑ work process knowledge enabling ↑ participation in work and technology design (→ 3.6.4). Moreover, the inclusion of users into the design of computer artifacts gained on importance by participatory approaches and interactive procedures in the area of human-oriented software development and implementation (MUMFORD 1983a; BJERKNES / EHN / KYNG 1987). They have been carried on in various attempts at shaping ↑ computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) involving various scientific disciplines from industrial psychology to information science (→ 3.8.2; → 3.8.4). 3.8.1.4
Basic Change Effects of Work and Technology Research
The strategic milestones of alternative design solutions paved the way for an ongoing shift of paradigm especially for the ↑ knowledge society that relies primarily on the use and development of computer-supported forms of communication and cooperation, ↑competence and creativity. However, comprehensive and innovative human resource concepts have only been marginally realized; on the contrary there are backlashes by cost-cutting rationalization strategies driven by purely shortterm financial operations which spoil the longterm advantages of sustainable development paths. Economic downward spirals deny, in fact, the specific strength and innovative potential of experience-led competence development, participative organisational renewal and work-oriented innovations. Therefore, basic forward looking achievements of work-life research which are deeply interrelated with each other will be mentioned here: the experimental dissolution of technological determinism, the diverse development of work-oriented ↑ innovation strategies and the partially realized design perspective in VET.
Partial Dissolution of Technological Determinism The human-oriented design solutions of work and technology criticised the technological determinism incarnated in Fordist mass production strate-
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gies based on the combination of assembly lines with highly divided work operations which did not, any longer, effectively match the rising flexibility and quality demands. However, there are still indicators that lead Donald Mac Kenzie and Judy Wajcman to call technological determinism the single most influential theory of the relationship between technology and society (1985, 4). It still governs innovation policies in business and governments on regional, national and European levels comparing the huge discrepancy between the financial means spent for technological and workplace innovation programmes. For quite a while, the socio-technical design experiments remained restricted, at first, to a few much discussed model cases such as the “Utopia” project of Scandinavian print unions (EHN 1988) or the European ESPRIT Project 1217 on “Human-Centred CIM Systems” (CORBETT / RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1991). They received only more awareness by extended German, Japanese and Swedish funding activities enabling engineering, social and educational researchers to contribute effectively to the concept and development of human-oriented technology design (BRÖDNER 1990; GILL 1996; RAUNER 1988c; RAUNER 1995a; R AUNER / RUTH 1991). In Germany’s programme development, linkages of work and technology were mainly realized by the work system approach consisting of interrelated elements: working men and work groups, tools and machinery as subjects and means of work and the environment of work at workplaces (MARTIN 1985, 39).
Development of Comprehensive Innovation Strategies The discussion forum HdA advising the German Government had, in 1984, already pooled its ten years of experience and findings in a “work-oriented concept of innovation” incorporating humane, organisational and technological aspects based on interactions of diverse social stakeholders which had likewise been laid down a decade later on by the guiding principles of the Green Book on Innovation (BMFT/BMAS 1987, 122–126; EC 1995b). This broad innovation concept based on the four pillars Health and Qualification, Technology and Organisation governed the following German programmes on Work and Technology (1989–2000),
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Development of Innovative Workplaces – Future of Work (2001–2005) and Innovation Competence in the Modern World of Work from 2005 onwards. Such interactive labour process concepts of innovation which mobilized, developed and tapped human resources tore down organisational hierarchies and built up organisational momentum for fostering employees’ cooperation, competence and creativity thus stimulating high roads of innovative work and technology design which could combine employment-creating process and product innovations (BRÖDNER / GARIBALDO / OEHLKE / PEKRUHL 1998; WORK & TECHNOLOGY CONSORTIUM 1998). Skilled labour, technical know-how and intelligent organisations offering top service quality and better customer relationships may cope successfully with demographic, environmental and technological change problems. The growing need for extended social services, clean technologies and merging ITs opens up new fields for socio-technical innovations in lead markets which satisfy urgent needs and create new fields of employment (LEHNER / BAETHGE /KUEHL 1998, 463–494; OEHLKE 2004, 125–142).
Design- and Future-Enabling Vocational Education and Training The Institute Technology and Education (ITB) further developed the theoretical basis for the concept of work and technology design (HEIDEGGER 1997b) and implemented it into research, planning and practice of vocational education (K LEINER / RAUNER / REINHOLD / RÖBEN 2002; REINHOLD / HAASLER / HOWE ET AL. 2003). Since then, the idea of a design-oriented vocational education has been institutionalised in agreements of the Conference of Federal Ministers of Culture (KMK 1991a; 1999) and in the course of modernising and reforming training rules. By and large, the design-oriented vocational education has stimulated the development of four important research topics: (1) Open, Dynamic and Fundamental Understanding of Vocational Practice The concept of an open, dynamic and fundamental understanding of vocational practice (HEIDEGGER / RAUNER 1996; HEIDEGGER /JACOBS / MARTIN ET AL. 1991; RAUNER 2001c) increases at the same the
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↑ flexibility of the employees and the ↑ labour market for skilled work as well as educational opportunities for vocational training that emphasises the understanding of interrelations and design competence (K LEINER / RAUNER / REINHOLD / RÖBEN 2002; RAUNER / SPÖTTL 2002). (2) Design-Oriented Tasks for Learning and Working The retransfer of industrial training into ↑ work processes on the basis of design-oriented tasks for learning and working aims at increasing the quality of training and at the same time the operational benefits (HÖPFNER 1995; K ROGOLL 1998; HOWE / BAUER 2001; HOWE / HEERMEYER / HEUERMANN ET AL. 2002). (3) Design Competence and In-Firm ↑ Organisational Development The demands for the dynamics of in-firm organisational development have been gaining in importance under the conditions of international quality competition. Through this, there are new demands for qualifying the employees (DYBOWSKI / HAASE / RAUNER 1993; HEEG / MEYER-DOHM 1994). (4) Prospective Demands for Qualification What are the qualifications that skilled employees should utilize to be able to operate technical plant and machinery, devices, tools and technical processes safely and effectively? But, such a ↑ research question has to be asked quite afresh in view of the increasing diffusion of ↑ information technologies: How is it possible to adapt the technologies better to human abilities and to design them as a qualifying medium thereby utilising the increased plasticity through application of information technologies (SCHREIER 1998; BECKER 2003)? How can the guiding principles of enabling and empowering working people by methods of participative technical design be exploited by using information technologies (FISCHER /JUNGEBLUT/ RÖMMERMANN 1995)? 3.8.1.5
Methodological Implications
In spite of the backlashes and distortions for the basic achievements and the strategic milestones of human-oriented ↑ shaping of work and technology, there are many conclusions for scientific involvement to be drawn from the experience of change
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projects and programme developments. The plan for ↑ interdisciplinary problem-solving by crossing the borders (CORBETT / RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1991) encountered manifold barriers. They are deeply rooted not only in divergent objectives and methodologies of the respective disciplinary traditions, but also in adverse action routines and career ways in science systems which do not honour interdisciplinary and applied studies at all. These problems will be intensified by the need for cooperation with practitioners who represent different objectives, attitudes and interests. Bringing them into a fragile harmony in the course of projects by programme management has to be extended in the case of transfer activities building up structural knots and critical mass for thorough change processes going beyond the popular collections of good practice case studies in the sense of creating virtual awareness.
Differing Methodological Approaches Besides the need for ongoing disciplinary research in many areas of occupational medicine and ↑ ergonomics, the demands of ↑ interdisciplinary and applied research for the design of work and technology could hitherto only partly be realized. The complexity of holistic design solutions demanded a twofold approach: participative procedures with employees and work groups, works councils and management and the involvement of different scientific disciplines with their specific methodologies and their mutual acceptance, at least multilevel cooperation in the process of concrete problem-solving (RAUNER 1988c; SK 1986). In successful workplace development activities, all kinds of methodological approaches have to be taken into account to make research processes and products in their respective context sustainable and effective. Basic methodological arrangements of analytical, design and action research (OEHLKE 1994) can roughly be distinguished. (1) Analytical research mainly by social scientists, especially industrial sociologists in Germany, which lays the focus on surveying, observing and analysing social conflicts, new production concepts and management strategies of ↑ systemic rationalisation thus clearing up complex situations and identifying framework and development con-
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ditions of work and technology which may hinder and encourage industrial actors and policy-makers supplemented by project evaluations and ↑ benchmarking exercises, steering concepts and scenario extrapolations (ALTMANN /KOEHLER / MEIL 1992; BMFT/BMAS 1987, 109–114); (2) Expert-driven research for designing workplaces and ↑ work processes, devices and technologies typical for the product-oriented approach of ↑ engineering science, ergonomics and occupational medicine playing a central role in a broad range of German programme activities where engineers shape technologies, specialists of ↑ ergonomics measure physical strain factors, chemical hazards and physiological effects of work environments or industrial psychologists develop instruments for analysing stress, content and qualification effects of ↑ work tasks (SONNTAG 1987; ULICH 1998, 59– 160); (3)Action research to be found above all in Norway and Sweden which has mainly been done by organisational sociologists and psychologists including inspired consultants to take up the concepts of Kurt Lewin (1951) and develop them further (e. g. GUSTAVSEN 1992; GUSTAVSEN / FINNE / OSCARSSON 2001) with the focus on participating in change processes as facilitators by establishing local dialogue procedures which diminish hierarchical and functional barriers thereby acting as concept-driven moderators and democratically oriented interlocutors for the partners of industrial change (FRICKE 1997a; GUSTAVSEN 2005).
Proposal of ‘Rolling System Development’ Work and technology research has both put into question and at the same renewed the traditional methods of hierarchical and sequential development and design corresponding to a purpose-oriented rationale starting from the fixing and operationalisation of objectives up to the evaluation and finally implementation of results. But an adequate solution for the methodological tension between input- oriented process and output- related product approaches has not yet been found. Therefore, comparing the different development methodologies with respect to the testing phase of a complex work and technology design concept, Corbett/
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Rasmussen/ Rauner (1991, 114 f.) proposed the Rolling System Development: “Such rolling development (...) takes into account four important aspects: (1) Objectives may be changed as a result of integrated development. Such changes are simultaneously learning processes for all the people involved. (2) Employers and users participate in their capacity as experts of their situation. (3) The development product is seen as one version of the system. This implies giving priority to technology ... as an adaptive element of organization development. Adaptability thus turns into a central technical systems property or an important shaping criterion. (4) Development is no longer a linear process. Rather it is seen as a sequence of objectives which result from the interplay of producing, testing and revising/adapting. Thinking in terms of versions is particularly adapted (a) to the plasticity of IT and (b) to the permanency of organization development” (compare A REGGER / FREY 1975).
Further Promotion of Practice-Oriented Research Cooperation The manifold methodological problems of practiceoriented design research already begin with the diverse forms of communication and modes of expression incarnated in specific scientific languages and methodologies. They may be partly solved in rolling system development strategies by communicative process approaches of action research combined with the product-oriented input of expertise. At the same, there is a need to watch out for framework conditions such as sufficient support structures, involvement of the social partners, regulations and changing market environments being conducive or restrictive to forward-looking design solutions. Accordingly, the work and technology project on “Inter-Firm Cooperation. The Design of Supplier Relations” has succeeded methodically in a process-oriented approach (ENDRES 1996; WEHNER / RAEITHEL / CLASES / ENDRES 1996; DICK 1996). It distinguishes by the dialogue-consensus as criteria of truth (HABERMAS 1991; SCHEELE 1995, 275) and the deduced dialogue forms of validation (GIDDENS 1989; PIEPER 1988) which have also been applied in the evaluation of the Bremen Work and Technology-Programme (RAUNER / RUTH / DEITMER 1995). Extensive experience of development-ori-
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ented research has been gained in the field of participative software-engineering (FLOYD 1995). In general, participative design approaches demand high methodical and professional competence on the part of researchers (RAVDEN / CLEGG / CORBETT 1987; CORBETT / RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1991). Moreover, there are still methodological demands for the integration of diverse experience, knowledge and competence to create a variety of innovative solutions for outstanding problems of demographic, socio-economic and science-based change which cannot be reduced to the imperial beliefs of one best way or of benchmarked best practices being replaced time after time by the currently-prevailing management fashions.
3.8.2
Participative Technology Development Franz Stuber
3.8.2.1
Clarification of Terms
↑ Participative technology development denotes the inclusion of technology users in the development and diffusion of technological processes and systems. As a field of research in vocational education, participative technology development follows the general approach of technology development. This takes technological development as an interest-guided process, to the shaping of which vocational specialists, as relevant actors, can contribute. The development and application of technology should not be left to political entities, nor to the modellings of ↑ engineering science, nor to the calculations of business analysis. In general, ↑ participation is concerned on the one hand with involvement, that is partaking in decisions within society, in this case regarding technology. On the other, the call for participation takes the development process as given; it is a question of becoming involved in it. Thus, a first observation about technology development to date consists in a general distinction between technology users and the decision-makers who shape technology development and application. Second, it is clear that technology users are affected negatively by this
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development: participation should counteract this. Third, a general limit in participation processes is evident. By definition, the call for participation cannot be aimed at nullifying the decision-making capacity of those in whose development process participation comes into play. Opinions differ on the extent to which political and economic decision-making criteria should be modified through the participation of technology users, as participation in technology development can take on very different forms. In general these can be classified according to – aims, – the object and level of participation, – scope, – the agent or subject, and – the institutional basis. The range of possible participation forms may be broken down further. An overview of some classification methods can be found in Wicke 1992. An object of equally broad interpretation is the category of the user-subject. As participants, technology users may appear in the most disparate roles: as employees, customers or as members of the public. – employees use technology as a tool, operate machines and deal with technology as an object of labour, – customers make decisions, with respect to their available payment capacity, about the private or commercial suitability of utility value characteristics objectified by technology, – and as members of the public, technology users participate in political discussion about technology development. 3.8.2.2 Historical Development With the emergence of industrial capitalism, research, technology development and the application of these in production became separate spheres within society. Participative technology development focuses on this split and accentuates new means of mediation.
Implicit Participation Implicit forms of user participation are apparent when the application of technological artifacts dif-
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fers from that envisaged by product managers and designers. The diffusion of conversational software is not the first instance of such a discrepancy between intended and actual modes of use, although only here has it been elevated to an object of systematic research. Research in technology genesis shows that user models have always differed to greater or lesser degrees from actual modes of use. Kline/ Pinch (1996) point out in relation to early automobile use in rural America that on the one hand the rural population attempted to prevent the intrusion of cars into rural areas, for example by making roads impassable for cars. On the other, at an early stage farming households possessed an above-average number of cars – farmers used cars as mobile energy sources, as snowploughs, tractors, etc. For a long time corresponding conversion kits provided by dealers competed with the truck that Ford had meanwhile brought onto the market. Comparable findings have been made regarding the development of modes of use for electronic communication technologies (MARVIN 1988; FISCHER 1992; for details see BAMME / ORNETZEDER / ROHRACHER 2003). The common feature of ‘implicit ↑ participation’ lies in dissentient appropriation and the discovery in application of new modes of use: “People may reject technologies, redefine their functional purpose, customize or even invest idiosyncratic symbolic meanings in them. Indeed they may redefine a technology in a way that defies its original, designed and intended purpose” (MACKAY/ GILLESPIE 1992, 689 f.).
These results provide the first pointers for systematic participation in technology development.
Explicit Participation Explicit participation in technology development often only comes to light when commercial objectives negate any further application of technology. A prominent example of this is supplied by the activities of the former employees of the British arms manufacturer Lucas Aerospace in the 1970s. Following the decision by management to close their production segment, engineers, technicians and labourers together developed alternative products for a civilian and function-oriented production (see COOLEY 1987). These experiences inspired sever-
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al further initiatives, such as the “London Technology Network”, which in the 1980s linked local government initiatives with technical colleges and universities for the development of alternative production forms and technological systems. The ↑ UTOPIA project in Denmark and Sweden was instituted on union initiative in the field of press work. As a collaboration of social and technology scientists with technicians and a technology manufacturer, this was aimed at the development of a system for newspaper page layout meant to improve both product quality and the operating process for workers (see BODKER 1987). Supported by the strong co-determination rights prevalent in Scandinavian countries, this project led to the “↑ Collective Resource Approach to Systems Design”, which sets a high participation standard in the development and commercial implementation of new technologies with a special focus on ↑ information technology: “The collective resource researcher will ask ‘how do we enable people to design their own systems?’” (EHN 1988, 270). In the context of the European research and technology support programme ESPRIT, an advanced development perspective was elaborated with the project “Human Centred CIM Systems”. Three groups from Great Britain, Denmark and Germany developed system concepts and prototypes for the automation areas CAD, CAP and CAM. This was aimed on the one hand at the transcendence of established modelling concepts from technology and social sciences: “While the human centred approach traditionally has focused on the individual level and the socio-technical approach has focused on the group level, the techniqueoriented approach has instead tended to develop models for overall system integration” (CORBETT / R ASMUSSEN / R AUNER 1991, 18).
These individual perspectives on technology development were to be replaced by a “work-oriented shaping approach” (ibid., 15), through which participation would move beyond equal consideration of individual dimensions. At the same time the project was concerned with the generation and development of practical approaches to technology development. Steps taken in this direction included adaptation of the fu-
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ture-workshop method and testing novel so-called “↑ Shaping Workshops”. In Germany ↑ participative technology development has been promoted in particular in the context of the state research and action programmes “Humanising Working Life” since the 1970s and “Work and Technology” since the 1990s. ↑ Participation here is interpreted broadly, in that cross-company actor networks and regional site relations are integrated into the development process (RAUNER / RUTH / DEITMER 1995; LANDAU /LUCZAK 2002). At the same time user participation is closely geared to product development. Findings from research on process knowledge relating to professional experience and work (→ 3.6.4) have inspired the elaboration of information system concepts and prototypes that support workers in their workprocess ↑ skill development. One example is the DIADOSYS system, developed jointly by repair and maintenance workers at Lloyd Dynamowerke and scientists at the University of Bremen. DIADOSYS allows the technology users themselves to computerise documentation, organisation and communication of work experience in repair and maintenance (FISCHER / RÖMMERMANN 1998). These positive experiences have stimulated comparable concepts and prototypes, for example in production control (STUBER 1997), the chemical industry (RÖBEN 2000a) and in the automotive trade (BECKER / SPÖTTL 2001b). 3.8.2.3 Current Areas of Application Whereas early approaches to ↑ participative technology development were conceived as a ‘user-oriented counterbalance’ to technological effect estimation in the sense of socio-scientific research into the effects of technological development (see MÜLLER 1993), today participative approaches are also associated with entrepreneurial and political strategies (see IMAI 1986).
IT-System Development Today ↑ information technology no doubt constitutes the most firmly established field for user participation in technology development and diffusion. Very few technologies rival ↑ IT systems in their influence on our cognitive functioning and
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social communication. Technical and economic criteria for development are supplemented here on several levels by participative procedures. A large sub-area is covered by “↑ Usability Engineering”. Special inspection methods are employed to assess functional task suitability and ergonomic fitness for use. In addition to specially trained assessors, (potential) end-users are also included in this process (see LISKOWSKY/ VELICHKOVSKY/ WUENSCHMANN 1997, BRINK / GERGLE / WOOD 2002). Apart from ↑ Usability Engineering, which tends to be applied in specific areas, users are also involved in the general process of software development in the various phases of the Software Life Cycle (→ 3.8.4).
Alternative Technologies Many applications for participative technology development can be found among alternative technologies, in particular in sustainable energy production. In this field, user-driven technology development spans from the redesign of solar panels, via the discovery and testing of new modes of utilisation for part-solar heating, to the incremental improvement of, for example, biomass combustion or ecologically oriented building projects. Common to all these forms of participation is the users’ appropriation and development of technologies through do-it-yourself construction. In a current case study on solar power systems, biomass combustion and ecological construction, Bammé et al. have identified a distinct milieu of innovation: “In various ways and with differing levels of intensity, many users in the three case studies were also inventors or developers of technological solutions and new modes of use or designers of house concepts” (BAMME / ORNETZEDER / ROHRACHER 2003, 145).
3.8.2.4 Methodological Implications Participative technology development projects have applied a large number of methodological approaches from social and technological research, as well as generating original methods such as ↑ interdisciplinary ‘↑ shaping workshops’ (CORBETT / RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1991), STEPS (FLOYD 1993), IMPACT (FALCK 1993) ↑ Design Scenarios (CARROLL 1995) or SimLab (SMEDS 2001).
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To varying extents and in different forms these methods have found their way into the practice of technology development. The history of participative technology development also shows, however, that participation does not in itself lead to innovations that result in lasting improvement to artifacts and processes. Any methodological approach is confronted with the following difficulties: – The disparate and contrary aims of technology use are not smoothed out by ↑ participation, rather they are extended by one more perspective. – Technology is always embedded in the organisational context of its operation and the broader environment in which it is applied. Participation in technology development must therefore always be linked to participation in ↑ organisational development (→ 3.8.3). – Even direct participation in technology development can be no more than representative. Technology users who contribute to the design of a technological artifact always make decisions for other users. – ↑ Participative technology development has to be learned. It must therefore become a guideline and integral element in vocational learning processes. Working and ↑ learning environments and didactic concepts need to be designed with this in mind. – Interests and modes of use change over time and in reaction to experience of use. Thus a technological characteristic now considered beneficial from the user’s perspective may in future become superfluous or even an obstacle to efficient task processing. Following Læssøe (1993), from the above list it is possible to deduce four generic principles that allow for support of user participation in technology development through research in vocational education: – Action research: technology development is intervention in established decision-making processes. – Cooperation: technology development involves disparate perspectives in dialogue. – Instrumental perspective: technology development becomes a tool in the hands of the user.
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– Cultural embedment: technology development becomes an entwined process of tradition and transcendence. 3.8.2.5 Development Perspectives Participation in technology development is always ambivalent and influenced by opposing tendencies. On the one hand, current economic and educational policies mean that participative approaches run into difficulty as soon as they seek to influence commercial decisions. Any departure from calculations of commercial profitability is today quickly branded as ‘unviable’. What participative innovation can prove its profitability for a company before the start of a project? On the other hand opportunities for participation are increasing. The lesson that can be learnt from early forms of implicit participation is increasingly important for profitable production: the use and utility value of technology applications cannot be fully anticipated by developers – this use diverges from their expectations, it changes over the course of time, and it differs from one group of users to the next. These circumstances become particularly clear in relation to ↑ information technology. SAP AG, one of the leading ‘solution providers’, draws the following picture: “These days desktops on different computer platforms have become almost indisdinguishable, as Internet browsers operate independently of hardware. Information is no longer tied to an IT infrastructure, as XML is becoming the Esperanto of the infinite expanses of Internet. Standards wherever you look. But the forecast apocalypse has not materialised. On the contrary, these tools … have given rise to new freedoms. Standards allow individuality, freeing the programmer of dull routine work and the user of the need for constant retraining” (FÄRBINGER 2001).
It emerges here that the classic product character of software is becoming less pronounced. Precisely on the basis of far-reaching standardisation, software is ‘maturing’ through use into a complex and integrated system.
Business Models Induce Participation This development assumes tangible form in new technological business models. In ‘Application
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Service Providing’ (ASP), software can be purchased as a fixed-period service over the Internet. In this way integrated ↑ IT systems become shared applications in an entirely new dimension. The ASP provider becomes an integral component in the working process of the user. ‘Web Services’ technology goes one step further. This involves combining different applications and application modules to create new, customer-specific solutions. Thus, the apparent contradiction of ‘standard software as a tailor-made product’ comes within reach. A consortium of leading manufacturers in the ‘UDDI.org’ (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) is currently developing standards. “In summary, UDDI is all about sharing business information, making it easier to publish your preferred means of doing business, find trading partners and have them find you, and interoperate with these trading partners over the Internet. By automating these processes: – Businesses will have a means to describe their services and business processes in a global, open environment on the Internet thus extending their reach. – Potential trading partners will quickly and dynamically discover and interact with each other on the Internet via their preferred applications thus reducing time to market. – The barriers to rapid participation in the global Internet economy will be removed for any business anywhere thus allowing them to fully participate in the new digital economy” (www.uddi.org).
With progressive standardisation and world-wide availability, ↑ IT systems are becoming more and more individual. It is still difficult to predict what these new forms of use with permanent release change will mean for the work-process knowledge of IT specialists and system users. It is clear, however, that this new tool quality demands an interactive and on-going exchange between development and use processes, the success of which depends on qualified user ↑ participation.
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3.8.3 Participative Organisational Development Franz J. Heeg 3.8.3.1
Participation and Organisational Development – Definition and History
According to Kißler (1997) participation describes any form of direct or indirect influence on decision-making processes, which usually are dominated unilaterally – due to prevailing power structures. The aim is to gain recognition for employee interests. Participation re-arranges power structures by bringing employee interests into work-related decision-making processes. It can be distinguished between direct participation (through the employees themselves) and indirect or delegated participation (through elected representatives). ↑ Organisational development is an “effort [that is] planned, organisation wide, managed from the top to increase organisational ↑ effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organisation’s process using behavioural science knowledge” (BECKHARD 1969, 17). Organisational development includes changes in decision-making processes, shape and nature of groups, work procedures, job descriptions and roles (→ 3.6.1). It is imperative to change structures and procedures in order to improve quality and ↑ effectiveness; however, the management of this process is not a “neat sequential process” (→ 5.4.2). It typically involves a dynamic complex interaction between those who are attached to the present state, despite frustrations, and those who share a vision of a future better state and who collaborate with the organisation’s existing cultural and political forces (SENGE 1990/1994). Hence, participative organisational development corresponds to the comprehensive intention to design an organisation “top down” as well as “bottom up”. Ideally, top management, employees and members of the works council co-operate in designing organisational change processes. All of them take responsibility for the process and participate actively from the beginning to the end. Kurt Lewin (1898–1947) is widely recognized as the founding father of Organisational Development
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(OD), in particular, of group dynamics and action research institutionalised in the Research Center for Group Dynamics (RCGD). His colleagues built the National Training Laboratory (NTC) which inspired T-groups and group-based OD. Of great importance are, e. g., the following: – Discovery of semi-autonomous work-groups during the 1940s and 1950s (mining in Yorkshire, Tavistock Institute), – Socio-technical systems design in the form of Australian, Dutch and Swedish models since the 1960s (EIJNATTEN 1993), – Questions and problems concerning OD processes (from an operational to a social level) influenced by action research (NASCHOLD / COLE / GUSTAVSEN / BEINUM 1996; NEUMANN / HOLTI / STANDING 1995b; TOULMIN / GUSTAVSEN 1996; ENNALS / GUSTAVSEN 1999), – Current discussions and essays regarding flexible, learning and innovative organisations since the 1990s (FREI / HUGENTOBLER /ALIOTH ET AL. 1996; EC 1997a; NUTEK 1996), – New organisational requirements due to intraplant, interplant and crossplant network-, knowledge- and innovation management in production networks and value creation chains (e. g. SYDOW 1992; NONAKA / TAKEUCHI 1995; SCHNEIDER 1996; especially a variety of articles published in Harvard Business Review). Since the 1970s participative OD can be considered a practical criticism of Tayloristic work division and bureaucratic systems of governance. That is (see for example CLEGG /KORNBERGER / PITSIS 2005; COLE 1989; PEKRUHL 2001 and REED / HUGHES1992) since: – Employees in highly developed countries have demanded stronger ↑ participation and co-determination instead of hierarchical forms of structure and control, – Differentiating markets in the course of decreasing lot sizes and increasing product quality offer the possibility of flexible production requirements together with integrally tailored tasks, semi-autonomous work groups and even ↑ self-organisation, – New management concepts require slim, modular and fractal forms of organisations and even cross-plant networks as well as increasingly adaptive organisations as a prerequisite for innovation.
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3.8.3.2 Specifications of Participative Approaches to OD in Organisational Practice
Measures for Structuring Work and Small Group Activities When speaking of a fundamental approach to OD, Alioth (1980, 142) refers to Lewin’s three-step approach to change: unfreezing – moving – freezing (LEWIN 1963). The implementation of different forms of work organisation makes use of this three-step approach leading to different forms of designing ↑ work processes. On the one hand, there are measures of structuring work such as time constraints reduction, job rotation, job enhancement, job enlargement, job enrichment or semi-autonomous working groups (HEEG 1994, 916). On the other hand, semi-autonomous working groups represent small group activities, apart from being measures for work structuring at the same time: semiautonomous work groups carrying out a comparatively complex task for the most part, consisting of more than one work content on different qualification levels (e. g. complete assembly of a group of components). In addition, disparate and ↑ controlling fields of activities are assigned. Groups also enable individualised forms of work organisation, e. g. differential dynamic work design (ULICH 1978). The aim of these forms of work organisation is to consider different needs and ideas of employees by offering different forms of work systems from which they can choose. By ensuring that the organisation of work corresponds to the employee’s individual circumstances they are given individual opportunities to show their ↑ performance to the best advantage of each of them. The principle of differential work design is best described when considering a group of employees. Each of them is offered different work contents in different organisational arrangements and according to his or her qualification and motivation (e. g. concurrent but technically separate single work places or even manufacturing cells) (→ 3.8.1). In order to allow for personal development the principle of differential work design has to be amended by the principle of dynamic work design. Dynamic work design describes the extension of existing or creation of new work systems as well as the pos-
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sibility of alternating between different work systems. In addition, it offers the opportunity to gradually increase qualifications not only on a professional level but also regarding social competence, techniques and ↑ participation (i.e. involvement in work system design) (→ 3.6.1; → 3.6.2; → 3.6.3). Heeg (1991) quotes the reorganisation of order processing in a company from the steel industry as an example for gradual, self-directed development of competences with respect to – Groups within the framework of simultaneous engineering; e. g. groups engaged with development, consisting of employees from the areas of construction, work preparation, quality control, calculation etc. who collectively plan and operate the entire process of development and construction of new products – Small group activities which combine previously separated functional units, e. g., planning, production, assembly, ↑ quality assurance, programming of working appliances or distribution, planning (work preparation) and ↑ quality management
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– predominantly for specific products or product groups. Such team-related forms of organisation also exist for the public sector where previously separated work is replaced by integrated ↑ work tasks (HEEG / BINZ / FAFFLOCK 2002), especially. – Group activities, which are carried out in parallel to daily activities and serve for constantly improving procedures, methods, work tools, communication and co-operation, e. g. quality circles, shop floor circles, KVP-teams (continuous process of improvement-teams) etc. – Group activities which are achieved in parallel to daily routines dealing with project related tasks (mostly, in order of either technical-organisational or organisational-qualifying innovations), and including partly, employees, who have been released from their regular work. – Groups, which concomitant to their daily work concentrate on acquiring knowledge, competences, abilities and skills (e. g. educational workshops (“Lernstatt – Lernen in der Werkstatt”)) (→ 3.6.1; → 3.6.3).
Fig. 1: Model of Psychological Functioning According to Grawe 2004
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Furthermore, Fröhlich and Pekruhl (1996), Frei et al. (1996), Pekruhl (2001) and Cole (1989) give overviews on the approaches and methods outlined above.
OD – Concepts and Processes Beisel (1996, 1) differentiates between two approaches to organisational research, which both focus on the topic of practice: first of all, theories of structural design and secondly, theories of planned change. Theories of structural design are concerned with the design of formal organisational structures, which are considered optimal in their respective given situation (also FRESE 1988; HILL / FEHLBAUM / ULRICH 1989; K IESER /KUBICEK 1983; LAWRENCE / LORSCH 1969; PUGH / HICKSON 1976). This approach can be contrasted with the theories of planned change which “originated from the efforts of behavioural and social scientists to use their findings about human behaviour, groups, organisations and societies for a planned change of social systems and to practice “applied” behavioural science” (K IRSCH / ESSER / GABELE 1979).
Unlike theories of structural design, approaches of planned change do not focus on the design with respect to the planning of structural changes. Their main focus lies on the process of change itself and the problems linked to it. Leavitt (1965) classifies theories of planned change into structural, technological and humanistic approaches, the latter being closely linked to approaches of OD. The majority of authors engaged in the field of OD consider it to be a strategy for change, which fulfills the requirement for necessary adaptation processes of organisations to constantly changing internal and external conditions. OD comprises an organisation as a system: designing organisational and technical work systems as well as changing of values, beliefs, views and attitudes (organisational culture) of its members (→ 3.8.1). To change the behaviour of the members of an organisation, it is necessary to change their internal, basic beliefs and their superordinate contexts. Being an applied social science, OD is aiming to induce structural, behavioural and mental changes on the basis of theories and technologies from the field of social and especially behavioural sciences (BEISEL 1996, 4). Correspondingly, there is an abundance
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of strategies for action and intervention, predominantly based on heuristic knowledge, which allow for an action-oriented “muddling through” (→ 3.8.2). However, in the past this happened without any form of scientific funding (BEISEL 1996, 4) (→ 3.6.7). There has been a change for the last two decades due to the arrival of ↑ theories of action, especially theory of systems and ↑ self-organisation theory. Since then, OD has shifted from a strategy of change to a genuine strategy of innovation. Today’s methods and tools used in OD-processes are either based on job and process analysis and qualitative system dynamics as classic organisational methods and tools that are modified according to use or on systemic and circular questioning techniques, sculptures and choreographies as methods and techniques derived from socio-scientific systemic (therapeutic) counselling of individuals and groups. For the area of OD as much as for other forms of innovative work design (WENGEL / LAY/ PEKRUHL / MALOCA 2002, 133) it proves to be true that conceptions and approaches are more often cited in the literature than applied in practice; moreover, employees often judge the organisational modernity of their working conditions more negatively than one would derive from information provided by the companies. As shown above, there is a long tradition of work design and ↑ organisational development (although on a rather theoretical than practical basis) in the ↑ USA and Europe, particularly in Northern and Western Europe (SITTER / HERTOG / DANKBAAR 1997, 499). As an alternative to the frequently used classic sociotechnical systems design (another widespread design approach besides OD), de Sitter, den Hertog and Dankbaar (1997) introduce Integral Organisational Renewal (IOR). The essence of this approach lies in the transformation of complex organisations offering simple jobs into simple organisations offering complex jobs. IOR can both be regarded as an expert approach and as a route for self-design. The approach enables the members of the organisations to develop and use their own design expertise. IOR is therefore not only a strategy for organisation design, but also for organisation development.
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Business Re-Engineering, Lean Production, Total Quality Management and Other Concepts Apart from the conceptions and methods applied for organisational change predominantly discussed in organisation science, there are other fundamental concepts, which by now have become well known and absorbed worldwide: – Business process reengineering (HAMMER / CHAMPY 1993) – Lean production (WOMACK /JONES / ROOS 1990) – Total ↑ quality management (DEMING 1982) – Learning Organisation (SENGE 1990/1994) (→ 3.6.3). Despite all differences in the fundamental ideas, practical examples and methodological details covered in these conceptions, they share some common fundamental principles of re-organising work and business processes: – Maximum simplicity, clarity and ↑ commitment regarding tasks and processes, – Each organisational part of the system and it’s actions and the results of these actions determine quality, – The customer’s benefit is to the fore, – Further development results from continuous learning and continuous pursuit for mastership, – Ideally, by designing tasks, processes and structures in a way that allows for the integration of learning and working (COLE 1989) (→ 4.2; → 4.5). Consequently applying these principles and combining them with participative processes for OD should make up one of the main tasks of today’s organisational design. 3.8.3.3 Theories of Organisations as Levels of Reflection for Practical Action
Views on Organisations Particularly Brown (1992), Ortmann, Sydow and Türk (2000) and Clegg, Kornberger and Pitsis (2005) point out the development of theoretical views on organisations, which consider important additional perspectives on the phenomenon “organisation”: – Structures – static as well as dynamic, – Relations between systems and sub-systems, – Metaphors, pictures (for example machines, power, brain metaphors, MORGAN 1986)
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– Processes, including tasks. These views can be extended by the perspective of learning (ARGYRIS / SCHÖN 1978) and the perspective of values and needs (CLEGG /KORNBERGER / PITSIS 2005) (→ 3.6.3). Two areas of theories will be introduced briefly – ↑ theory of action and theory of systems and ↑ selforganisation, which recently have been supported by findings from the field of neuroscience. There are many well-elaborated concepts of goaloriented action. Miller, Galanter and Pribram (1960) already introduced the concept of goal-hierarchies, at first without differentiating between different hierarchy-levels. Powers (1973) then presented a detailed scheme of target hierarchies in the form of hierarchically organised loop systems. In 1973 he had already tried to specify these loops on a neuronal level; however, because of the to the stage of neuroscience at that time, he could only do so for the lowest levels. In large part this has been achieved today (GRAWE 2004). This and the knowledge about life-long neuronal plasticity constitute the basis for persisting individual learning capacities. They can be activated also for collective learning processes in OD to change shared attitudes, action patterns and values on the basis of appropriate interventions. The theory of systems and ↑ self-organisation is based on constructivist principles and findings from both the natural and the social sciences. According to Grawe’s (2004) model of psychological functioning – consistency theory – people strive for psychological and physical need-fulfillment (Fig. 1). These needs are transformed into motivational schemas, which in turn result in goals and are then finally transformed into actions. Fig. 1 depicts, among other aspects, the respective parts of the organisation. It has to be distinguished between actions – including those within the framework of OD-processes – which are: – Specified actions, i.e. actions, which are to be carried out according to predetermined and defined conditions, rules and regulations, – Self-directed actions, i.e. actions, which are partly predefined in terms of e. g. the framework, which can be acted on autonomously, – Improvised actions, i.e. the given rules and regulations are insufficient and the situation requires to
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improvise and to “fill in” the gaps in a self-organised way, – Self-organised actions, i.e. rules are regarded as a prompt for change and are then transferred into change, without knowing what the results will be (→ 3.8.1; → 3.8.2; → 3.8.4). Within the framework of OD-processes all kinds of actions are important. In its function as an order creating process, self-organisation demonstrates the motivation of all persons involved: they strive for solutions, which are emotionally more positive than others. This is evident when considering – apart from the emotions – the individual and collective energy, the individual and collective attention, which is focused on alternative solutions to problems and ways to reach these solutions. Again, this shows the inter-linkage of organisational actions, learning, and the usefulness of a systemic and self-organising perspective on organisational change. In order to design OD processes, which enable self-organisation (as a guarantor for successful innovative processes) it is necessary to consider the positive emotions and energies (focus of attention) of all the persons involved. For example, within the framework of a project, tools and methods were developed, which – apart from analysing processes and tasks – consistently take into consideration system dynamics: messages about relationships, positive and negative emotions, unfulfilled and fulfilled needs. Based on this, effective and efficient solution-scenarios have been collectively generated on one hand such that, on the other hand, they facilitate good relationships and need-fulfilment (HEEG / SPERGA / SCHNEIDER-H EEG 2006).
3.8.4
Participatory Prototyping Jürgen Friedrich
3.8.4.1
Introduction: From Technical to Socio-Technical and Participatory Design of Information Systems
In the dawn of application software development – at the end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties of the last century – programmers were of-
ten the only users of the information systems they had developed. Therefore, problems with regard to the use of the systems naturally did not occur. That changed substantially with the excessive introduction of information systems, particularly within the service sector beginning in the middle of the 1960s. The usability of the systems for end users proved to be extremely poor. This not only provoked resistance on the users’ side but jeopardised the productivity of the computer applications at the same time. Technically induced usability deficits were superimposed by a similarly insufficient treatment of usability problems on the level of work organisation (→ 3.8.5.1). The introduction of Management Information Systems (MIS), pursued with huge effort during the 1970s, turned out to be a disaster because of a total disregard of the social and organisational aspects of operational information structures. In this concept the company had been organised top down, like a machine following the calculus of a formal organisational logic. If at all, users occurred as abstract “positions” in the organisation chart. MIS were the result of an ”alliance of formalisation” between business managers and ↑ IT specialists. The first persons who criticised this reductionist approach already at the end of the 1970s on the basis of comprehensive îworkoriented research, were Enid Mumford from the Manchester Business School and the Tavistock Institute together with her colleagues John Hawgood and Frank Land (HAWGOOD / LAND / MUMFORD 1978). At the beginning of the 1980s they presented an alternative approach by developing the method ETHICS (Effective Technical and Human Implementation of Computer-based Systems): “Traditionally, economic and technical objectives have dominated the thinking of those designing new systems. (…) The specifications for new systems have tended to be almost entirely concerned with technical/↑ efficiency objectives and very rarely with human needs and interests. Today, it is increasingly being recognised that human consequences cannot be left to change or to ad hoc adjustments after implementation. The analysis and specification of the social system, the design of jobs and of the organizational unit as a whole, has now become as important as the specification of the technical system“ (MUMFORD 1983b, chapter 3).
With the inclusion of the organisational and social context into the technical design process prerequisites for ↑ participation of the users were created.
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Terms like user participation, ↑ user involvement or participatory design became part of the discussion in computer science and changed the methods of software engineering effectively. 3.8.4.2 Concepts: Participation – Prototyping – Participatory Prototyping While the term participation in computer science mainly originated from research in ↑ ergonomics and work sociology the term ↑ prototyping experienced a genuine interpretation in computer science. Considering the concept of participation we will here deal with its adaptation in software development only; for general discussion (→ 3.8.2; → 3.8.3).
Participation Systematically, one can differentiate between two main directions in participation approaches: The ↑ socio-technical approach of Enid Mumford and her school (cf. MUMFORD 1981) and the Scandinavian ↑ Collective Resource Approach (vgl. NYGAARD 1983; EHN /KYNG 1987; FLOYD / MEHL / REISIN ET AL. 1989). The socio-technical approach assumes symmetry of interest between entrepreneur and worker. Enterprise negotiation processes should lead to a balance of interest spheres. The approach does not accept the existence of basic interest conflicts but acts on the assumption that optimal results for both sides could only be found in rational discourses. The slogan reads: Participation is productive and profitable for the enterprise as well. In clear distinction from this the objective of the ↑ Collective Resource Approach can be understood as support for those workers who are affected by the introduction of new technologies. Scandinavian projects which were often undertaken together with the trade unions did assume that the implementation of workers’ interests could be strengthened by the introduction of far-reaching participation models in a sense of work co-determination. Insofar the ↑ Collective Resource Approach has to be considered as part of the comprehensive Scandinavian debate about enterprise democracy. In Germany, this approach was taken up and further developed based on the action research par-
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adigm from the social sciences (cf. MAMBREY/ OPPERMANN / TEPPER 1986; FRIEDRICH / WICKE 1983). The approach became politically relevant in Germany within the framework of co-determination on the company level. The conflict between ↑ socio-technical approach and enterprise democracy oriented concepts became virulent in discussions about the range of workers’ participation: information rights, consultation rights and co-determination rights indicate the scope within which participation could take place. Several research and transfer projects were encouraging mainstreaming of participation methods in computer science and were at the same time leading to a broadening of the approach by inclusion of results of the sociotechnical school. At the end of the 1980s the Scandinavian approach was taken up by North American researchers and led there – partly in combination with the sociotechnical approach – to the establishment of a new direction of computer science, the discipline of Participatory Design. “Participatory Design (PD) is an approach to the assessment, design, and development of technological and organizational systems that places a premium on the active involvement of workplace practitioners (usually potential or current users of the system) in design and decision-making processes” (CPSR 2006).
The conceptual differences can be seen very clearly considering the title of a conference of the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) in the year 1983: “Systems Design For, With and By the Users” (BRIEFS / CIBORRA / SCHNEIDER 1983). Within the framework of the socio-technical approach the software developer creates appropriate solutions on behalf of the user, demonstrates these solutions to the user and finally implements the optimal solution for the user. The user himself stays passive to a large extent, being an object rather than a subject of the design process. The Scandinavian approach tries to solve the problem in cooperation with the user and to involve his knowledge of the ↑ work process into system development. Developer and user have equal rights, both are experts in their respective fields: “expert of practice” with respect to the work process on the one hand, “technical expert” engaged in the system development on the other.
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Finally, action research – at least its most consistent representatives – is intended to transfer the role of the developer step by step completely to the user, promoting the user to become a subject of the development: system development exclusively by the user. A closer look at the development of design methods shows that the basic conflict between the socio-technical, the collective resource and the action ↑ research approach had no further practical consequences. User ↑ participation today is pragmatically seen as any form of ↑ user involvement in the system development process. Participation emerges as a dialectical process: On the one hand it requires knowledge and experience of the work process to actively influence the design process. On the other hand participation creates new fields of knowledge and extended experience and is therefore an implicit element of continuous vocational education.
Prototyping Introducing the participation approach to computer science had a long lasting effect on the methodology of the discipline and its process model of software development. The concept of participation was not compatible with the traditional waterfall model of software engineering. According to this model each phase of development is following the other automatically, and process-related user requirements are only allowed on a local level, i.e. within the scope of a single phase (Fig. 1). The waterfall model with its fixed starting and ending points was substituted by an iterative mod-
Fig. 1: Waterfall model
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Fig. 2: Spiral model
el in which the phases of software development were passed through several times. This model allows the user to evaluate (preliminary) results and to repeatedly revise the development. The focus of this spiral model developed by Barry W. Boehm (1988) is based on the fact that each development cycle leads to a refined and more goal-oriented result (Fig. 2). The spiral model not only aims at user-oriented advantages but also allows – from a managerial point of view – periodical checking of the achievement of objectives, the timely elimination of mistakes (and thereby of costs) as well as the consideration of alternatives to minimise possible risks. The spiral model makes an intensive use of the method of prototyping. Prototyping is often also called “rapid prototyping” or “rapid application development” (MARTIN 1991). The term prototyping in computer science has to be differentiated from the homonymous term in production engineering. In this area the term denotes a procedure by which 3D geometry data from a CAD drawing is transferred (e. g. by stereo lithography) into a physical model (e. g. a sample component). A prototype is a technical object which shows selected features of the final product already in an early stage of the development process without being complete, optimal, efficient or reliable yet. A prototype focuses on the special properties of the system which are crucial in a given phase of development: a sub-function, the user interface, the processing speed etc. In ↑ prototyping, the static character of the product takes a back seat. It is being dissolved by dynamically changing prototypes
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and versions. Unlike products, prototypes do not play their roles only at the end of a development process but can be applied already in early stages of software development, e. g. during requirements specification. Thereby, users are able to evaluate future properties of the system already in an early phase and to modify requirements if necessary. Prototyping therefore makes it possible to supplement or even substitute (textually formulated) formal requirements by (visually modelled) concrete and to a certain extent tangible requirements. Hereby – besides the early involvement of ↑ users – a second property of prototyping becomes evident which is able to enhance ↑ participation: Users are not forced to use the formal language of software development – formal specifications, module diagrams, database schemes or pseudo code – but can contribute to the design process by using their everyday professional language to explain the elements of their workflow. In this respect, prototyping is losing its object relation – prototyping as manufacturing of a prototype – and is going to become a communication method to discuss design alternatives in the development process. In this perspective prototypes are language elements to communicate properties of the product between developers and users. Such a communication is essential during the development process because the “final product” actually does not yet exist either in the customer’s or the developer’s head. In fact, the image of the product is altering successively with every prototype. Prototyping as a process of manufacturing a sequence of prototypes, which in the framework of social interaction between customer and developer are converging to the target system, is in the end going to become a qualification method in which the experiences of the participants play a crucial role. 3.8.4.3 Topics and State of the Art in Prototyping In literature different forms of prototyping are discussed. Depending on the phase in which prototyping is applied Christiane Floyd differentiates between three types (FLOYD 1984): îExplorative prototyping is being used in the analysis phase and helps to clarify the application area and the constraints of realising the requirements
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in a given organisational and economic framework (feasibility). Explorative prototyping also acts as a means to specify requirements in co-operation with the customer or user. Experimental prototyping is being introduced in the design phase to experimentally prove the usability of the systems specification. The prototype allows the testing of the interdependency of the components and the finding of an optimal decomposition of the overall system to ensure its extensibility. Finally, evolutionary prototyping provides a basis for a step-by-step composition of the over-all system passing through multiple cycles. It also comprises the implementation phase in which the system obtains its real functionality. In several iterations the prototype is approaching the final product. The application of the prototyping method in all phases of the system development process thus enables a comprehensive participation of customers and users. 3.8.4.3 Topics and State of the Art in Prototyping In a second kind of classification prototypes themselves are differentiated according to their objective, their field of application and the degree of covering the scope of duties. Because the goal of prototyping is to enhance communication with the user one often refers to a prototype as a demonstration prototype. Its functionality is often only simulated (simulation prototypes, virtual prototypes) or programmed “quick and dirty” without considering ↑ performance or stability (throw-away prototypes). Very often in evolutionary ↑ prototyping functional prototypes and interface prototypes play an important role. These kinds of prototypes will be further refined with respect to functional scope and user interface. Finally, there is a difference between horizontal and vertical prototypes. Horizontal prototypes only represent single layers of a system, e. g. the user or the functional layer, whereas vertical prototypes treat a single sub-function concerning the whole depth of the system, e. g. the user administration from database structure up to interface aspects.
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3.8.4.4 Methods and Tools for Participatory Prototyping The methodological variety of ↑ participatory prototyping is very large. It ranges from original social science approaches to programming methods in software engineering. In this chapter we want to highlight two methods, one from social science and one from engineering, to illustrate the extensive range of participatory design.
Ethnographic Methods ↑ Ethnographic methods are rooted in the research work of cultural anthropologists. In contrast to traditional analytical methods like interviews and document analysis, ↑ ethnography is strictly based on observation procedures. Representatives of the ethnographic approach underline the problem that users are often not sufficiently able to reflect their work situation and to express it appropriately in interviews. Often users do not have an adequate conceptual understanding of their role and behaviour in a work flow; many of their working methods are internalised and cognitively automated. Explaining those methods is difficult or even impossible for them. Polanyi’s findings which he described by the term “tacit knowledge” can be considered as a validation of this hypothesis. Observation of work context, i.e. of ↑ work process, means for work, working environment and the organisational and social situation by the developer should reduce these limits of self-reflection and at the same time widen the view beyond the subject-related level of a single user. Thereby, the interests of externally affected people (citizens, customers etc.) will become visible as well. ↑ Participation is being extended from a unilateral to multilateral social category. Participatory Design is transformed into ↑ Contextual Design (BEYER / HOLTZBLATT 1998). But this again raises the question whether this multilateralism will be bought by “eliminating the individual from the participation process”. Is observation still an expression of active ↑ user involvement?
Extreme Programming When complex descriptions of real use processes – as elaborated by ethnographic research – are pre-
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sented to the developers they will abandon hope reaching a distinct system solution by following clearly defined requirements in a linear development process. The answer of software engineering is not to map the complexity of the participation process to a similar complexity of the technical development. Quite the contrary, social complexity should be tackled by a maximum of simplicity in the technical process. The idea being: Simple objects and processes increase transparency and improve chances of participation. During the last few years a particular method which consistently realises this paradigm has been gaining influence in computer science: Extreme Programming (BECK, K ENT 1999). Its principles are as follows: (1) Simplicity in the development process as well as in the programme code. Thereby it is quite easy to realise system changes induced by changing user requirements. (2) Communication between developers and especially between developers and users. This principle enables an adaptation of the system to the requirements of the ↑ work process. Users are directly integrated into the development team. (3) Feedback on various levels. On the one hand intensive and frequent evaluations should provide feedback to the developers if the specification is going to be realised in an appropriate way. On the other hand frequent presentations of the system’s status to the user should give him a realistic impression about the feasibility of his requirements. (4) Trust in the development process. A certain amount of courage is needed in particular to realise the most obvious requirements and postpone future possibilities. And courage is also needed to concentrate on given modules in the face of steadily extended requirements. But putting the focus on the revision of given functionality will support the realisation of users’ feedback. The procedure starts with the description of requirements – in terms of so called user stories – by the users. Developers and users together decide upon priorities. Starting as an idea of a single person – Kent Beck – Extreme Programming became a vital movement around the world. Its principles were published in a Manifesto for ↑ Agile Software Development (BECK / BEEDLE / BENNEKUM ET AL. 2001):
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(1) Individuals and interactions are more important than processes and tools. (2) Functional software is more important than comprehensive documentation. (3) Co-operation with customers is more important than negotiating contracts. (4) Responding to changing requirements is more important than following a given plan. Emerging from economic necessities to overcome an increasing bureaucratic software development this new approach has the potential for strengthening participative ↑ prototyping from a user’s point of view (cf. RITTENBRUCH / MCEWAN / WARD ET AL. 2002).
Tools The methods described have to be supported by adequate tools on the operational level. Many of those tools function as means for visualisation of prototypes (“I know what I need if I can see it.”). Tools for manufacturing “mock-ups” and “paper prototypes” belong to that group as well as those for digital visualisation of user interfaces. In general fourth generation programming languages (4GL) support rapid prototyping very well by abstracting from details of programming techniques. Development of visualisation tools has been promoted in many research projects for several years (cf. STEPS project, FLOYD 1993; PICTIVE project, MULLER 1993; MUST project, K ENSING / SIMONSEN / BODKER 1998). But there is a lack of tools supporting ↑ participatory prototyping of dynamic, process-oriented aspects of the systems, beyond solely modelling the graphical interface. One approach which is going to address this gap is the method of “design games” (cf. BRANDT / MESSETER 2004).
Case Studies Theory and methods of participatory prototyping have been introduced in many areas of the working life – from the production sector to health care, service industry and public administration – for about twenty five years. The first ↑ pilot projects took place in Scandinavia. One of the most well-known projects was the ↑ UTOPIA project which was performed by Danish and Swedish researchers together with the Nordic
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Graphic Workers’ Union (EHN /KYNG / SUNDBLAD 1983). The introduction of computer-supported graphical workplaces in the field of newspaper layout and production was organised as a participatory project. The use of mock-ups as tools for “design by doing” became a kind of language for mutual understanding and mutual learning of technologists and workers. Later, the project was not only seen as a context-oriented process of ↑ IT implementation but also as an important step towards industrial democracy. A lot of initiatives took up the UTOPIA experience, extended its scope of application, and spread it to other countries. A good example for such an extension is the Health Information System Programme (HISP). The project, which intends to support health care in ↑ developing countries on a local level by using computerised information systems, follows an action-oriented design approach with participatory prototyping as a main strategy. The project started in South Africa and was supported by the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo. Experience from that project were transferred to other countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. New challenges and questions arose from experiences gathered in the HISP project: First, cultural differences of the countries involved strongly affected the application of participatory prototyping principles. Social factors like the degree of hierarchy in work life, the extent of formalisation in organisations, the existence of a discourse culture or the degree of “qualification for ↑ participation” (capacity development) heavily influenced success or failure of the participation process. The question suggests itself: Can westernised participatory design actually be replicated in other cultural settings or is methodological ↑ localisation needed? Second, participation is going to be extended beyond the corporate context. Target groups for participation in such complex systems like health care are – besides employees – patients, community health care personnel, local public administrations, national health organisations etc. Distinct interest spheres, like in the early Scandinavian projects (workers vs. employers) which constituted the basic assumption of the ↑ Collective Resource Approach, are not valid anymore in a mul-
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ti-interest framework of context-oriented use cases (cf. PURI / BYRNE / NHAMPOSSA / QURAISHI 2004; BRAA / TITLESTAD / SAEBO 2004). 3.8.4.5 The Future of Participatory Prototyping: Some Research Questions Developing methods to bridge the gap between analysis and design. In the course of case-based observations a huge amount of work-related qualitative descriptions is produced by ↑ ethnographic methods. The question is how to generalise these observations and how to derive design requirements from this data? Design needs ↑ abstraction from details and thereby reduction of complexity. To overcome the methodological gap between ethnographic analysis and ethnographic design will be one of the most crucial ↑ research questions of ↑ participatory prototyping in the future. Expanding stakeholders: Employees – customers – citizens. Who will be the future users and how is participation going to be changed by them? As already mentioned in the context of the HISP project participation methodology has to extend its scope beyond the corporate environment. Indirectly affected people, e. g. customers of the company, consumers buying commodities, citizens who are affected by e-government, raise new questions about content and organisation of participatory prototyping on a societal level. Are new forms of direct or indirect participation needed (local referendums, electronic votes, ombudsmen, customer representatives etc.)? Participatory prototyping in global virtual networks. Three questions can be asked with respect to the increasing role of computer networks in corporate as well as private environments: (a) Computer programmes can be organised as distributed applications. Different modules of the software system run on different hardware components which can be locally distributed too. The diffusion process of computing power can go ever further: Ubiquitous computing makes computers disappear from the particular locations of user actions. Usage is anywhere, context is undefined. Which methods of participatory design have to be elaborated to cope with this extreme kind of diffusion?
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(b) Often system designers are working in globally distributed knowledge teams. How can users and stakeholders be enabled to participate in such a distributed design process? Is ↑ computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), using groupware tools as communication and collaboration means, an approach which users can be involved in (cf. DANIELSSON / NAGHSH / DEARDEN 2006)? (c) Not only designers but also stakeholders can be operating in a distributed way, being geographically decentralised, working in global knowledge teams, being engaged in “Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games” (MMORPG) or acting in other virtual social communities. How can ↑ participatory prototyping be organised and technically supported in online communities? Can we learn from the Web 2.0 initiative, where users are closely involved in the design of dynamic web resources, e. g. online encyclopaedias, weblogs or podcasts? Languages – tools – media. ↑ Participation of and communication with users ask for a common language which is illustrative and understandable for affected persons on the one hand and which is effective and powerful from a designer’s view on the other. Can prototypes (mock-ups, dummies) be interpreted as “sentences” of this language and how will the syntax and semantic of this “prototype language” be defined? Until now there is a lack of computer-supported ↑ prototyping tools which are similarly effective and intuitive as hands-on methods like the use of paper prototypes. At the same time digital media are going to break the limits of traditional participation instruments. The internet opens up opportunities for e-voting, evaluation feedback and commenting. Already now web-based questionnaires, news groups and forums serve as a ubiquitous feedback medium constituting a “New Participation” approach. How will participation processes of the future be organised if computers lose their locality and scatter as ambient technology into everyday devices and appliances? And what if users leave the physical environment of traditional workplaces to become tele-workers, e-learners or net citizens and by this vanish from the view of the observing ethnographer. How real can participation be in a virtual medium?
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3.8.5 Human-Computer Interaction Karl-Heinz Rödiger The design of man-machine interaction is a field of research and development since technology has arrived in working life. The discussion about ↑ task allocation between man and computer is nearly as old as computers are. It started with the debate about the attentive operator in control centres and went through different paradigms over time. It nowadays takes place in debates about ↑ humancentred (NORMAN / DRAPER 1986) or skill-based design (SALZMAN 1992). Later on when ↑ information technology (IT) has been coming out of the specialist’s corner with the emerging personal computers (PC) in the early 1980s, a second track of discussion started, mainly under the term usability (INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ORGANISATION 1998). With that the interaction between human and computer has become an original field of research and development in computer science; it has been called ↑ human factors. Software-ergonomics is often used for its description in Europe. The term ↑ ergonomics was first mentioned in 1857 by the Polish scientist Jastrzebowski (quoted after LAURIG 1997, 126) for how to set about teaching work, and redefined by (MURRELL 1965) in a book titled “Ergonomics. Man in his Working Environment” has for a long time been used in information technology (IT) for the design of hardware and working environments. In 1982 the first conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems, CHI ’82 organised by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) took place in Gaithersburg, ↑ USA. This event was also the beginning of ACM’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI). In the meantime PCs and the Internet have penetrated nearly all areas of life and work. Usability of IT has therefore become a ubiquitous problem, and the design of computer systems that are free of harm, free of demands, beneficial for the development of personality, and that meet the new requirements of knowledge-based societies is one of the most challenging tasks in computer science. Nevertheless the research and development work in ↑ human factors or ↑ software ergonomics centred on product-oriented criteria of usability (INTER-
605 NATIONAL STANDARD ORGANISATION 1996) in order to give software engineers the right guidelines to create usable systems. The important question of task allocation was pushed back behind improving the handling of interfaces and the criteria suitability for the task in this standard. However, it was soon recognized that usability could not only be defined in a product-oriented way without real users. Such an approach is probably suitable for very well known standard tasks. In order to empower skilled users (→ 3.6.4) to solve unknown problems of the future they must be involved in the design of ↑ IT systems. A new discussion about task allocation, user ↑ participation and the preservation of skills started under the generic term ↑ user-centred design.
3.8.5.1
Task Allocation
One of the most interesting questions in IT system design over the last few decades has been, what can computers do? and what should remain as human work (→ 3.8.1)? The answers to these questions have changed over time and have caused different paradigms that can be classified as comparative, complementary, identical in principle, contrastive. Probably one of the first publications on task allocation in complex systems has been that of the psychologist Fitts (1951). He developed two lists, in which he showed the merits of man over machine and vice versa, that he had gained by comparison between human abilities and the ↑ efficiency of computers. In his comparative approach he defined man as a machine with limited competitiveness: “Low information-handling rate and inability to carry on parallel operations are perhaps the major limitations” (FITTS 1962, 34).
Fitts names as the special strength of man: “In marked contrast … is man’s ability to handle a great variety of different information-processing tasks” (ibid., 36). Concerning this Fitts had also foreseen the
phenomenon of remainder work: “Man’s versatility even poses a considerable danger to system design, since it is always a temptation to assign to a man any and all miscellaneous functions which are left over …” (ibid., 36).
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This paradigm lasted over a long time until Fitts himself ruled the direct comparison between man and machine out. Jordan (1963), Chapanis (1965), and Lam/ Greenstein (1985) follow a different approach in the allocation of functions in complex systems, which can be called complementary. Instead of polarizing they pose the question how to complement the competence between man and computer. Rouse (1977; 1981) proposes to determine the division of functions dynamically according to a problem situation: “… a dynamic approach to task allocation has numerous advantages, including better use of the system’s resources, less variability of the human’s work load, and the possibility for the human to have an improved knowledge of the overall system state” (ROUSE 1981, 78).
In order to get evidence on the dynamic approach and on different kinds of ↑ task allocation mathematical models of man and computer are simulated. Rouse’s arguments are not easy to understand, because admitting “the computer has no ego” (ROUSE 1977, 391) he nevertheless argues“… if human and computer are both allocated responsibility for all tasks, each decision-maker will spend less time waiting for an action-evoking event to occur …” (ibid., 384).
Newell and Simon may be seen as founders of the paradigm of principal identity. In their Turing Award Lecture of 1975 they reduced intelligent behavior to symbol manipulation: “A physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means for general intelligent action. By ‘general intelligent action’ we wish to indicate the same scope of intelligence as we see in human action: that in any real situation behavior appropriate to the ends of the system and adaptive to the demands of the environment can occur, within some limits of speed and complexity“ (NEWELL / SIMON 1976, 116).
These ideas – treating human information processing as equivalent to data processing systems – have left a broad trail in computer science and have dominated the development of IT systems for a long time. They have nurtured the hope of being able to artificially reproduce intelligence with computers and to build up ↑ expert systems. They have also led to ideas as symbiotic systems or convivial tools in human – computer interaction (FISCHER 1983). Expert systems usually represent knowledge about the world in the form of production
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rules, structured objects or logical calculus. The idea behind this kind of representation is that of universal truth. In reality, complex expert knowledge is bound to personalities and situations; it is historically and culturally determined in such a degree that inter-subjective and universal truth cannot be achieved. Moreover, experts never describe their knowledge in the form of rules or calculus; more often they outline it in the form of examples and typical situations. Therefore the so-called tacit knowledge (POLANYI 1966), based on practical experience cannot be completely acquired and formalized in a ↑ knowledge base (→ 5.1.5). The questions, what can computers do? can not be answered any more then what can they not (DREYFUS 1992)? As a counterpoint to the claims of ↑ artificial intelligence research work by psychologists has been undertaken on the question of best practice allocation of tasks between humans and computers (VOLPERT 1987b). Volpert’s idea when introducing the so-called contrastive paradigm has been to allocate the respective functions according to what humans can do best, and what computers can do best. But, also this question could not be answered unambiguously; the result has been a guideline for contrastive ↑ task analysis, KABA (DUNCKEL / VOLPERT/ ZOELCH ET AL. 1993) and the proposal for a new aspect in industrial science, the so-called ↑ work-oriented computer science (“Arbeitsinformatik”, RÖDIGER 1997). Because the first 50 years of computers have been dominated on the one hand by the trade unions’ fear that computers could absorb all human work, and on the other by the computer scientists’ belief that computers could stand substitute for all human work, throughout this time there has been an intensive discussion about ↑ task allocation. The deeper insight that none of these poles has taken place as well as the impossibility of finding criteria for the division of work for software engineers in advance in order to enable them to design adequate systems, and the emerging work about ↑ human factors in computing have placated this discussion between computer scientists, industrial scientists, psychologists and others involved in the design of human – computer interaction. Task analysis did not generate a sufficient solution either. The most common method of making these analyses
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is to perform a hierarchical task analysis according to Diaper/ Stanton (2004) that is useful only for well-known and well-structured problems. The issues in an internationalized market with high dynamics and complexity are not well structured and predictable; they cannot be solved by implemented workflows (→ 3.8.0). Therefore different types of system are required that put on individual competences and new forms of technical support. Therefore Diaper/ Stanton 2004, 603) came to the conclusion: “Today, task analysis is a mess”. Today’s discussion in human computer interaction is dominated by the term usability, and the question of task allocation has been volatilised to suitability for the task. 3.8.5.2 Usability Although Mauchly stated already in 1947 that “any machine coding system should be judged quite largely from the point of view of how easy it is for the operator to obtain results” (MAUCHLY 1982, 395),
software was created by experts for experts up to the late 1970s. Xerox’ Star (SMITH / IRBY/K IMBALL ET AL. 1982) and Apple’s Lisa (1983) are good examples. The result of the two computers’ introduction has been economic disaster: Both were wonderful machines, but nobody knew what to do with it. Together with the emergence of computers in all fields of working life questions of how to use them arose. The central term for all work in human – computer interaction since the beginning 1980s is therefore usability. Nielsen (1993, 26) associates usability with the following five attributes: “– Learnability: The system should be easy to learn so that the user can rapidly start getting some work done with the system. – ↑ efficiency: The system should be efficient to use, so that once the user has learned the system, a high level of productivity is possible. – Memorability: The system should be easy to remember, so that the casual user is able to return to the system after some period of not having used it, without having to learn everything all over again. – Errors: The system should have a low error rate, so that users make few errors during the use of the system, and so that if they do make errors they can easily recover from them. Further, catastrophic errors must not occur.
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– Satisfaction: The system should be pleasant to use, so that users are subjectively satisfied when using it; they like it”.
An international standard (INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ORGANISATION 1998) defines usability as “extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with ↑ effectiveness, ↑ efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use”. This
definition recognises that usability is playing two roles: an objective, overall goal of software design and a specific one that must be put in concrete terms with specific users in a particular context. Apart from this standard there exists a lot of other definitions and criteria sets for usability. An international standard (INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ORGANISATION 1996) offers a set of principles that will give a guideline for the design of interactive systems. Seven attributes are defined in order to fulfil the requirements of usability: suitability for the task, self-descriptiveness, controllability, conformity with user expectations, error tolerance, suitability for individualisation, and suitability for learning. The most important criteria with respect to vocational education research are suitability for the task and suitability for learning. Suitability for the task can be used to take up the discussion about allocation of task; suitability for learning (→ 3.7.6) can be interpreted as a requirement for the development of personality. Although these standards provide a binding source of reference they are not easy to apply for designers without experience in interaction design. The structure of ISO 9241-10 is deictic; but there is little help supplied to enable one to transfer the examples into one’s own design for usability (SOUZA / BEVAN 1990). Usability attained a new dimension with the arrival of the Internet (NIELSEN 2000). Billions of Web sites are not only a problem of navigation and aesthetics during leisure time. In the meantime most companies have switched their local applications to web-based applications that can be used via browsers. The emerging of an Internet economy and the increasing offers of public services via Internet have brought a new problem to light: accessibility, i.e. usability for a wide range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning difficulties, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech difficulties, photosensitivity and combina-
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tions of these. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (W3C 2006) which will make not only the Web content more accessible to the vast majority of users; it also helps to improve the traditional desktop applications. The following two books have the same concern: Universal Design (LIDWELL / HOLDEN / BUTLER 2003), Inclusive Design (CLARKSON / COLEMAN /K EATES 2003). Besides accessibility for the handicapped the actual discussion in human – computer interaction is dominated by the term ambient intelligence (REMAGNINO / FORESTI / ELLIS 2005). The meaning of ambient intelligence is being everywhere surrounded by wearable or regularly installed sensors or smart systems with which can be interactively acturated by speaking, touching, pointing, gesturing or eye moving. It is ubiquitous computing with all types of human communication. Usability is inextricably linked with evaluation (→ 5.4.1). To ascertain whether an ↑ IT system is usable it must be tested throughout its development (formative evaluation serving as a guideline for redesign) and at the end (summative evaluation for verification of the user requirements). A lot of different methods have been developed over the years; they can be divided into observation, questioning, experiments, analytical methods, and expert reviews. All take place in three steps: (1) describing the required and the delivered features; (2) comparing the required with the delivered features; (3) assessing the delivered features taking account of the difference found in (2). A widely spread method is so-called heuristic evaluation; it is based on the ↑empirical knowledge that experts’ opinions converge very quickly to a unified one. Nevertheless acceptance tests with real users are indispensable in ambient intelligence, because these pervasive technologies raise a lot of ethical and socio-cultural questions. 3.8.5.3 From User-Centred Design to WorkOriented Computer Science Product criteria alone do not guarantee usable systems. The task of interaction design “… designing interactive products to support people in their everyday and working lives” (PREECE / ROGERS / SHARP 2002, v) is requiring a special development process.
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Not only since the Xerox Star flopped economically is there a long scientific discussion and an operational practice about the right methodology of developing IT systems. The poles of this discussion and internal company experiments are characterised by the traditional, technology-based design approach on the one hand and a type of ↑ user involvement on the other (→ 3.8.2). In the traditional, technology-based approach the company’s responsible persons, who do not have to work with the future system, together with software engineers are making all the design decisions. There are numerous examples in the past that this type of IT system development has led to ineffective, hardly usable systems (MUMFORD / WEIR 1979; CORBETT / RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1991). The Xerox Star is an example that a virtual involvement of users is not sufficient. The methodology, the designers have used (NEWMAN / SPROULL 1979), suggested “to design an intended user’s model in terms of which the tasks may be cast” instead of involving real users. To need to involve real users in the development of new IT systems, especially in interaction design has therefore been obvious (→ 3.8.2). One of the first ideas of participatory design (PD) came up in Germany, promoted by the German Industrial Constitution Law of 1972, in which the thought of co-determination as a principle of the economic system is laid down. The basic idea of PD is to incorporate users along the whole iterative development process of new IT systems, not only at the beginning as interviewees or at the end as testers, but as co-designers, who evaluate and redesign the software step by step. The concept of PD is nevertheless controversial: “The arguments in favour suggest that more user involvement brings more accurate information about tasks and an opportunity for users to influence design decisions. … On the other hand, extensive user involvement may be costly and may lengthen the implementation period” (SHNEIDERMAN / PLAISANT 2005, 125).
A good overview about practices and tools of PD is given in Schuler/ Namioka (1993). In the meantime lots of different methods for designing human – computer interaction with the involvement of users have been developed. Two directions can be seen: the European one (NYGARD 1986; EHN 1988) relying “on a moralistic call upon individual designers to be more ‘humanistic’
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in their design philosophy” (SALZMAN 1992, 68), and the more pragmatic, American one. Pragmatic in the sense that not ethical convictions about life at large and work in particular are guiding the development of ↑ IT systems; the interests of workers in their future work and best practice approaches characterise these methodologies. Examples are ↑ User Centered System Design (NORMAN /DRAPER 1986), Skill-Based Design (SALZMAN 1992), ↑ Contextual Design (BEYER / HOLTZBLATT 1998; BERINGER / HOLTZBLATT 2006), and ScenarioBased Development (ROSSON / CARROLL 2002). The aim of these methodologies is always the same: to improve the usability of IT systems by involving users throughout the complete development process. The modus operandi and the tools are different. Work design is always at the centre, but there is no discussion about what is going on with the workers’ skills. New IT systems or the redesign of legacy systems give the opportunity to workers to improve their skills and to deliver routine work to computers. It is a well-known matter of fact that workers do not want to accomplish routine tasks that can easily be executed by computers. Contextual Design and Scenario-Based Development are targeted to efficient solutions in man-computer interaction. Propagating user-centredness these approaches are nevertheless system-oriented: “Teams deliver work practice, but the way they deliver it is through a system solution” (BEYER / HOLTZBLATT 1998, 215). And, according to Rosson/ Carroll (2002)
“a description of work involves three dimensions; the activities …, the artefacts …, the social context” (ibid., 38 f.); tasks and skills to fulfil them are missing in this description. In his textbook review, survey results, and case studies about IT system design Salzman is come to the conclusion: “The prevailing design approaches are based on a mechanistic view of humans. The recent (modest) interest in ergonomics and safety bring the physiological requirements of human activity to the attention of equipment designers, but have not altered the fundamental principles by which engineers conceptualize their goals and objectives” (SALZMAN 1992, 91).
Especially his case studies verify the traditional approach in designing interactive systems that “automates wherever possible” (ibid.) as inefficient.
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“The alternative approach pushes decision-making and process adjustment responsibilities down to the worker” (ibid.).
The research and development (R&D) work in ↑ human factors has also drawn attention to psychological requirements. Most of today’s interactive systems are indeed usable from a handling point of view. From a problem-solving point of view they persist in most cases in the automation paradigm that understands humans as an error-prone system that should be eliminated out of the ↑ work process. The R&D work in human factors must pick up again the discussion about ↑ task allocation under the requirements of today’s work processes rather than under the old question “Who can do better?” The complexity of the actual working environments requires IT systems that support the workers’ skills instead of replacing it (→ 3.8.1). Human expertise in assessment and evaluation should be combined with assistive technologies. – Instead of learning the use of IT systems via manuals, they should be developed along the criteria suitability for learning, and therefore allow the users to learn during usage (INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ORGANISATION 1996); – Instead of automating ↑ diagnosis, decisionmaking, and process adjustment responsibility for decision-making and process adjustment should be pushed down to workers (SALZMAN 1992, 91); – Instead of rule-based ↑ diagnostic systems that predict the current state of man (medical) or machine (e. g. car) IT systems should be created that proof and evaluate the human diagnosis (RHEINDESEL / PUPPE 1998) The R&D work in human factors has drawn attention to a lot of details about human – computer interaction and has improved the interfaces. The quality of an interactive system and the question how much it provides in a given problem situation will not be decided at the interface between man and machine. As long as software engineers or human factors investigators try to fulfil the criteria suitability for the task, task allocation has already been done and their work is mere cosmetics. The question “Who is doing what?” is decided by the system’s functionality and is in the kernel of the software. ↑ User-centred design therefore must start with the questions “What are the requirements of future work?” and “Which part in this
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work is necessarily played be the workers’ skills?” and also “What kind of support can be delivered by software systems?” The question how to design the interface is under these conditions in fact a significant one but not the most important. In order to create interactive systems that are adequate to the demands of a knowledge-based economy with unprecedented high dynamics and complexity the different threads – task allocation, skill based design, ↑ human factors, and software engineering – must be brought together, maybe under the roof of ↑ work-oriented computer science (“Arbeitsinformatik”, VOLPERT 1993; RÖDIGER 1997). The works of Salzman (1992) and Göranzon (1995) will be a good starting point.
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Section 4: Case Studies of TVET Research Philipp Grollmann and Geoff Hayward
Case Studies of TVET Research
4.0
Case Studies of TVET Research Philipp Grollmann and Geoff Hayward
4.0.1
Introduction
This section illustrates the extent of topics in and approaches to TVET research and provides an insight into the development, the research process and the outcomes of individual research projects (→ 4.1; → 4.2; → 4.4; → 4.5; → 4.6; → 4.9) and programmes (→ 4.7; → 4.8; → 4.10). It shows that TVET research is far away from a well delineated field of study and research or a discipline of its own, and that there are multiple approaches to its conceptualisation and different levels of investigation. As many contributions to this handbook show, TVET is embedded into complex interplays of historically grown societal functions. Patterns of technological and economic innovation, ↑ labour markets and industrial relations as well as educational systems and traditions are the main determinants of the actual situation, ↑ policies and practices of TVET in different countries as comparative and historiographic studies on the development of TVET have documented (e. g. DAY 1987; GREEN 1990; LAUTERBACH / SPÖTTL / FASSHAUER ET AL. 1994ff.). With this variation, the research-questions, methodologies and the location in disciplinary landscapes vary, accordingly (→ 1; → 2). Those varying national and cultural traditions of TVET research are however based on similar historical roots as well as confronted with concurrent challenges caused through “megatrends”, such as the increasing ↑ globalisation and international competition and the increased speed of technological and economic innovation (see also the contribution of Achtenhagen and Weber in this section). As to the joint roots one can refer to learning in practice and its institutionalisation in form of master-apprentice relations, as a central European tradition, which can not only be found in the medieval crafts sector but also in other cultures as ethnological studies on learning have illustrated impres-
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sively (CHAIKLIN / LAVE 1996; LAVE / WENGER 1991). Learning in environments of enacted practice as opposed to more formalised learning settings such as in schools, colleges and universities can claim to be an anthropological constant and is probably more widespread than the universal modern systems of schooling (→ 3.4.2; → 3.6.1). As to the universal challenges many problems regarding the reproduction and further development of technical, technological and economic knowledge and its societal allocation are very similar across cultures, when looking beyond the surface of international variations. To some extent the programmatic of the “↑ knowledge society” stands in the way of acknowledging the significant function of skills and more implicit forms of knowledge (NEUWEG 2004a; POLANYI 1983; SCHÖN 1983) for economic and social processes than usually associated with the term “knowledge society or economy” (ASHEIM / ISAKSEN 2000; GAVIGAN / OTTITSCH / MAHROUM 1999; OECD/HRSDC 1997). Nevertheless, in all industrialised countries certain forms of researching aspects and structures of TVET have developed (→ 1). Very broadly speaking, the state of institutionalisation of research on TVET as a domain or even discipline of research varies with the degree to which Vocational Education is assigned a significant role and a formal structure within the overall educational and socioeconomic environment. Since learning in and for work settings does not constitute an explicit part of the educational system in many educational traditions, any attempt to depict the current position with regard to the global situation of the institutionalisation of this research has to be rather open in nature (see also the contribution of Achtenhagen and Weber in this section) . The roots on which the development of the different strands of TVET research are based are shown in the following table. Relevant established scientific disciplines that constitute the main conceptual frameworks are also assigned to those traditions. In the last column the contributions in this section are listed with regard to their main focus. All in all TVET research can be broadly clustered along a dimension of more work and employment oriented and more learning oriented ↑ research designs and approaches.
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Tab. 1: The case studies: Overwiew
We did not aim at a representative selection of cases of TVET research, but we think that we have managed to identify a number of cases which spans this spectrum of roots of TVET research. Each of the authors in this section was left great freedom with regard to setting focuses within their chapters. 4.0.2
Economic Research on Costs and Benefits of Education and Learning
The question in how far training and learning contributes to individuals’, companies’ and economies’ success and at what costs is as crucial as it is difficult to answer. A series of empirical studies has been carried out with regard to this question in recent years (ACEMOGLU 1997; ACEMOGLU / PISCHKE 1998; 1999a; 1999b; BOUGHEAS / GEORGELLIS 2001; CLARK 2001; GROSSMANN / MEYER 2002). This research is complemented by broader approaches with the aim of understanding the contribution of learning, qualifications and training to national economies (HALL / SOSKICE 2004). It is this per-
spective in which the contribution of Mayhew and Keep is rooted. The most striking feature of the results of their analysis is that they suggest policy and ↑ research strategies which go beyond the demarcation of the economics of TVET and cover a broader conception of understanding the relationship between individual learning, ↑ TVET policies and the political economy of different stakeholders in TVET. This perspective has fed into the work of the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council’s (ESRC) ↑ Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE), which examines the links between the acquisition and use of skills and knowledge, product market strategies and ↑ performance with broader conceptions of assessing and measuring than usually applied in economics. Therefore, it represents a research perspective with a significant effect on the further development of TVET research in one of the major industrialised countries.
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4.0.3
Socio-Economic Training and Qualification Research
Very close and entangled with the approaches mentioned above, industrial sociology has looked into the relationship between the form of work organisation, industrial policies and developments in society. It has become clear that the whole complex of skills, knowledge and education is an important variable in this interplay. The studies presented by Manske in this section are located in this school of thinking and researching TVET. It is typical for this way of approaching TVET, that it traditionally has conceived of TVET as a dependent variable, determined by economical and technological factors (qualification “requirements”). Industrial sociological research stemming from this tradition has also brought forward fundamental comparative empirical studies on the relationship between TVET and work, such as the work of Drexel or Maurice/ Sorge (DREXEL 1995; MAURICE / SORGE 1990). Through these comparative approaches, it has eventually become clear that a one-directional relationship between technology and employment and qualification, knowledge and skills is a too reductionist concept (see also RUTH 1995). 4.0.4
Life-Course and School-to-Work Transition
Also in a sociological tradition, but looking more at education, training and work in a subjective perspective, ↑ school-to-work transition and how this affects individual attitudes and identity formation has been a much researched field. The contribution by Witzel examines a research project with this focus, which is complemented by similar studies with a stronger labour-market orientation (BRAUNS / MÜLLER / STEINMANN 1997; GANGL 2002; MÜLLER 1997; SHAVIT/ MÜLLER 1998). Too often in writing about ↑ qualitative research we are left with an impoverished understanding of the pathway from data to findings. This is certainly not the case in this contribution on Youth Identity drawing upon the work of Baethge et al. (1988). We are provided with a suitably detailed account of the construction of a typology based upon interviews with 168 young people about their transitions into employment and the impact upon their sense of
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self. The large sample enables a number of structural factors to be brought into play in constructing the typology, and this leads to a more nuanced and detailed account of transition and identity than we are used to in the literature. Furthermore, the study starts from an explicitly theoretical stance, as an attempt to engage critically with an overly simplistic rendition of young people’s relationship with the ↑ labour market. The result is a more complex but ultimately more believable account of the experiences of these young people and the sense they made of those experiences. The work is now dated but the methodological approach adopted lends itself to replication (not least because we know how the typology was constructed and enacted) and the real possibility of comparative work to see how the constructed categories play out in other settings as in later examples (BEHRENS / HURRELMANN / BROWN 1995; EVANS / HEINZ 1993). 4.0.5
Research on Human Resources Development
In policy making discourse and in the advice of management consultants certain phrases and ideas seem to adopt a life of their own. High ↑ performance working seems to be such a concept. Originally it was developed in American studies on the development of work organisation, knowledge and ↑ commitment (APPELBAUM / BAILEY/ BERG / K ALLEBERG 2000). However, as Andy Smith’s contribution indicates, the evidence for the use of ↑ high performance work systems is scant. What existing evidence suggests is that high performance working pays off but that it may be difficult to implement in an organisation. The reason is that it requires change across several dimensions of the organisation to incorporate new bundles of HR management strategies such as performance related pay, 360 appraisal and various forms of team working. There is as yet little evidence about the role of training in supporting high performance working, and it is here that Smith’s study makes a contribution. Methodologically it emphasises how much can be learnt from detailed, micro-level case studies to examine the synergy between organisational practices and a policy initiative, here the introduction of nationally recognised training in ↑ Australia. It was this synergy that enabled the
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case study firm to implement the training structures and programmes on which to base their successful high performance working strategy. This contribution shows that TVET can also be an important dimension of ↑ HRD. Worldwide the most prominent example of the combination of an HRD focus and the importance of TVET is the work of Michael Porter (1990). 4.0.6
Research on Work, Technology and Learning
The article by Wilfred Kruse identifies an important new paradigm on research linking occupational analysis to the design of learning programmes that enable young people to make the journey from beginner to expert as automotive mechatronics technicians. This contribution is especially valuable for two reasons. First, it shows the strength of a ↑ research design which is essentially collaborative and dialogic. Researchers effectively become part of the ↑ community of practice of expert automotive mechatronics technicians who in turn become more fully involved in the research process. This leads to a deeper understanding of the nature of the work being done, which enables such work to be modelled at a more abstract level, essential to cope with the explosion of technological information in this area and to avoid over-specialisation in training. Second, the article highlights the immense challenge of turning such understandings into an educational curriculum that does justice to both the technical aspects of an occupation (which can be come easily overemphasised) and the important social aspects of the work context, for example the changing economics of the automotive trade. Finally, the broader European aspects are considered and a convincing argument is made that exemplary work assignments, which embody the essence of this research and development model, may be a useful way to spread good practice for learning in this occupational sector across national boundaries. With its strong focus at the content of work and education it is representative of a relatively young ↑ research tradition labelled with the terms “occupational disciplines” and “↑ work process knowledge” (BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002; BREMER, R. 2002; FISCHER 2000; PAHL / RAUNER 1998; RAUNER
2000a). The major aim of this strand of research is to bring together the more work related perspectives mentioned above and a learning and curriculum view. 4.0.7
Educational and Curriculum Research
Innovation in VET remains an area of considerable interest and policy concern. Yet too rarely do we learn the lessons of history about how to design and undertake innovatory pilot programmes. This issue is addressed in the contribution by Ute Laur-Ernst through her examination of the ↑ Multimedia System Electrical Engineering/Electronics (MME) pilot in the 1970s. Occurring at a time of considerable debate about how to reform the ↑ VET system in Germany, the MME was an ambitious project that morphed over its lifetime from a standard quasi-experimental ↑ research design to a programme of action research. The analysis suggests that adopting this research perspective ultimately provided more fruitful in driving forward innovation in VET practice in both schools and workplaces, and helping the innovation to stick. In addition to this important lesson, at a time when greater emphasis is being placed on ↑ experimental designs as the sine qua non of VET evaluation, LaurErnst emphasises the need for pilots to be of a sufficient scale to produce meaningful results, the need to recognise the complexity of VET in pilot design, and the need for systematic evaluation of pilots before they are implemented more widely. These are important points that need to be heeded by both researchers and policy makers commissioning innovation and ↑ evaluation research. Comparative ↑ research in VET is not uncommon but is often undertaken for more theoretical than practical purposes. This is not the case with research reported by Zhao Zhiqun and Xu Han on the adaptation of the German ↑ dual system in the reform of VET in ↑ China. The reader is struck by the reflexivity of the research process as Chinese and German colleagues collaborated to understand what aspects and ideas might transfer from the German to the Chinese context and how Chinese researchers, working collaboratively with school administrators and teachers began to unravel the complexities of the reform process. What result-
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ed was not a naïve policy borrowing process but a methodologically sophisticated process of adaptation of educational ideas to fit them with a different context. In the process, the Vocational Education Reform Promotion through Learning from the German Dual System (VERDualS) project helped develop ↑ educational ↑ research capacity in ↑ China and raises interesting questions about policy learning between developed and ↑ developing countries. 4.0.8
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ther conceptualisation of practical and ↑ implicit knowledge as a specific ↑ knowledge base in professional work. In addition it has become clear how crucial this knowledge acquired through practical experience is for the professional perception of work-problems and their solutions.
4.1
Empirical Research on Learning and the Development of Expertise
Even though learning and teaching are at the heart of TVET processes, the two have often been overlooked by TVET research, which dealt with policies, systems, structures and provision. This was one of the main shortcomings to be tackled by the network of researchers presented by Achtenhagen and Weber, which also constitutes an interesting account of efforts and challenges in cross- or trans-national research in TVET see also the work of European Network FORUM, e. g. in Dietzen/ Kuhn 1998). Achtenhagen and Weber put forward the constructivist assumption that under certain conditions school-based instruction can be as powerful in vocational learning as the learning in practice. In contrast to this view, the contribution of Benner and the contribution of James focus on the individual processes of knowledge acquisition in and for work practice. The importance of practice for vocational learning has been stressed by several ↑ research approaches (e. g. CHAIKLIN / LAVE 1996; HOLZKAMP 1995; LAVE / WENGER 1991; SCHÖN 1983) and is one of the core features of TVET research in contrast to general research on teaching and learning (e. g. BRANSFORD 2004). James’ contribution provides a rich account on the complex methodologies needed in order to answer ↑ research questions focussing on the multi-faceted reality of this very micro-level of TVET research. The contribution by Benner is classical in regard to its application of the ↑ novice-expert-paradigm of Dreyfus and Dreyfus to a certain professional domain. It has influenced nursing research, training and practice. Major findings of the different research projects carried out in nursing using this paradigm have re-inforced and helped to the fur-
Pilot Test MME: Innovation Project at the Turning Point (BBF) Ute Laur-Ernst
4.1.1
Introduction
The innovation project described below was carried out at the very beginning of a specific and systematic research in vocational education and training (VET) in Germany. For a long time VET was not an original subject of research. This gap was overcome when the Federal Government set the reform of the “German ↑ Dual System of Vocational Education and Training” (→ 1.4) on the top of the political agenda at the end of the 1960s. The responsible stakeholders in those days agreed to base the intended modernisation of the organisation, the subjects and the learning methods in VET on empirical findings and theoretical knowledge. As a main instrument for innovation they proposed and financed the so called “Modellversuche” (pilot tests/↑ pilot projects), which made it possible to test modern curricular and learning concepts under the real conditions existing in schools and companies involved in VET. Each pilot project was accompanied by an external scientific team (so-called “Wissenschaftliche Begleitung”), that carried out investigations and studies to prove from a “neutral” viewpoint the quality and ↑ efficiency of the innovation tested. These empirical data should be used for further political decisions. Until now the innovation instrument “Modellversuch” exists in Germany – beside the different EU programmes and their pilot projects. But it has changed in several aspects. One crucial change was pushed very early by the pilot project MME in particular with respect to the function of scientists (“Wissenschaftliche Begleitung”), the ↑ research
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approach, and the understanding of innovation as an active and co-operative learning process for all participants. Further insights concerning the quality of innovations, their transfer, implementation and modus of finance – meanwhile also gained from other pilot projects on the national and international level – were not taken up until now neither by the political administration nor by the scientific community (→ 2.4). That is not surprising, but it postpones reform and modernisation in education. Systematic exploitation of available experiences as well as more research in the structure and dynamic of change is necessary to improve VET-systems all over the world. In this sense the “old pilot test MME” provides also today some relevant information for the future. 4.1.2
Historical-Political Context
In the 1970s the Federal Institute for Vocational Training (today BIBB, then the BBF) developed and carried out one of the biggest pilot tests in its history on its own responsibility: the pilot test ↑ Multimedia System Electrical Engineering/Electronics, in short MME. It started throughout the Federal Republic of Germany with 56 (part time) ↑ vocational schools from all the Federal German states at that time and lasted a good six years (1972 to 1977/78). It focussed on the development, testing and implementation of an open, curricular multimedia system with full geographical coverage and a modular structure for training in the rapidly changing professional and working environment of electrical engineering/electronics (R AUNER 1972; 1975). This reform project was unusual not only in respect of its content and volume, but also from the political viewpoint, as it was the Federal Government, which is not responsible for the vocational schools, and the BBF, which had only just been set up and which was primarily intended to address the companies with trainees, that took the active role. Subsequently, the business side intervened after a short time and declared its own interests. These were taken up by the project group in the BBF and from 1975 a second leg of the project was started in parallel involving 20 industrial companies (until 1980). In this way the pilot test now corresponded to the dual structure of vocational training. Both learning locations: the vocational
school and the industrial company were involved, but hardly co-operated with each other at all – the usual situation. The decision regarding the MME pilot test was taken during the boom time of education reforms in Germany. The ↑ Vocational Training Law had recently been passed (1969). The expectation was for an upswing in professional basic and advanced training through innovative research under closely simulated conditions of practice. However, the readiness for reform that was encountered did not mean an absence of conflict. On the contrary at the beginning of the innovation project it was necessary to resolve some controversies with the representatives of the Federal German states (despite the consent of the Commission of the Federal Government and the Federal and State Commission for ↑ Educational Planning and Research Support, BLK) and of business. Thus there was for example a suspicion that the curricular decisions of the cultural and educational administrations at the Federal state level and of the social partners at the Federal Government level were to be undermined by means of learning media that could be used throughout the Federal Republic of Germany. And the intention expressed in the action programme and educational report of the Federal German Government of 1970 to increase the ↑ efficiency of teaching-learning processes by means of ↑ educational technology caused teachers and instructors to fear that didactic concepts were to be tried out in the pilot test that would make it possible to reduce personnel in schools and company training departments. Although the MME pilot test was considered to be “non-political”, because it was positioned at the microlevel, it was initially regarded with scepticism in terms of ↑ educational policy. The first task was therefore to create confidence. 4.1.3
Objectives and Solution Concept of the Pilot Test
The MME pilot test was conducted under the general motto of “Qualitative Improvement of Vocational Training”. This meant in particular: – Overcoming long-established structures in ↑ vocational school tuition,
Case Studies of TVET Research
– Developing technical and ↑ interdisciplinary qualifications of importance to the ↑ profession that had hitherto been neglected in schools and companies, – Strengthening the position of the learner in the training process, – A holistic orientation in training, simultaneously accompanied by media-didactic differentiation. Besides this redesigning of standard practice in terms of the priorities of content and methods, the pilot test pursued scientific targets: an increase in knowledge concerning the design and ↑ effectiveness of learning media as well as the positioning of recent vocational ↑ training research in practiceoriented projects, and in this context the further development of the pilot test as an instrument of reform. This multi-level objective required a complex structure of the pilot test and an ↑ interdisciplinary project group. What did the solution concept look like? What ↑ innovation strategy was adopted? From the didactic viewpoint, the combination of modern educational technology with the method of programmed instruction deriving from behaviourism appeared to be a promising approach. The first positive results in respect of learning with programmed materials were now available in the field of vocational training. At the same time the modern communications media such as film (Super 8) and video as well as an innovative concept of mobile experimental tools (modular teaching toolkits) promised to make the relatively monotonous tuition in vocational schools more attractive, more differentiated and more efficient. In line with standard pilot test practice, the project group embarked upon the innovation project with a relatively complete solution concept. Although the MME multi-media system was not completely developed, the new learning media for two topic areas (DC current technology and electronics) were already available for testing. A differentiated, quasi-experimental ↑ research design had been worked out for this, which was to supply reliable empirical data for two objectives: – for the revision as well as an improved design of the learning materials still at the planning stage for alternating current technology, electrical machines and protective measures, and
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– for insights regarding the determinants and effects of active, motivating tuition with modern media. To supplement this it was envisaged that the implementation of the pilot test, in other words the ↑ innovation process, should be critically monitored in order to discover starting points for its organisational and instrumental optimisation. In summary, the MME pilot test initially followed a “rational-empirical” innovation strategy in which a scientifically substantiated “good solution” (the multi-media system) was to be tried out on a broad basis and empirically analysed in order to subsequently become a fixed feature of dayto-day teaching practice. In fact however the pilot test took a different course. After a relatively short time, there was a change of strategy: the originally planned process of testing and implementation became a target-oriented, innovative learning process (“normative-competence based”), in which researchers and practitioners equally took part. 4.1.4
Dynamic Innovation Process
The pilot test is characterised by three turning points with long-term effects on vocational ↑ training research and practice: – from the quasi-experimental field test to an action-oriented research project, – from a teacher focus to a learner focus in the training process and – from the segmented teaching of knowledge and skills with a specifically technical bias to an integrated, comprehensive qualification. These three new orientations are exemplary for the innate dynamics of innovation projects and show that they are to be understood as living learning processes with an uncertain outcome that cannot be planned in detail in advance and that they must be flexibly designed taking account of the current level of insights and competence of the participants in each case.
Change in the Research Paradigm By analogy with sociological and psychological research practice, at the beginning of the pilot test a hypothetical concept was developed the empirical examination of which was to be carried out by way
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of a quasi-experimental field test. Fundamentally it was assumed (“explanation model”) that the intended improvement in the quality of training can be achieved with the aid of alternative as well as differently combinable programmed learning media for theoretical and experimental teaching contents and their embedding in various learning arrangements. In this way the usual separation of theoretical and laboratory and/or workshop tuition was to be overcome, e. g. through co-operation of the teachers (“team teaching”) on the basis of the interrelated teaching programmes and experimental exercises. The dominant frontal teaching method was to be supplanted by self-learning on the part of the students with programmed material, and the latter were to be assigned an active role. Furthermore learning situations were arranged for the independent and co-operative conducting of experiments on the modular teaching toolkit in order to replace the usual teaching by demonstration (GUTSCHMIDT/K REIGENFELD / LAUR ET AL. 1974). On the basis of innovative didactic considerations, varied teaching plans were systematically worked out which covered the multivariate ↑ research design. The objective was to measure and analyze short-term and longer-term learning success, attitudes to training as well as emotional evaluations of the media-based learning arrangements. The starting point in these contexts was not a simple relationship between “stimulus” and “reaction” but consisted in mediating moderator variables (intelligence, general education, interest in the subject etc.), which could explain the expected individual differences. These moderator variables also included teacher characteristics (e. g. age, professional experience, authoritarian or partnershiplike and rigid or flexible behaviour) as well as important boundary conditions at the schools (size and heterogeneity of the classes, school budget). Teachers and students were informed about the manner of proceeding and the objectives of the test and were requested to consistently adhere to the teaching plans (“experimental conditions”) over a period of one to two years in several classes as well as to carry out the standardised tests, surveys and controls of what had actually been learnt. Besides these quantitative instruments, for special question complexes (e. g. co-operative learning with
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the modular teaching toolkit) qualitative methods such as observation, interviews and ↑ group discussions were applied (for the basics of these methods see → 5.1.6). In this way, a complex compilation of data about approx. 170 teachers and several thousand students was built up, which was continuously evaluated with high statistical input (descriptive and explanatory ↑ statistics) and was later finally evaluated. The extensive results have been documented (LAUR-ERNST 1981a). To begin with, the teaching plans were accepted by the teachers as a practical aid in order to properly handle and wield the various new modules of the MME. With growing experience and competence, they were however felt to be a restriction. The teachers wanted to design and try out their own teaching concepts. This was the turning point: The “object role” of the partners in practice that had been structurally created in the sociological experiment had to be converted to a “subject role”. This change corresponded to the paradigm of the action research that was at that time a topic of controversial discussion. According to this, the experts from the practical side were to be considered as co-designers of the research process with equal rights. This was done. In consequence, the test specifications were dropped; the teachers logged the use of media which they determined; the design of the investigation was restructured as a whole. The research side gave up its role of a “neutral” observer and supported the ↑ innovation process by supplying the empirically gained data and pertinent pedagogic-psychological findings (LAUR 1978). Cooperation also grew significantly in respect of the development of media. Teachers participated in the concept development and drafting of media and proposed improvements in the organisation of the learning. There were intensive discourses about necessary didactic innovations in vocational training, which significantly exceeded the original concept of the MME. This paradigmatic change in the MME pilot test was a signal to the administration to generally redefine the hitherto required external control function of “scientific accompaniment” within the meaning of action research (in this connection in general see → 5.4.3). A corresponding change was effected in the promotion guidelines. In the teach-
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ing activities in the companies, action research was practised from the very beginning on the basis of the experience gained. In this context the instructors were initially provided with the learning documents for the ↑ vocational school (specialist subject electronics) in order to work out a complementary company-specific qualification concept against this background.
Centring on the Learner and the Changed Role of the Teacher The socio-political orientation of the initiators of the pilot test was manifested in the objective of the “democratisation” of the vocational school, an objective typical of that time (RAUNER 1972). In principle this meant two things: – greater independence of the students/trainees from the teacher, as well as – the breaching of self-contained “teacher-proof” curricula. How were these intentions translated into practice? On the basis of professionally faultless programmed learning documents reflecting the technical state of the art – this was the train of thought – the young people can learn what is correct and important with a good portion of independence from the degree of competence of the teachers. This was a major advantage in view of the gaps in knowledge to be observed in the case of many teachers by virtue of rapid technological change in the working world (e. g. at that time in the field of digital electronics). In addition, the student/trainee was drawn out of his mostly passive-receptive role in the tuition process. He now took over an active part that promoted learning. In the case of programmed instruction, however, independence has clear limits – even if in the MME these were somewhat loosened by means of freely designed tasks, branched paths of learning and media variants (books, audiovisual slide presentations, films, experiments). This is substantiated by the data and practical experience gained in the field trial. The critical-reflective discussion of these led to a joint new development, namely “learner-controlled exercises”, which were later supplemented by even more open documents for “learning projects” that were to be carried out independently. In this way, the step towards self-controlled learning through action was
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accomplished in the pilot test. But the fact could not be ignored that not all young people benefited from this openness to the same extent, just as the programmed instruction definitely had positive effects in the case of some of the learners (general information on ↑ media research → 3.7.9). Within the framework of the company-based part, the logical consequences were drawn from this and a further media innovation was worked out: the “practical technical exercises”, which were oriented more to real ↑ work tasks and which made “steered” learning actions possible. With the “modules concept” that then followed, the trainees and apprentices were able to produce complete and functional products (e. g. measuring devices or amplifiers). In this way the didactically demanding project idea was successfully converted to a form that was accepted by the training organisation in the company (GUTSCHMIDT/ LAUR 1978). The media changed the role of the teacher (R AUNER 1980). He could make a selection from among the media alternatives on offer (audiovisual slide presentation, book, film, programmed or learner-controlled exercise) and design his tuition with many variant forms and different methods. He became the organiser of the learning process and in this situation he himself became an individual learning counsellor – a role which at that time was in no way usual. The dominant self-perception of teachers was that of the incontestable “mediator of knowledge”. The indubitably difficult re-interpretation of his own role required personal reflection and a widening of his technical and didactic competence. The pilot test offered a suitable framework for this. Finally yet another step was taken towards greater self-determination and curricular openness of the multi-media system (for example in the field of electronics): the profession-related parallel offer. Teachers and instructors could decide between alternative exercises (contents) with the same qualification target. Here however the MME came up against a limit in terms of practicability; the new option was only partially used.
More Integration and a More Holistic Approach in the Learning Process The splitting up of learning processes due to the strong differentiation of the learning objectives
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and the strict division of labour between school and business company led to a segmented professional qualification, which no longer did justice to the growing complexity of requirements in the real working world. A more holistic approach and greater integration were necessary. This meant in concrete terms: The separation of theory and practice as well as the one-sided concentration on vocational qualifications had to be overcome. The former was accomplished by means of the harmonised theoretical and experimental media, the modular teaching toolkits that could be set up anywhere as well as the design and furnishings of technical instruction rooms. However this undisputed didactic improvement triggered conflicts in some ↑ vocational schools. The incorporation of experimental work into the tuition of the “theory teachers” in some cases met with strong resistance and vice versa: the imparting of theoretical knowledge within the framework of laboratory and experimental instruction by the “technical or workshop teachers” did so too. Alongside the corresponding self-perception of status in each case, the classification of the two types of teacher in different pay groups constituted a serious obstacle to innovation. It was finally up to the school management to find a constructive solution in favour of the improvement in quality. In the pilot test in the companies, this problem did not exist. Here both knowledge components were interlinked in the same media module (practical technical exercises) from the very beginning. That was indubitably better than linking them by means of subsequent organisational measures as in the schools. However in this context it was primarily a question of technical knowledge as a prerequisite for concrete practical technical action, not one of teaching theoretical, scientific reasons and conducting corresponding experiments. Both were allocated to the school as a qualification task by the training companies. This also applied in the case of the promotion of the personality of the trainees, which in the MME pilot test acquired a greater emphasis through the development of more independence and cooperativeness. This was expected of the vocational school by virtue of its teaching mandate; the companies initially saw no task for themselves in this. One fact that played a spe-
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cial role in this context was that independent action was not envisaged in the regulating instruments for the training of skilled workers that were applicable in those days. On the contrary: the skilled worker was to carry out his work for the company expressly in accordance with the specifications – not more. Another bone of contention was the co-operative learning promoted in the test. This was regarded critically by both instructors and teachers. The prevailing argument here was that the co-operation of the students blurred the individual achievement that was to be assessed. Both reservations diminished with the passing of time, due not least to a modern organisation of labour in progressive companies that attached greater importance to independent teams. The educational breakthrough of ↑ key qualifications across different occupations – for this is what it amounted to in the MME innovation project, even if it was not named as such – and of a complex understanding was however not achieved until the restructuring of the ↑ metalworking and electrical engineering ↑ professions in the mid-1980s. The MME pilot test contributed to preparing the ground for this as did also the similarly designed pilot test Multi-Media System Metal Engineering (MMM) that was begun somewhat later in the BIBB. 4.1.5
Evaluation and Information Strategy
The field test as well as all further empirical investigations were measures of formative evaluation, an essential element of the ↑ innovation process (“action model”). This evaluation was supplemented by theoretical discussions with the teachers involved as well as with external scientists. The most important results are the well-founded Contributions to Experimental Tuition (BIBB 1975) and the critical assessment of the pilot test from the viewpoint of communicative action, in which the media-didactic approach was problematised (NEUMANN / STIEHL 1976). The dual evaluation strategy (empirical and theoretical) underscores the character of the pilot test as an open learning and development process (for general information on this see → 3.6.4). Transparency was altogether an important design element. Thus all those involved – also the partic-
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ipating students/trainees – were continuously informed about the intentions and results of the pilot test. A wide variety of brochures, “infos”, reports as well as scientific publications were produced. However this information policy came up against limits. In both legs of the project, in the schools and in the companies, there was a structurally-induced communications problem due to the different interests, competence and language of research and practice. This problem was not capable of solution but could only be brought to a balance acceptable to both sides. Even in an action research project, the actors necessarily remain tied to their social and professional context. However bridges can be built; overlap zones crystallised, and these were of decisive importance for the success of the innovation project. In the MME pilot test, two facts here played a decisive role: the competence and here in particular the professional competence of the participants on both sides as well as the personality characteristics such as credibility, communication skills and empathy. 4.1.6
Implementation and Utilisation of the Results
In the MME pilot test, more than 600 modules including accompanying material were developed and partially revised for the five ↑ subject areas (DC current and AC current technology, electrical machines and protective measures as well as electronics). The test therefore entailed a huge amount of production, which absorbed a lot of capacity. The reason for this comprehensive approach in the production of the media was the following: As experience shows, individual new media rapidly disappeared; they remained innovative “islands” in the otherwise unchanged practical environment and did not have the power to set in motion a lasting reorganisation of the teaching-learning processes. But this is expected of a multi-media system that covers all contents, and the development and testing of which involved a large number of schools and companies. For this reason the transfer problem, which it is well known is the reason why many pilot tests fail, played no comparable role in the innovation project MME. After all, no made-to-measure solutions were produced for a selected minority of
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↑ vocational schools or companies; on the contrary different interests, traditions, boundary conditions and envisaged objectives were taken into account as far as possible. The learning materials and learning arrangements were designed with an eye to a wide spectrum of potential users; later marketing was envisaged (“utilisation model”). During the pilot test itself it was already clear that the use of the media did not necessarily correspond to the ideas of the project group but was determined by the didactic and individual guidelines of the teachers and instructors. This active use that partially restructures innovation is a prerequisite for its successful implementation. The implementation was moreover initiated by an early decentralisation of responsibilities and initiatives. In the school-based part, after two years regional working groups (specific to the individual Federal German states) were set up in which the schools that took part in the pilot test planned their own special activities, invited other schools from the local area and reported on their activities at the joint meetings. In some cases these working groups continued to exist for many years after the end of the pilot test and concerned themselves with questions that went a good deal further than the original objectives. On the industrial side, there was an independent exchange of information about the project and its results in the network of the big business companies. This was supported by the project group in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry by means of special events. The research into effects to identify longer-term effects and side effects over and above the known framework of the pilot test that had originally been envisaged and proposed did not find the consent of the research committee of the BBF/BIBB at that time. 4.1.7
Importance and Conclusions
Due not least to its size, its duration and its funding, the MME pilot test had widespread and long-term effects that were substantially greater than average. In many respects it marked a turning point in vocational ↑ training research and practice. This applies to the applied research paradigm, to the holistic didactic concepts oriented to independent and cooperative learning action as well as to the changed role of the teacher as a learning counsellor. The
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original approach – a complex multi-media system based on programmed instruction – was in the end not a feasible innovation in all respects. In particular the initially favoured programming of learning rapidly proved to be problematical – not least because it basically ran counter to the ↑ interdisciplinary objectives: a learner focus, individualisation, cooperativeness and self-sufficiency. This was not seen at the beginning of the project, just as little as the restrictive effect of the ↑ research approach (quasi-↑ experimental design) was recognised. The project group, the participants and the sponsors underwent a sustained learning process and positioned themselves anew. The MME pilot test provided decisive stimuli to change long-established structures and orientations in training both in the schools and in the companies. In dealings with the new media and learning arrangements, major problems of occupational training came into focus and were tackled in innovative ways. The test advanced a changed understanding of occupational learning processes, which, in conjunction with similarly oriented reform initiatives and innovation projects in the 1970s and 1980s, continued to exert an influence in the long term. The MME pilot test underscores the fact that vocational training research needs an interdisciplinary, action research based approach if it is to generate and realise innovations that are relevant to practice and to implement these for a sustained period (in this connection in general see → 5.1.4). In doing so it will also in future take recourse to the spectrum of sociological and experimental methods and elaborate these further for its specific subject matter. In the light of the experience gained at that time, three things currently appear to be especially problematical: – the common practice of restricting pilot tests to isolated instances (too few participants) and their too short duration; in this way they inevitably become “innovation episodes” with no very broad effect, – the frequent orientation to selective, non-networked innovations that do not correspond to the complexity and differentiation of vocational training; it is not only a question of ↑ interdisciplinarity but of systemic approaches in pilot tests, and
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– the relatively small proportion of systematic empirical research that provides findings over and above the isolated case. All this points to the need to re-think the current pilot test concept and the promotion guidelines. Pilot tests as instruments of reform must be adapted to the new challenges (→ 2.4).
4.2
Using the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition to Describe and Interpret Skill Acquisition and Clinical Judgement in Nursing Practice and Education Patricia Benner
4.2.1
Introduction
Stuart E. Dreyfus, an applied mathematician, and Hubert L. Dreyfus, a philosopher, developed a model of ↑ skill acquisition based upon the study of chess players, Air Force pilots, and army tank drivers and commanders (DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1977; 1979; 1980; 1986; Dreyfus 1982). The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition has illuminated ongoing research on skill acquisition and articulation of knowledge embedded in expert practice (→ 3.6; → 5) in nursing (→ 3.2.6). The Dreyfus model is developmental, based upon situated ↑ performance and experiential learning. Three studies of skill acquisition in nursing have been conducted guided by the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition (BENNER, P. 1982; 1984; BENNER / TANNER / CHESLA 1996; BENNER / HOOPER-KYRIAKIDIS / STANNARD 1999). Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus served as consultants in each of these three studies. The first study, conducted in 1978–1981 (BENNER, P. 1982; 1984), was based upon 21 paired interviews with newly graduated nurses and their preceptors, and interviews and/or participant observations were conducted with 51 additional experienced nurse clinicians, 11 newly graduated nurses, and 5 senior nursing students to further delineate and describe characteristics of nurse performance at different levels of education and ex-
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perience. The interviews (small group and individual) were conducted in six hospitals: two private community hospitals, two community teaching hospitals, one university medical centre, and one inner-city general hospital. A second study of skill acquisition and clinical knowledge of critical care nurses was conducted between 1988 and 1994 (BENNER / TANNER / CHESLA 1992; DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1996; RUBIN 1996). One hundred and thirty nurses practicing in intensive care units and general floor units from eight hospitals, seven of which are located in two far Western and one in the Eastern region of the ↑ United States of America, comprised the study population. Small group narrative interviews, individual interviews, and participant observation were used as data collection strategies. The two aims of the study, relevant to this article, were: (1) To describe the nature of ↑ skill acquisition in critical care ↑ nursing practice; (2) To delineate the ↑ practical knowledge embedded in expert practice. The third study was an extension of this study, conducted in 1996–1997 to include other critical care areas (including emergency departments, flight nursing, home health, the operating room, and post-anesthesia care units: N=75 nurses) and enlarge our sample of advanced practice nurses. The first study was sponsored by a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Division of Nursing, Bureau of Health Professions (Grant No. 7 D10 NU 29104-03). The Helene Fuld Trust funded the second and third studies.
This paper presents key findings of these three studies using data from each of the studies. The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition addresses experiential learning in a complex under-determined field over time. The model is situational rather than being a trait or talent model, since the focus is on actual performance and outcomes in particular situations. The model is developmental in that changes in the performance in particular situations can be compared across time. However, the model does not focus or identify particular traits or talents of the person that generates the skillful performance. Nursing, like other practice disciplines, is not merely an “applied” field in the sense that the practice is complex, varied and under-determined. Good practice requires that the nurse develop skillful
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ethical comportment as a practitioner and that the nurse use good ↑ clinical judgement informed by scientific evidence and technological development. The sciences of medicine and nursing are broad and multi-disciplinary and require translation into the particular practice situation. Basic sciences of biochemical, physical and biological processes, physiological processes, research and development of specific therapies and technologies, and finally clinical trials and more make up a broad range of relevant science used in the practice of medicine and nursing. A recent development in nursing and medical practice has been to aggregate clinical trial research outcomes to summarize and recommend the best evidence for treatment of specific clinical conditions. However, the logic of scientific decisionmaking and the logic of the practitioner working with single cases or unique populations are necessarily different. The practitioner must reason across time about the particular case through changes in the patient’s condition and changes in the clinician’s understanding of the patient’s condition. Since practice in the individual case is underdetermined, i.e., open to variations not accounted for by science, the practitioner must use good clinical reasoning in order to intelligently select and use the relevant science. Perceptual acuity in recognizing salient signs, symptoms, and responses to therapies are required for the clinician to use good ↑ clinical judgements in particular clinical cases. Recognizing and keeping track of clinical changes in the patient over time requires the logic of reasoning in transition (TAYLOR 1993; BENNER 1994b). This is a form of argument about the outcomes of successive changes. Patient changes must be evaluated as improved, stable or deteriorating over time. Clinicians call this “recognizing trends” in the patient. Some aspects of practice can be subjected to more standardization and to what Aristotle described as techne. Standard measurements of vital signs and laboratory metrics are examples of clinical assessments that can be reduced to techne. But note that skillfulness and craft based upon experience may still be essential to successful ↑ performance of techne. In situations where the patient’s particular response must be considered, and perceptual acuity is required to recognize salient
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changes in the patient, as well as situations where attuned relationships and judgement require skillful comportment, both techne and phronesis (↑ situated actions based upon skill, judgement, character and wisdom) are essential. At the heart of good ↑ clinical judgement and clinical wisdom lies experiential learning from particular cases. Bad judgements must be refined and corrected in particular cases; anomalies and distinctions must be noticed. The Dreyfus Model of ↑ Skill Acquisition addresses this kind of experiential learning in a complex under-determined field over time. The model is situational rather than being a trait or talent model, since the focus is on actual performance and outcomes in particular situations. The model is developmental in that changes in the performance in particular situations can be compared across time. However, the model does not focus or identify particular traits or talents of the person that generate the skillful performance. Nursing as a practice, requires both techne and phronesis as described by Aristotle. Techne can be captured by procedural and scientific knowledge, knowledge that can be made formal, explicit and certain except for the necessary timing and adjustments made for particular patients. Phronesis, in contrast to techne, is the kind of practical reasoning engaged in by an excellent practitioner lodged in a community of practitioners who through experiential learning and for the sake of good practice continually lives out and improves practice (SHULMAN 1993; GADAMER 1960/1975; MACINTYRE 1981; DUNNE 1997; BENNER / HOOPER-KYRIAKIDIS / STANNARD 1999). Techne, or the activity of producing outcomes, is governed by a means-ends rationality where the maker or producer governs the thing produced or made by gaining mastery over the means of producing the outcomes. By contrast, phronesis is lodged in a practice and so cannot rely solely on a means-ends rationality because one’s acts are governed by concern for doing good in particular circumstances, where being in relationship and discerning particular human concerns are at stake must guide action. Technique alone cannot address interpersonal and relational responsibilities, discernment and situated possibilities required by caring for persons made vulnerable by illness and injury. Phronesis
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is required. Means and ends are inextricably related in caring for the ill. Clinician and patient bend and respond to the other so that horizons and world are opened and reconstituted so that new possibilities can emerge. As the Dreyfus model suggests, experiential learning requires the stance of an engaged learner, rather than a stance of one expert in techne who skillfully applies well-established knowledge in prespecified clear circumstances. Experiential learning requires openness and responsiveness by the learner to improve practice over time. The learner who develops an attuned, response-based practice learns to recognize whole situations in terms of past concrete experiences as pointed out by the Dreyfus Model. We found that responding to the situation, as an “instance of particular concerns” is central to the logic of excellent practice. For example, this is a situation of heart “pump” failure or fluid depletion. Interventions depend on clarifying and confirming the nature of the clinical situation at hand. The skillful practitioner learns to hold their background understandings in a fluid or semi-permeable way so that they can recognize when these tacit expectations are not met. For example, a nurse with expertise in detecting heart arrhythmias on a unit where all patients’ cardiac functioning is monitored will only notice aberrations in sound patterns, rather than attending to the familiar sounds in the foreground of attention. Whereas, in some skill situations, such as playing chess or driving a car experts would not need to articulate their perspectives before taking action, must make a case that includes articulating their perspective and evidence in order to get the appropriate physician intervention. In emergencies when there is no physician available, the nurse must be able to articulate clearly the reason for using a standing order or protocol or going beyond the usual boundaries of usual ↑ nursing practice. This is expected and defensible when it is critical for the patient’s survival. Recognizing the unexpected… i.e., when tacit global expectations of patients’ recovery are not met is also a hallmark of expert practice.
Case Studies of TVET Research
4.2.2
Novice: First Year of Education
The novice stage of skill acquisition occurs in areas where the student has no experiential background on which to base their approach or understanding of the clinical situation. For example, the art and skill of a range of medical and nursing interventions on particular patients will be new. The educator must offer good descriptions of features and attributes of the situation that the novice can recognize. For example to determine fluid balance students are given clear parameters and guidelines: To determine fluid balance, check the patient’s morning weights and daily intake and output for the past three days. Weight gain and an intake that is consistently greater than 500 cc. could indicate water retention, in which case fluid restriction should be started until the cause of the imbalance can be found (BENNER 1984, 21).
An experienced clinician will immediately think of all the situations where this evaluation would be inappropriate or too stringent. But the novice is given clear directions of safe ways to proceed until the significance of fluid balance for different clinical conditions can be learned. The rules and guidelines must not require prior experience for their recognition. They must provide a safe beginning point for specific, ↑ situated learning in the clinical situation. Fluid balance is salient, but what the novice must learn is the particular salience of fluid balance for particular patients. The rule-governed behaviour of the novice is extremely limited and inflexible. The student is coached in comparing and matching textbook examples with actual clinical cases. Skills that are performed easily on a mannequin in a skills lab require adaptation, and communication and reassurance skills when performed on a range of patients who may be calm or highly anxious. The nursing instructor must carefully select patient care situations that are relatively stable and provide coaching about possible changes in the patient’s condition. The instructor forecasts for the student what they should expect, and students typically rely on standard nursing care plans to guide their planned care activities. Exceptions and contraindications must be identified for the student by the nursing instructor or staff nurse caring for the patient. The significance of vital signs in the particular situation must be reviewed with the instructor or prac-
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ticing nurse, the range of relevant signs and symptoms are reviewed in terms of relevance, and assessed in the particular patient. A large number of signs and symptoms (e. g. lethargy, skin turgor, mental status and so on) can only be recognized and assessed after they have been seen in a range of patients. Novices have only a very limited ability to forecast futures due to the student’s experience with other patients. Usually the student must rely on textbook forecasts. 4.2.3
Advanced Beginner, New Graduate
The newly graduated nurse has usually functioned very close to the level of a beginning staff nurse in his or her final year of nursing education. Typically newly graduated nurses will not have functioned in any administrative or managerial functions, though they will have studied principles and practices related to these roles. The striking change for the newly graduated nurse is that he or she now has full legal and professional responsibility for patients. This new level of felt-responsibility increases the beginning nurse’s attentiveness to their recognition of features, and relevant aspects of the situation, however the style of evaluation remains detached, and typically lacks integration with other objectively evaluated signs and symptoms (BENNER / TANNER / CHESLA 1996)): In what follows, an advanced beginner evidences a “lightness of being” about learning as he describes a post-operative patient who had undergone complex GI surgery. His entire statement was delivered in an excited, enthusiastic tone. I had learned so much. There are two clinical nurse specialists involved right now. There are people on the unit who are CNII’s and CNIII’s who are just really knowledgeable on major GI surgery on infants. I talked to all these people and pediatric surgery were really helpful, and our Attendings and fellows were ... I mean, I just learned so much in the last three days, I couldn’t even tell you” (BENNER / TANNER / CHESLA 1996, 52).
The Advanced Beginner has a heightened awareness of any feedback on ↑ performance, and pays close attention to the practice of colleagues. They actively search for credible sources of good and useful information. They now attend to their ability to recognize these aspects of the situation as they are pointed out by their colleagues, and as they come to notice them on their own. The Ad-
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vanced Beginner can experience each situation as a myriad of competing tasks, all of which may feel of equal priority to the new nurse. Anxiety and excessive fatigue are frequent experiences of new nurses. Worry and anxiety tend to be more global because the Advanced Beginner does not yet have a sense of salience with a range of situations, and the anxiety of learning to perform new tasks is ever present: And I just talked to myself and I had a great night because this was the first time I did it. ... I was (saying to myself) “Okay. Just take it one step at a time. You’re only human, do one thing then go onto the next thing. It will all get done, it will get done easier if you’re calm and because you think better that way”. ... And the shift went great” (BENNER / TANNER / CHESLA 1996, 50).
Anxiety is ameliorated by this very lack of attunement and sense of salience. Therefore, much of the experiential learning required of an Advanced Beginner has to do with recognizing more subtle aspects of the situation. Advanced Beginners rely on textbook accounts of patient signs and symptoms related to diseases, injuries and therapies, but they may have difficulty recognizing subtle variations, and cannot gauge the level of severity in comparison with other cases, simply due to their lack of experience of past and future trajectories with similar patients. For example, Advanced Beginners collect their assessment data carefully and then consult about the significance of the numbers and signs and symptoms in a particular case. The perceptual skills associated with recognizing fuzzy or “family resemblances”, qualitative distinctions, and real life presentations complete with their range of manifestations cannot be captured in two dimensional textbooks or single case presentations. This relationship to clinical mentors is vividly illustrated in the following nursing student’s account of a clinical emergency: This man is a very pleasant fellow, very bright, very alert and awake, and was unfortunately requiring tracheal suctioning approximately every hour to two hours for moderate amounts of tracheal secretions which were relatively tenacious in character, relatively white tannish in color. He unfortunately did not tolerate the suctioning extremely well. It was relatively uncomfortable for him, caused a moderate amount of cough and gag reflex, which in turn caused a transient increase in blood pressure. Following suctioning on one occasion, as I was replacing his tracheal mist mask, he began coughing up
Handbook of TVET Research
very copious amounts of bright red blood per mouth. I mildly panicked, called for help from the nurse next door, placed him a moderate Trendelenberg position, opened his I.V. to a rapid rate, and continued to experience mild panic. Perhaps more like moderate panic (BENNER 1984, 19).
This Advanced Beginner nurse performed well considering the enormity of the situation. The student wonders tacitly whether his suctioning technique was too traumatic, and therefore caused the bleed. But notice, the Advanced Beginner cannot know this since he has had little experience with patients in similar compromised situations and with the skill of suctioning itself. There are extraneous details of the story, and the language is couched in textbook terms. His account responds to the immediate situation with little no forecasting of the future. He gives a full account of his own anxiety in the situation that results in part by his lack of ↑ experiential knowledge about what can be done in the situation. Like the novice, the Advanced Beginner is dependent on others for filling in their experience-based comparisons, interpretations and qualitative distinctions. Later we will contrast this episode with the account from the expert’s perspective. 4.2.4
Competent Stage: 1–2 Years in Practice?
Developing skill and clinical grasp in particular cases is dependent on experiential learning. Consequently how fast someone can gain competence depends on how varied and complex his or her patient population is. The competent stage of ↑ skill acquisition is typically a time of heightened planning for what are now more predictable immediate futures. The competent nurse now decides what is more or less important based upon informal yardsticks learned from past experiences with other patients. The competent nurse tries to limit the unexpected through planning and analysis and forecasting the needs and contingencies of the immediate future, but they realize that there are no “rules” to help them do it. Anxiety is now more attuned to the situation: Nurse: It kind of humbles you. [She realizes that the physiological explanation for this occurrence was straightforward, but that she had not been able to recognize the problem as manifested in the particular patient.]
Case Studies of TVET Research
At one point, I’m feeling like I have things straight now, and I can handle the situations, and when something like this happens, I think, well, I still have a lot of learning to do. I can handle the situations that are status quo; it’s the unexpected that I have to learn to deal with now. But then I think back to situations when I was brand new. Things that are status quo now weren’t back then. Things I can troubleshoot and solve now were much different back then. I usually needed help (BENNER / TANNER / CHESLA 1996, 95).
Anxiety is now more tailored to the situation than earlier stages, when a general anxiety exists over learning and performing well without making mistakes. Coaching at this point should encourage the competent level nurse to follow-through on a sense that things are not as usual, or even vague feelings of foreboding or anxiety, because they have to learn to decide what is relevant with no rule to guide them. Experiential learning now enables emotional responses to act like fuzzy recognition of similar and/or past clinical dissimilar situations. Nurses feel exhilarated when they perform well, and remorse when they recognize that their ↑ performance could have been more effective or more prescient because they had paid attention to the wrong things or had missed relevant subtle signs and symptoms. These emotional responses are the formative stages of aesthetic appreciation of good practice. These feelings of satisfaction and uneasiness with performance act as a moral compass that guides experiential ethical and clinical learning. There is a built in tension between the deliberate rule and maxim based strategies of organizing, planning and prediction and developing a more response based practice. Experiential learning with past patient care enables the nurse to develop a greater sense of salience. Increasingly the nurse has a sense of when he has or does not have a good clinical grasp of the situation. Since they have now lived through more clinical futures they can now better predict immediate likely events and needs of patients and plan for them. 4.2.5
Proficiency – a Transitional Stage on the Way to Expertise
When the practitioner’s grasp of the patient’s clinical situation is jarred by changes or unexpected patient responses, the practitioner searches for a new
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grasp and deliberation becomes necessary and if all goes well, experiential clinical learning occurs. They describe the frustrating situation of “chasing a problem” and never being quite “in synch” with the situation when they do not have a good perceptual grasp of the situation at hand (BENNER / TANNER / CHESLA 1996, 146–147; BENNER / HOOPERKYRIAKIDIS / STANNARD 1999, 23–87). Engaged reasoning through transitions requires being open to correction and dis-confirmation. The ethos of openness, rather than prediction and control, and fidelity to what one sees and hears, rather than excessive suggestibility and confusion, are embodied and linked to emotional responses to the situation. Thus, one’s skilled emotional responsiveness guides perceptual acuity and responsiveness to changes in the situations that are similar or dissimilar to past situations, but when novelty or surprise occurs, the nurse tries to figure out why and how this situation is different (Benner/ Tanner/ Chesla 1996, 116–117). The nurse gains a much more differentiated world of practice at the proficient level. The nurse feels increasingly at home in the situation and can now recognize when she or he has a good sense of the situation. In the following excerpt the nurse demonstrates this new comfort level by describing open-heart surgery patients’ trajectories: Nurse: I feel pretty comfortable, and you learn when they’re warming to start giving the volume and when to stop because now maybe they need a little bit of Levophed to keep their blood pressure up, when to shut off the Levophed because they’re waking up and you know their catecholamines have kicked in and that kind of thing. It’s almost routine, whereas before it took a lot of trial and asking questions.
This change is based on procedural knowledge and protocols, but the transition being described is the flexible recognition of patient changes in particular situations. This recognition occurs in the context of the predictable changes over time in a recovering heart surgery patient. These decisions cannot be based on quantitative physiological measures alone, but must be based on understanding the relationship between the numbers and the way the patient looks and responds. This form of responsebased action is crucial for performing well in a rapidly changing emergency…(BENNER / TANNER /CHESLA 1996, 123).
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Because the proficient level nurse is learning to adjust his or her responses to the situation, the skill of both problem and person engagement becomes more differentiated and attuned. Once begun, the proficient nurse usually continues to refine her reading of a particular situation. Refining discriminations through deliberate comparisons with past experiences and other patients improves the nurse’s grasp of the situation. 4.2.6
Expertise: Phronesis (Practical Wisdom)
Once a nurse has progressed to proficiency, the style of being a situated, response-based performer propels experiential learning. And the ability to switch from tacit expectations taken for granted to focusing on aspects of the situation that are changing and creating an altered sense of the situation. The expert nurse is response based. The expert can now integrate their grasp of the situation with their responses. The expert is able to take up the theories and goals of practice in multiple ways, often creating new possibilities in the situation (TAYLOR 1991). These situated practical innovations or sensible variations in practice seem intuitively obvious to the practitioner and might not be captured easily in a narrative description of the situation. This is why observation and informal interviewing in actual situations are required to discover and describe all levels of practice, but particularly proficient and expert levels of practice. The links between the patient’s condition and action are sufficiently strong that the nurse attends primarily to actions rather than to assessment of signs and symptoms. This is reasonable since, in extreme circumstances, the possible responses are fewer, but experience is required to make this shift in ↑ performance: Nurse: So we didn’t even call the code. We just called the doctor stat [emergency] and got him up there. [They had sufficient people available to resuscitate the patient, so no formal page for additional help was needed.] I looked at his heart rate and I said: “O. K. he is bradying down. Someone want to give me some atropine?” I just started calling out the drugs that I needed to get for this guy, so we started to push these drugs in. In the meantime, I said, “Can we have some more blood?” I was just barking out this stuff [the things that were needed and
had to be done]. I can’t even tell you the sequence. I was saying, “We need this.” I needed to anticipate what was going to happen and I could do this because I had been through this a week before with this guy and knew what we had done [and what had worked].
The recognition and assessment language are minimal, in part, because the number of actions per problem are limited, but also because recognition and assessment language become so linked with actions and outcomes that they become self-evident or “obvious” for the expert practitioner. This is the kind of “maximum grasp” of the expert that is not available to the proficient performer. Immediate futures obvious to the expert order the situation. In this case the nurse becomes the situational leader because of this maximum grasp of this particular patient, and the sequence of events. The integrated rapid response is the hallmark of expertise (BENNER / TANNER / CHESLA 1996, 142–143). Based on their deep familiarity with similar and dissimilar situations nurses now develop a sense of whether or not they have a good (better or poorer) grasp of the situation. Skilled “know-how” now allows for more fluid and rapid performance of procedures. Qualitative distinctions associated with nuanced responses make the nurse able to know and do more than they can tell or think to describe (POLANYI 1958; BENNER / HOOPER-KYRIAKIDIS / STANNARD 1999, 85/86). The relational skills of attunement to the patient’s concerns and clinical situation create the possibility for patients and family members to disclose or reveal their concerns and fears to the nurse, and for the nurse to notice changes in the patient/family across time (transitions). The quality of attentiveness and relationship literally create different disclosive spaces and moods for the patient and family so that different clinical issues are noticed based upon qualitatively different disclosive possibilities It is now possible to compare the expert’s narrative given below of the situation of the patient who developed a carotid hemorrhage with the Advanced Beginner’s account given earlier: I had worked late and was just about ready to go home, when a nurse preceptor said to me, “Jolene, come here.” Her voice had urgency in it, but not Code Blue. I walked in and I looked at the patient and his heart rate was about 120, and he was on the respirator and breathing. And I asked her: “What’s wrong?” There was a new graduate taking care of him. And he just pointed down to the pa-
Case Studies of TVET Research
tient who was lying in a pool of blood. There was a big stream of blood drooling out of his mouth. This man’s diagnosis was mandibular cancer, which had been resected, and about a week previous to that he had had a carotid bleed from external carotid, which had been ligated secondary to radiation erosion. That wound had become septic and he had developed respiratory failure and he was in ICU for that. So I looked at the dressing and it was dry, the blood was coming out of his mouth. The man had a tracheostomy because of the type of surgery that had been done. He also had an N.G. tube in for feedings, and I got to thinking that it might be the innominate or the carotid artery that had eroded. So we took him off the ventilator to see if anything was going to pump out of his trach. There was a little blood, but it looked mostly like it had come down from the pharynx into the lungs. So we began ventilating him, trying to figure what was inside his mouth that was pumping out his tremendous amount of blood…(BENNER 1984, 17).
This nurse went on to describe her quick actions to draw blood for a cross-match and typing and preparing the man for an immediate transfer to the O.R. after marshalling all the resources for the surgical team. She gives us an immediate direct grasp of the nature of the situation. Action, thought and feeling are fused. She evaluates the resistance in the lungs by hand ventilating the patient. Fortunately, because of her rapid responses, the patient survived the hemorrhage. 4.2.7
Summary
Each of the studies was based on extensive first person, experience-near narrative accounts of clinical situations that stood out in the participant’s minds. In addition a sub-sample of participants were observed and informally interviewed in their practice. We deliberately sampled nurses with a range of experience and reported skillfulness, and interviewed nurses with like backgrounds in small group narrative interviews. We created an open dialogue with the tenets of the Dreyfus Model of ↑ Skill Acquisition and the philosophical basis for this model. We found that the model was predictive and descriptive of distinct stages of skill acquisition in ↑ nursing practice. The most qualitatively distinct difference lies between the competent and proficient level where the practitioner begins to read the situation. The proficient performer begins to increasingly change their perception of the nature of the situation, and then deliberates
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about changing plans or strategies in response to the new understanding of the situation. The expert develops yet another qualitatively distinct way of being in the situation by developing the capacity to fluidly respond to the situation, even as the situation changes and the relevance of the actions taken change. The study of nursing practiced, because it is an under-determined, complex practice that requires skillful comportment, articulation, and highly developed relational skills, allowed us to identify qualitatively distinct forms of moral agency and skills of involvement at different levels of skill acquisition. The development of moral agency and the influence of emotional engagement with the person and the problem, as well as emotional climate, on ↑ skill acquisition vary distinctly at each stage of skill acquisition. For example, the Advanced Beginner focuses on “getting everything done” adequately. The competent nurse increases his or her ability to advocate for the patient, getting what the patient needs or requests. At the expert level the moral agency and skills of involvement create disclosive spaces that would not have even been imagined at the earlier stages. New possibilities and notions of good practice are instantiated in more skillful ethical comportment and relational capacities. Expert nurses are extremely pleased when they are able to comfort, or assist patients to cope with the demands of the illness. We found that nurses who had some difficulty with understanding the goals of practice, and difficulty with their skills of interpersonal and problem engagement did not go on to become expert nurses (see RUBIN 1996). They literally thought of rational calculation as the “scientific” and “objective” way of practicing, and thus they failed to see significant moral concerns, and failed to recognize qualitative distinctions between situations because they attempted to apply the “same metric” of rationally calculating odds, prevalence, and evidence in each situation. This computational and calculative approach to practice, coupled with a disciplined stance of detachment, blocked experiential learning. The Model was also useful in helping us articulate knowledge and skill embedded in the practice of nursing. The rational-technical vision of ↑ performance is that of a practitioner or technical expert developing mastery of a ↑ body of knowl-
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edge and applying that knowledge in pre-specified ways for pre-specified outcomes. The rational-technical model does not account for development of relational, perceptual or skillful comportment over time. It also does not account for the role of experiential learning in learning to practice in a dynamic, under-determined and complex ↑ profession such as nursing and medicine. A strict technical application of knowledge does not take into account the skills required for discerning the nature of the situation and its possibilities and constraints. Even the expert in the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition must stay attuned to the situation, and remain open to the unexpected. Practitioners according to the account of expert comportment provided by the Dreyfus Model must remain open to experiential learning and reading changes in fast-paced, open-ended environments. In the Dreyfus Model, the practitioner is assumed to dwell with increasing skill and finesse in a meaningful, intelligible but changing world.
4.3
The Automotive Mechatronics Technician: Steps in Research and Development towards a European Occupation Wilfried Kruse
4.3.1
Project Context
This article discusses the research project entitled “Realignment of Occupations in the Automotive Sector: An Analysis of Tasks”. The scientific commentary on the realignment of occupations in the automotive industry and its report (BECKER / HITZ / RAUNER / SPÖTTL 2002) will be addressed, which was promoted by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. At the time, the initial assumptions and the ↑ research strategy of this scientific commentary extended significantly beyond the limited framework of contemporary ↑ occupational research on realignment, which was traditionally characterised by the expert work done by the contributing social partners. What was even more unusual was that this project was based up-
on hypotheses and structural proposals for a new image of technical automotive occupations which were produced from previous European sector studies on ↑ occupational science, which in addition were supplemented by ↑ comparative studies drawn from the automotive areas of ↑ Japan and the ↑ United States of America. Two “predecessor studies” which also certainly played a part in the opening of the realignment procedure are of particular significance: – a European project within the framework of the “↑ Leonardo-da-Vinci” programme within which sector-based partners from several European countries developed the proposal for an ↑ occupational profile of the automotive mechatronics technician as an all-round occupation (RAUNER / SPÖTTL 2002); and before that: – an extensive international sector study which had its beginnings in a sector study on further training in automotive service and repair within the framework of the European Force Programme (RAUNER / SPÖTTL / OLESEN / CLEMATIDE 1995). However the final report itself had too much of a “workshop” character to be recognised much beyond the circle of contributing experts as far-reaching. In contrast “Der Kfz-Mechatroniker – Vom Neuling zum Experten” (The Automotive Mechatronics Technician – from Beginner to Expert), (RAUNER / SPÖTTL 2002) a book based upon a decade of domain-oriented research in the automotive sector, is an understandable, convincing portrayal of the entire concept and its preconditions, including both action-based and learning-based theoretical premises. In this case the two central elements of work ↑ process orientation and assignment orientation allow us to overcome the traditional consideration of individual functions. It is not the ↑ domain-specific aspect which makes this approach special, but how it is presented, namely – within the framework of the research as sector and ↑ work process related (extending beyond national boundaries), and – within the framework of the structure of occupational curricula as action-oriented work process and exemplary assignment related. Upon this comprehensively conceived foundation, the proposal presented here for a German realign-
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ment has already been Europeanised by these double premises, while on the other hand the proposals made by the research group for a European Car Mechatronics Technician have been formulated based on German traditions, insofar as they adhere to the concept of a formal occupation which however they would like to open and modernise. This complex of work carried out on the subject of the automotive mechatronics technician is a milestone in occupational scientific research and concept development exactly because: This is a well-founded attempt to establish a European occupational perspective without abandoning the relationship, developed positively in Germany, between the concept of a formal occupation and learning in the environment of the workplace. 4.3.2
Initial Questions and Subject
The starting point is the observation of an “explosion of knowledge” in the automotive service sector which amongst other things is evident in an exponential increase in the amount of automotive service documentation (see Fig. 1). Acquiring this knowledge is no longer possible in the usual additive manner and would give momentum to an extreme specialisation of personnel. However international studies in the automotive sector describe a successful model which works against further
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specialisation of personnel in the post-sales area, namely an all-round workshop service, based upon all-round qualifications for the mechanics. For the training community the question presents itself of whether, arising from the developments in automotive work, justifiable opportunities exist to solve the contradiction between the increase in knowledge and the demand for all-round competence without conceding losses to modern occupational expertise. Thus the starting point of the accompanying project on realignment is defined, to which the researchers introduce the findings of the international studies as hypotheses. At the beginning of the accompanying research, three main points were agreed upon between the sector experts in the organisations involved in the realignment procedure, the social partners and the research group which were to be analysed regarding the development of technology and work requirements as well as their weighting in the future ↑ occupational profile, so that qualification requirements could be clarified. These were – the diagnostic work: In view of widespread self diagnostic technology, as well as knowledge-based and networked ↑ diagnostic systems, the examination of diagnostic expertise in the qualification profile of the automotive mechatronics technician took on a special significance.
Fig. 1: increase in the amount of automotive service documentation (Schlitter-Teggemann 2001)
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– vehicle communication technology: The presence of electronics in vehicles and in vehicle technology in the automotive sector had taken on considerable dimensions. In previous realignment procedures, the recognition of a finding such as this always tended to lead to the creation of a new focal point in the training curriculum. However the research group, against the backdrop of the findings of the preceding European research project, spoke out for vehicle communication technology to be made a – central – dimension of integrated (learning) assignments. Further clarification of this subject is necessary. – vehicle communication technology: This new field needs to be put into place and assessed so that it can take up a fitting position in the occupational profile so that candidates have an appropriate opportunity to gain knowledge of it. Important (preliminary) work was done in the European ↑ Leonardo Project on this subject. 4.3.3
Results
The most important results of the broad dialogueoriented research on the development of the work in the automotive post-sales sector in a narrow sense are: – The observations and statements of the experts from the workshops questioned are in agreement that it is not important for the qualification of automotive personnel for after-sales service that their knowledge be extended to cover the largest possible number of models, but that they develop the ability to see each vehicle as a kind of highly developed “assembly” of elements of the models. – The relatively high quality of instruction in information and diagnostic technology allows a rapid path to the concrete diagnostic case to be found. In order to master the subject, however, a sound knowledge of the vehicle system architecture and of the frame of reference for maintenance and repair is necessary which is created via the criteria for technical inspection and standard service, amongst other things. – In spite of the increasing presence of electronics in automotive technology, it is not necessary for the mechanic to be familiar with the internal workings of the circuitry. When diagnosing faults, it is far more important to be able to analyse and
evaluate data and measurements. In order to localise faults, the mechanic has to appreciate the context of the meaning of signals and groups of measured values, be able to interpret these and find the vehicle’s “deficiency”. – The creation of a specialist focus within the training programme cannot be justified given the ↑ work process and assignment analyses. Observations in workshops in which training is de facto partially motor or model specific, lead us to believe that this approach actually hinders an understanding of the system “car”. Against this background, the researchers drew conclusions with training, political and educational implications, which were then checked with experts from the workshops in a feedback loop. This also applied to the (exemplary) work assignments which the researchers identified with the aid of their broad dialogue-oriented field study and which they then brought into an educational sequence following the principle “from beginner to expert”. The most important conclusions are: – The “automotive mechatronics technician” emerging from this research and development process has as a core occupation all of the characteristics of a long-term “valid” occupation. What is meant by this is that further changes in automotive work practice can be taken into account as they occur without having to realign the basic structure of the occupational training at short intervals. The training plan, structured for logical and open development, which was developed and proposed by the researchers in this context, was however only partially integrated into the later regulations on the framework training plan. – The main work assignments identified were put into a staged sequence in an intensive specialist dialogue with a large number of practical experts which, as has been said, followed the principle of “from beginner to expert”(→ 3.4.2; → 4.2) (BLANKERTZ 1983; GRUSCHKA 1985; BENNER 1997; among others). Here it was important to solve the “getting started” problem, since for young people in particular, the way in which they are introduced into the subject matter is key in how quickly they develop a grasp of their occupation which then builds motivation via identification. This was
Case Studies of TVET Research
always one of the major weaknesses of traditional skills-based basic training. – Finally, based upon their field work the researchers assume that the acquisition of skills-based and developmentally logical expertise is far better suited to practical work and the training capabilities found in the workshops thus ensuring that the main place of learning will remain “the company” in spite of turbulent changes in this sector. 4.3.4
Research Methods
The main methodical approach taken was to question the sector experts not only on the analysis of the ↑ work processes in the workshops, but to involve them in an extensive feedback loop and in ↑ group discussions to confront them with the main ↑ occupational tasks described in the course of processing the research results. In this way, the sector experts became partners in a re-analysis of the work processes focussed on central tasks which either characterise ↑ profession practice in their workshops or will do so in the near future. The researchers thus brought into play considerable ↑ domain-specific expertise, not by previous experience alone, and in doing so they added considerable depth to their intensive dialogue-based ↑ empirical knowledge. Meetings were held in an association of automotive experts; the researchers were, at least some of the time, a part of the ↑ Community of Practice (→ 5.1.2) (references amongst others to: GLENDENNING 1995). The strengths of this approach are obvious; there is a risk that possible preconceptions which are strongly technologically accented will be communicated and that requirements for occupational-professional expertise will be perhaps interpreted in a conventional manner, that is along occupational hierarchical lines, in this case along the corridors of tasks and expertise which belong to the traditional profile of the skilled worker. In this way, the picture is not restricted by domain specifics, which are otherwise indispensable for the quality of understanding, but by the proximity of the skilled worker/master craftsman core, which passes on many premises without questioning them. What will be decisive is how far it is possible to establish a critical management – Rauner speaks of “supervision” in another place – which does not have this pro-
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fessional socialised bias (RAUNER 2001b). Little is said about this. 4.3.5
Summary
The explicit relationship to sector and work process should be emphasised as a particular strength which, based upon the researcher’s domainspecific expertise, is in a position to avoid task-related constrictions and the tearing asunder of contexts. The relationship to the work process seems to have been more rigidly implemented in the research process than in the occupational educational concept creation. While the relationship between research and occupational educational concept creation in the final report of the scientific accompaniment to the realignment seems almost “deductive”, it becomes clear in reading the carefully written book “The Automotive Mechatronics Technician: from Beginner to Expert” that the occupational scientific research and the occupational educational structure (curriculum) are two distinct work processes, each possessing their own history and logic and their own contexts. A more effective and stronger point of contact for the occupational concept creation is required which gives sufficient guidance to action, is comprehensive and provides motivation for learning. The occupational perspective is based upon the end product, that is, it is based upon the car and not on its individual functions or mechanical elements; young people undergoing training show interest not just from a worker’s point of view, but also from that of a consumer; and it actually conveys the value of the use of the vehicle. The curricular structure then consistently progresses through stages of exemplary, practical work assignments. It is these (exemplary) work assignments that conciliate the – analysed – work process with the learning process to be built upon; the work assignments are the pivotal point. This should deal with work assignments which occur regularly in the workshop and not those which only occur occasionally as given by the work process analyses. Thus, in spite of specialisation, the workplace is secured as a place of learning. What is perhaps underestimated is that it is educational measures which make exemplary assignments
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out of work assignments which occur in practice. The exemplary character does not come about of its own accord. The impression is given that the work ↑ process orientation applies to the research process and the close cooperation with the members of the community of automotive practice which takes place in the research process in particular. In the occupational educational design, the ↑ work process in its various dimensions as object steps back behind the (exemplary) work assignments. And this work assignment appears – surely influenced by the think tank of the ↑ community of practice – to be more technologically determined than socially determined or influenced by the workplace (cf. K RUSE 2002). Although the analysis points to dramatic changes in the areas of responsibility of automotive workshops, my impression is that the connections between the technical field and its contextual conditions and for example the economic aspects have developed relatively little. The underestimation of the social dimensions of work process and work assignment is particularly apparent in that creative ability is declared to be an important goal on the path of occupational learning, on the way from beginner to expert, but that it is not made clear in which partial tasks to be solved this is anchored and with whom together creative solutions can be sought. A major service provided by this research which took place over a number of years and which as such is a milestone, is the identification, the firming up and establishment of the concept of “exemplary work assignments” a dynamic and thus not static or abstract link between the work processes, which are in a continual state of change, and the modern acquisition of occupational expertise. “Realignment” could take advantage of the staged concept of “from beginner to expert” and using it could check from time to time whether work assignments which are described as exemplary need modification. It is also the link of “(exemplary) work assignments” which makes the concept, to a certain extent “enabled for Europe” because this principle is capable of implementation in the differing political contexts which exist in the various countries and will continue to exist. So this is not an approach
which standardizes, but is one of a more cohesive nature. It is thus decisive that this approach conveys an essential element of the German tradition, namely the occupation principle, but in an open and modern version. The “Car Mechatronics Technician” studies and proposals represent a gelling of the idea of “open and modern formal occupations” (HEIDEGGER / RAUNER 1997b) with a wealth of material; an association which urgently needs to be further developed in the direction of the politics of European occupational training.
4.4
Production and Qualification Fred Manske
4.4.1
Development and Interrelationship
Two areas of study within German industrial sociology are included under the title “Production and Qualification”. The first appeared within the work of Baethge et al. who first, in Göttingen in 1973, and then in 1974 as “Band 14” presented the materials on TVET research. This, and was a prelude to the second study, published in 1974 by Mickler, Mohr, and Kadritzke. Both studies carried the title “Production and Qualification” but had different subtitles. That of the study carried out by Baethge is “an initial study on the planning processes in the system of vocational training”. The other is “a report on the main study”. Both research projects were carried out under commission from the Federal Institute for Occupational Training by the research team of the Sociological Research Institute of the University of Göttingen. The intention of both studies was to improve the rather dissatisfactory ↑ body of knowledge existing around the qualitative and quantitative dynamics of qualification needs. Out of this research, further knowledge has been made available for the formation of the occupational training system in particular. An important aspect of the overall socio-economic and scientific background of both studies is the following: in the 1960s, labour in Germany was a scarce commodity, and further economic growth, as a result, seemed to face serious difficulties.
Case Studies of TVET Research
Part of the inventory back then, as is still the case today, is the idea that better qualification of labour is one of the most important tasks to undertake in order to further economic growth in a land which is lacking in sufficient raw materials. This corresponded with the widespread assumption that technical change, by itself, along with qualification requirements would increase with exposure to ever more complicated technology This thesis of a general higher qualification was put forward by such authors as Blauner (1964) and Touraine (1955; 1975) who tried to create a scientific basis for a sort of “law of development”. In essence, these authors identified three developmental stages for technology and work. The first stage is a phase of industrialization formed by handicrafts in which the dominant type of worker is the qualified and relatively autonomous craftsman, an early kind of skilled worker. This craftsman produces relatively independent, integrated products on the basis of his vocational qualification, in other words his special qualifications, which he has obtained and perfected after a period of apprenticeship and throughout his working career. A transitional stage is the disintegration of craftsmanlike production through the development of special machines in connection with the de-qualification of the worker, who is now chained to this machine and its rhythms. Here industrial mass production comes into the picture, exemplified by the Fordist-Taylorist methods of production. The prevalent type of work is, at this point, the unqualified, over-directed worker, robbed of every form of autonomy, a living component of a machine-human system performing repetitive piecework. The third, and “end stage” is automated production, out of which the worker steps to become a qualified technological specialist who supervises and steers the process. In automated production, a new kind of specialized work dominates. Sure enough, there were (and still are) authors who argued for an opposing secularistic, dequalification of work. The most well known was Braverman (1977) whose Dequalification Thesis in “Work under Monopoly Capitalism” which fell within the so-called “labour process debate” of the Anglo-Saxon Industry, Management, and Management Training organisational sociology. It is also hereby important to
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note here that in the ↑ USA, as well as in England, industrial sociology and management training are not so widely separated as is the case in Germany; within German industrial sociology, Braverman and the labour-process debate are scarcely known. It is also important to remember why qualification, within the social science outlined here, or rather within the industrial-sociological debate, has such a decisive meaning within the assessment of the development of work: behind it stands the conviction that the substance of qualification for a particular job is decisive in the following areas: (a) A job which one can practice in a self-determined way to a certain degree; (b) To therefore independently regulate the division of labour and thus to maintain one’s physical and psychic labour assets; (c) To further qualify oneself and thus to develop labour assets in this respect, in a qualitative way, in order to improve one’s chances in the ↑ labour market; (d) To positively develop one’s own personality in and through work; to develop self-confidence and social acknowledgement; (e) Last but not least, it is assumed that, generally speaking, a qualified job pays better than one that is less qualified. In short, in the society of work to which we belong, gainful employment has a central relative importance and the substance of compensation for qualified labour is the key determinant of how “good” a job is from the perspective of the worker. It must, beyond that, also be recalled that industrial sociology, at least in part, always has a social-sciencetheoretical claim: the analysis of the development of industry, industrial labour, and technology, because of the significance of industry for our modern society, are seen as important components of the analysis of social development (thus critical of BRANDT 1984) Around that same time, the study “Industrial Work and Worker Consciousness” (K ERN / SCHUMANN 1970) acquired a particular meaning. The authors of this study could, on the basis of extensive empirical inquiries, establish that the “Highly Qualified” thesis is not applicable. Even in automated production systems, one can find, alongside tasks for qualified labour, also those for unqualified la-
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bour. The authors described, in their “Polarization Thesis” a technical development that accompanies the development of qualification requirements: during the emergence of increasing automation, according to this thesis, both more- and less- qualified jobs emerge. The political implications of this study, as well as the implications for the debate going on about training at the time, should not, under the circumstances, be blamed for the fact that Kern and Schumann could not exhibit substantiated qualitative or quantitative empirical results at this point in time. At that point the soon-constituted critical reception within industrial sociology hadn’t changed. The study is one of the rare classics of postwar German industrial sociology. Furthermore, it is an important reason for both studies entering into production and qualification. 4.4.2
Research Concepts and Research Results
In the end the SOFI, therefore, didn’t obtain the commission to more intensively study the connection between the development of technology and qualification requirements, as well as to conduct a deepened empirical investigation. This was because of the impression made by the study of Kern and Schumann.
Preliminary Study In the preliminary study, in which it was attempted to ascertain the relationship between technicaleconomic change and the development of qualification, newer approaches of ↑ VET research were for the first time discussed. These were essentially conducted by the Institute for Job Market and ↑ Occupational Research, the Institute for Social-Scientific Research in Munich (IST) and the work of the Manpower Group at the Max-Planck Institute for ↑ Educational Research. Secondly, the study gives an overview of the economic and technical development in the (pre-unification) Federal Republic of Germany. Thirdly, a discussion of the various approaches followed, with which, up to this point, the attempt was made to empirically categorize the development of qualification structures. Included in this concept are statistical (quantitative) proce-
dures, ↑ occupational groups (Leistungsgruppen) as well as five qualitative studies (among others the study from Kern and Schumann and the work of the Institute for Social Scientific Research (ISF) in Munich as well as work on numerically controlled machines). On the basis of the reception of these studies the authors came to the decision that the changes in qualification requirements were dependent on the development of technology and the organisation of work. Qualification demands were, on the one hand, connected to production technology, and, on the other, able to be formed through rationalization of ↑ work processes, whereupon the authors took as their starting point the idea that the companies would, correspondingly, attempt to “neutralize” the qualification-guiding tendencies of technology. That means, in the study: “…that businesses through appropriate formation as well as production technology and work organisation, make the attempt to increase productive power on the basis of available qualification potential” (BAETHGE / GERSTENBERGER / K ERN ET AL. 1974, 82).
For the main study, the following core idea was suggested as a kind of three-step process of empirical analysis and, as required the case may be, a guide to the process of questioning: (a) The analysis of the development of technology, in order to be able to discover to what extent conceptions about qualification requirements as regards to handling have already found entrance into the design processes. The authors therefore consider the technological development to in no way be autonomous. Rather, they assume that technology can eventually be consciously formed with regard to qualification requirements. (b) The research on the use of technology, in order to analyze the question as to how far the personnel must be quantitatively and qualitatively changed, must also explore changes in the cost of manufacture. (c) Analysis of the rationalization of work organisation. Here the question is how occupations are to be divided in a work-organisation way. The background is the already-discussed thesis that these companies will be attempting to implement the neutralization of the qualification-requirement tendencies of technology as much as possible. In addition, that means:
Case Studies of TVET Research
“In the cases in which technological change initially implied the possibility of work-organisational changes being put back, which further reduce the increased qualification needs in the long term” (ibid., 67).
In the preliminary study the following was recommended: that the main analysis should concentrate on a spectrum of ↑ occupational task fields of “quantitatively relevant groups of technological expertise”. It was also suggested that the main study should include the field of training, because an analysis of production systems also only contains one aspect, the aspect of inquiry. Furthermore, the “tendency of increasing consciousness of workers compared to fragmented, unambitious work should be allowed for”.
Main Study In the main study Mickler, Mohr, and Kadritzke pursued the following three goals: (1) Through a broad-reaching analysis the formerly rather “sporadic” knowledge about the development of qualification requirements should be enlarged. The study is indeed applied as a qualitative investigation of case studies; it is, however, actually more broadly applied than similar studies that have already been carried out. (2) In this study a demanding method should be developed for the ↑ analysis of qualification requirements. Therefore, qualification requirements should be able to be more differentiated in their analysis than was previously the case. (3) In addition to that, the question needs to be addressed in which ways the formulation of technology and job organisation within industry has effects that are due to qualification requirements. Following Mickler (→ 3.1.5), at its core the study followed two lines of questioning: a “change of qualification requirements” through technical-organisational change in industrial production are identified with aits focus on skilled work. The reasons and mechanisms of qualification-related formation of work will be fathomed ‘in order to be better able to estimate the qualification potential of economic-technical change’. The study sees itself as a foundational research, which seeks to deliver basic information for the planning of occupational training. It seeks to accomplish this by manifestly following the preliminary work of the Baethge study,
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and concentrating on the development of qualification enquiries in industrial production. The system of vocational training is not the topic of the study. Rather, the study contained seven industrial branches, each with two to three firms (15 firms in total) in which selected areas of production are studied. Selection criteria were: (a) The corresponding quantitative importance of the branches as well as the parts of the branches (b) A relatively high proportion of skilled workers (c) Duties spread out from handicrafts to automated work, and the study should also: Concern itself with areas of production in which substantial technical-organisational change have taken place. These companies should play a cutting-edge role in terms of technology and organisation, in order to have the chance “ ...in the future, for the essential development of the branch as a whole to be realized in the beginning stages” (MICKLER 1981, 57). The instruments for the gathering of qualification requirements were developed according to Kern and Schumann and the Psychological ↑ Action Theory of Hacker (1986b). In the study “ …a scheme for categories has been developed, which permits qualitative typing, comparative description of considerable qualification contents of work and their connection to the underlying technological and organizational changes within business” (MICKLER 1981, 55).
The instrument of analysis consists of two elements: analysis of tasks and analysis of qualification requirements. Within the analysis of tasks, these tasks should be described as exactly as possible, including the following dimensions: (a) actual type of work (b) work tools and materials (c) organisation of work. These were the central categories which form the contents of work and qualification requirements (MICKLER / MOHR /K ADRITZKE 1977, Bd II, 30). Following Hacker, the analysis of qualification requirements are differentiated into three hierarchically-constructed levels of regulation; and added to that is the category of work motivation. This leads to the following types of requirements: (a) Requirements for sensory-motor ↑ performance
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(b) requirements for perceptive routinized performance (c) intellectual requirements, as in requirements of diagnostic planning performance, and: (d) requirements for work motivation The research results of the study do not need to be further elaborated here (see → 3.1.5) 4.4.3
Academic Meaning, Critical Appraisal
The German industrial-sociological research on qualification requirements (and German industrial sociology in general) have thoroughly and considerably been formed through the work of SOFI. In the study by Mickler, Möhr, and Kadritzke an analytical instrument for qualification requirements was developed, which was as elaborate as possible, within industrial sociology. That is proven despite all criticism, by the broad reception in the industrial sociological “trade” and, in addition, through debates in industrial relations research. The work of the SOFI – in particular the study by Kern and Schumann and the preliminary study – has also not in the least influenced ↑ VET research. In some ways, therefore, the attention of these two different disciplines, industrial sociology and VET research is managed by the SOFI studies. In a critical appraisal of the studies, the different discourses and lines of questioning of both of these disciplines, despite concomitant intersections, must be kept in mind. In industrial sociology the development of work and society is (or was, see above) in the foreground. The “qualificatory essence” of work lies within a tradition that, at its core, was already seen in Adam Smith’s thesis of the division of labour as a basis for the development of the “wealth of nations” from the central meaning because it has been assumed that the development of personality, and finally that of the entire society, depends on this. In this respect Taylor played an important role, with his concept of “scientific management” that purports to establish the disqualification of a large part of occupation-dependent workers as its objective, and with that also contributes to the legitimization of a system of power relations that appears to follow an objective economical-↑ technical rationality. Basically, industrial sociology
from that point on has worked from Taylor’s ideas. Starting from such lines of questioning, industrial sociology arrives at the idea of measuring the development of qualification requirements across as broad as possible a spectrum of work situations. This is demonstrated in, among others, the previously mentioned studies of Touraine, Blauner, and Braverman or Kern and Schumann. These studies do not particularly limit themselves to examining skilled work. (Sure enough, they focus largely on production work, and lose sight of salaried work, but that is a different subject.) Compared to these studies that the study area of the production and qualification studies discussed here is markedly reduced: to skilled work, a very specialized types of occupation which quantitatively does not in any way dominate in industry or in the economy as a whole. Both studies on production and qualification are, for this reason, specialized studies, and their questioning is, in comparison with the other studies named here, rather limited. This is clearly due to the fact that the contributions should accomplish the development of occupational training in Germany, which, at its core means training for specialized workers, in the German system of dual vocational education and training. This close connection between both studies does not, however, change anything with regards to the already-mentioned appraisal that, in particular, Mickler, Mohr, and Kadritzke have developed a convincing concept for the ↑ analysis of qualification requirements in industrial work. How this is to be estimated from the point of view of VET research will be discussed further below. As in other SOFI studies, this further study is also empirically rich in content and solidly worked-through. The reader can comprehend why particular conclusions have been drawn. Both studies on production and qualification indeed point at some weaknesses (which they also share with other SOFI studies). These are, essentially: (a) Technical and economic rationality are too strongly stressed. Actors with varied interests and access to power resources are masked in these studies. They appear in the face of the mute duty of technical-economic rationality not to have any meaning for the formation of technology and work. Management also appears to no longer be
Case Studies of TVET Research
an element of leadership of any externally-arising logic. (b) Therefore it was conveniently situated to be able to study the influence of strong workers’ groups in the machine industry on the formulation of technology. (On this theme there has, in the meantime, been some research) (compare MANSKE 1994). In general it would therefore be necessary also to incorporate the economic action and power constellations within such studies. (c) The limitation of the studies to the realm of production is, above all from today’s point of view, a deficit, because, among other reasons, in the course of technical development (in particular numerically-controlled technology) occupational functions from production can be relocated to the area of planning. We shall return to the intentions of industrial-sociological ↑ qualification research and on the consequences that can be drawn with respect to their use for ↑ VET research. The posing of the question for industrial sociology is the very question of the connection between the development of work and society. A central category is the development of qualification requirements. In industrial society, it depends on the development of qualification requirements to globally comprehend a wide range of occupational types as well as to cover a broad time frame. Finally, this is mirrored in the concept of ascertainment of qualification requirements: in order to compare very different jobs as well as to be able to ascertain categories for qualification, identification must be discovered, which makes it possible to abstract away from concrete duties. For this, therefore, qualification levels will be constructed, this was exactly what the concept of Mickler, Mohr, and Kadritzke tried to do. It can, in a slightly exaggerated way, follow that the entire concrete definition of occupational duties of industrial society is, after the analysis, not interesting any more, but instead what counts is the central result – something like a “polarization thesis”. TVET research must, however, include the definition of the curricula of concrete functional elements of work. On this subject there are new departures (see SPÖTTL 2000b and RAUNER 1997), which offer a formational task for VET research, while, in comparison, industrial sociology concen-
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trates itself on analysis. Despite such differences, industrial sociological qualification research can contribute to VET research. Thus the analytical instruments gained by Mickler, Mohr, and Kadritzke (which are constituted from the methodological elements of Spöttl’s approach) can be used to analyze ↑ work processes (which are constituted of the methodological elements of Spöttl’s approach). Furthermore, empirically similar, content-rich industrial-sociological studies such as that of Mickler, Mohr, and Kadritzke will be consulted for the appraisal of trends within the development of work and its causes.
4.5
Training and High Performance Work Systems: A Case Study in Synergy Andy Smith
4.5.1
Introduction
The origins of the notion of ↑ high performance work systems can be traced back to the ↑ USA and the famous ↑ MIT sponsored study of the world automotive industry (→ 4.3; → 4.4) undertaken in the late 1980s, the International Motor Vehicle Project (WOMACK /JONES / ROOS 1990). For the MIT team, lean production was epitomised in the Toyota Production System. In this system Toyota reduced its costs and its risks to the minimum through a number of techniques. These techniques involved a very close, strategic relationship between Toyota and its major component suppliers so that the suppliers delivered parts to the Toyota assembly plants just in time for them to be used in production. The MIT team concluded that lean production was the superior means of organising work for the highest level of ↑ performance and that car manufacturers that did not adopt these systems would simply go out of business. In the mid-1990s, a number of US researchers made intensive studies of the newly emerging high performance work systems paradigm (CAPPELLI / ROGOVSKY 1994; OSTERMAN 1995; MACDUFFIE /KOCHAN 1995). They found that the major people management elements of the high
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performance work systems taking root in American business comprised: – Extensive use of teamwork – Use of quality circles (although the era of quality circles was in decline by this time) – Adoption of total ↑ quality management methods – Job rotation – Extensive training of all workers – Recruitment for personal rather than technical skills – ↑ Performance related pay – Reduction of barriers between managers and workers. These people management initiatives were accompanied by the use of flexible production methods (lean production) and by the extensive investment in new technologies. The concept of the high performance work system has been the subject of extensive research in recent years and a number of terms are often used interchangeably to describe it – high performance work organisation (ASHTON / SUNG 2002), high involvement work systems (FELSTEAD / GALLIE 2002), high performance employment systems (BROWN / REICH 1997) and high ↑ commitment management (WOOD 1999; BAIRD 2002). The notion of the high commitment work system underlines the strong connection of these concepts to human resource management. Although much broader than human resource management, in that high performance work systems also encompass the development of new forms ↑ work process and the use of technology, nevertheless the human resource management practices adopted under high performance work systems are critical to the success of these systems. The human resource management practices associated with high performance work systems are clearly designed to elicit the fullest commitment of workers to the objectives of the organisation. In this respect, the concepts of human resource management and high performance work systems might be said to be largely analogous. More recently, Belanger et al. (2002) have sought to clarify some of the conceptual confusion surrounding high performance work systems and have distinguished three dimensions of the concept:
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Production management: this involves the greater use of flexible production systems with an emphasis on quality management (→ 3.1.5; → 4.4.) Work organisation: this dimension involves the use of production processes based on knowledge and cognition, especially the use of teamwork (→ 3.8) Employee relations: this involves the harnessing of employee commitment in the service of the organisation. Usually in ↑ high performance work systems the human resource manager will be tasked with implementing a ↑ performance based pay system and ways of deploying the tacit skills (→ 5.1.5.) of the workers. The typology developed by Belanger et al. also underlines another important aspect of high performance work systems which is that high performance work systems practices need to be implemented together as “bundles” of practices in order to gain the maximum effect. Many organisations may implement one or two high performance practices but it is the synergies that result from bundles of practices that really lead to performance improvements for organisations (APPELBAUM / BAILEY/ BERG / K ALLEBERG 2000; PIL / MACDUFFIE 1996). Thus, the implementation of teamwork will rely on effective training for teamwork and a pay system that rewards the collective performance of the team rather than individual performance. Without supporting practices that are congruent the implementation of a single high performance practice may achieve little or indeed, be counterproductive. 4.5.2
The Adoption and Impact of High Performance Work Systems
The evidence for the use of high performance work systems is scant. Work by Osterman (1994; 2000) in the ↑ USA in the mid-1990s suggested that 41 per cent of all establishments in the USA had over 50 per cent of their workforce participating in self-directed teams and nearly 60 per cent of establishments had more than half of their core workforce in quality improvement teams or quality circles. Fifty per cent of establishments had implemented total ↑ quality management (OSTERMAN 2000). A survey of Canadian workers in 1997 revealed that 44 per cent of respondents claimed that just-in-time systems were operating in their workplaces and 50 per cent reported a quality manage-
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ment program operating. Sixty-two per cent of respondents to this survey reported the use of teams in their workplaces and 39 per cent that multiskilling was used (GODARD 2004). The most important empirical study of high performance work systems by Appelbaum et al. (2000) examined the impact of the high performance work systems practices on firms and individuals in the steel, apparel and medical electronics manufacturing industries. This study found that the take up of high performance work systems practices varied considerably between the sectors but that their effect of form performance had been positive. In ↑ Australia, Smith et al. (2003) in a study of the impact of a range of high performance work practices or “new management practices” on the provision of employer sponsored training found that 66 per cent of responding organisations had implemented some form of teamwork and about 50 per cent had implemented Total Quality Management. However, there have been no systematic surveys of the extent of the adoption of high performance work systems, beyond a few of the practices. The general consensus is that the full implementation of high performance work systems is still quite unusual (BUTLER / FELSTEAD /ASHTON ET AL. 2004). It is likely that single high performance work practices may well be quite common in modern organisations but the bundling together of practices into fully blown high performance work systems is probably rather unusual. The impact of high performance work systems practices has been studied for a number of years. The studies can be quite confusing as they often conflate high performance work systems with human resource management (HRM). The classic studies by Huselid (HUSELID 1995; HUSELID / JACKSON / SCHULER 1997; BECKER / HUSELID 1998) found that firms that implemented more high performance work practices tended to exhibit: – Lower levels of employee turnover – Higher levels of sales per employee (productivity) – Higher returns to shareholders – Higher levels of profit. The findings were quite robust and have become the benchmark for studies of the impact of high performance work systems. The evidence strongly
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suggests that high performance work systems have a strong positive impact on organisational performance. Ashton and Sung’s (ASHTON / SUNG 2002) conclusion from their review of the research in this area is hard to dispute: First and foremost, stringent scientific research has now established a strong link between the use of human resource management and enhanced performance across a range of indicators, but especially in productivity and profitability. Put plainly, investment in these practices and the skills associated with them pays off on the bottom line (ASHTON / SUNG 2002, 17)
4.5.3
Research Method
The case study reported in this chapter is drawn from a larger study of the impact of nationally recognised training amongst Australian firms undertaken with the support of the ↑ National Centre for Vocational Education Research (SMITH / PICKERSGILL / SMITH / RUSHBROOK 2005). This study examined the uptake by Australian employers of nationally recognised training and the new qualifications embodied in Training Packages. The study used a combination of a survey of organisations and case studies of individual firms in four industry sectors. The study found that an increasing number of employers, especially larger employers, were using nationally recognised training not only to structure the training of their employees but also to re-orient their entire human resource management strategy. In these cases, employee development and training had replaced employee relations and other traditional concerns of human resource managers as the central design principle of human resource management strategy. Thus, in some of the more “advanced” firms in ↑ Australia it was clear from the research that training and especially nationally recognised training was playing a central role in the development of ↑ high performance work systems. This approach to the operation and adoption of high performance work systems makes this research quite different from traditional research into high performance work systems. Much of the research carried out in high performance work systems, whilst it has included reference to the training of employees, has not approached the question from the point of view of employee development.
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Thus survey-based work which has been common in the UK and the ↑ USA has attempted to measure the implementation of high performance work systems on a number of dimensions including training but focused mainly on new production systems, work organisation and other human resource management practices. This includes some of the most seminal work in the USA such as that by Osterman (1995; 2000), Godard (2004) and especially the work of Appelbaum and her associates (2000). This work found that extensive training of employees is but one element amongst many in modern high performance work systems. The consequences of high performance work systems have been explored through more qualitative, case study based approaches. This includes work by Thompson (2003), Danford (2004) and Brown (1999). Again, however, this work has focused very broadly on the wide range of high performance work systems practices that firms have adopted rather than on training. The present case study, therefore, addresses the issue of high performance work systems from the point of view of training and employee development and examines the connections between new approaches to the training of employees and the implementation of high performance work systems from both a theoretical and practical angle. 4.5.4
Sing Tel Optus
Sing Tel Optus Pty Ltd Communications (“Optus”) is Australia’s second telecommunications carrier behind Telstra which remains the dominant company in the telecommunications market in this country. This case study focused on the call centre operations of the Mobile division of Optus based at the Gordon call centre in Sydney. Interviews were carried out with a number of staff at the Gordon call centre and at Optus corporate HQ in North Sydney. Interviewees included: – General Manager, Learning and Development – Manager, Optus College – Manager, Organisation Development – Gordon Call Centre Manager – NSW State Human Resource Consultant – Call Centre trainer/assessor – 4 customer service representatives
Learning and Development at Optus was located within the corporate Human Resources function. It was headed by the General Manager, Learning and Development who reported to the Director of Human Resources. Optus was a non-unionised company. As a result, industrial relations played little part in the human resources function in the company. However, learning and development occupied a very central role in the company’s approach to HRM. At a corporate level, the learning and development function included Organisation Development which focused on management development, a small multi-media production group which produced ↑ e-learning materials. Each of the divisions also supported a Learning and Development Manager who reported to the divisional HR Manager but also had a functional accountability to the General Manager, Learning and Development. The learning and development function was quite large employing around 80 people, most of whom were trainers attached to the business divisions of the company and working for the divisional Learning and Development Managers. This was a testimony to the strength of the learning and development function within Optus. 4.5.5
Nationally Recognised Training at Optus
A major and increasingly important part of the learning a development function at Optus was the Registered Training Organisation (RTO), known as Optus College. Optus college was first formed in 1999 and was located in the corporate Learning and Development function and had a remit to provide nationally recognised training across the entire organisation. In ↑ Australia, nationally recognised training is training that leads to a formal qualification. The qualifications range through 4 Certificate levels (1 the lowest and 4 the highest) and include a Diploma and Advanced Diploma. The qualifications for all occupations in Australia are laid out in a series of “Training Packages” which cover all industry and ↑ occupational areas and include sets of competency standards, qualifications and assessment criteria for each of the occupations. The motivation for the company to establish Optus College was to provide basic training for the ever increasing numbers of staff that
Case Studies of TVET Research
were being hired to staff the call centre businesses in the various divisions. In the early days, costs also played an important role in the decision to establish an RTO. By moving to an on-the-job model, the company realised that it could roll out a major training program to large numbers of new staff very quickly but without a heavy investment in the infrastructure of a traditional training department and classroom-based training. This model proved to be very successful for the company and for the learning and development function. Of the qualifications offered by the College, the Certificate III in Telecommunications was the largest single program. It was offered to all new customer service representatives (reps) when they joined one of the Optus call centres. The training was based on a 4 week off-the-job induction program followed by up to 10 months on-the-job training. The off-the-job training was mandatory for all new employees and was run by training staff from the learning and development function. In this induction new staff learned the basics of how to deal with different types of customers and queries on the phone. The on-the-job training was closely integrated with the organisation’s ↑ performance management system which set tight standards for the time that reps spent on an individual query and the way in which the query was handled. The average handling time for each query was 330 seconds. Calls were also regularly monitored for quality. Every month, Team Leaders held “one on ones” with each of the dozen members of their team. The reps were rated on a four step scale from poor performance to highly commendable and the Team Leader would discuss the performance feedback from ↑ quality assurance with each rep. From these performance management meetings, the Team Leaders would decide whether the rep needed additional training. This training would be delivered in the form of on-the-job coaching. The coaching tasks in each team were handled by a Customer Service Support Representative (CSSR). The CSSR acted as both a senior customer rep and trainer within the team and would normally have up to 40 per cent of their work time dedicated to training and coaching activities. The CSSR also had responsibility for the training of the whole team in new product knowledge and procedure is-
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sues. Thus, the training for the reps was very closely linked into the performance management system in a tightly controlled environment. Although the training for Call Centre reps was the largest single program run by Optus College, the company had extended the use of nationally recognised training to other groups. All members of the Learning and Development function (some 80 staff) had completed the Cert IV in Assessment and Workplace Training. The other major area for nationally accredited training was for Team Leaders who underwent the Certificate IV in Frontline Management. Just as the Cert III in Telecommunications was the foundation for the Pathways program for Call Centre reps, the Cert IV in Frontline Management was the foundation for the Optus management development program, Leaders of Tomorrow. As with the Cert III in Telecommunications, the Cert IV in Front line Management was delivered primarily on-the-job with a number of activities that were designed to increase the supervisory experience of a call centre rep. 4.5.6
The Role of Nationally Recognised Training at Optus
The original decision by Optus to establish an RTO and to use nationally recognised training for their call centre reps was driven by the need to train large numbers of people joining the call centre operations and by the availability of government funding to support the call centre traineeship. Establishing the RTO enabled Optus to deliver the training primarily on-the-job, for large numbers of employees and in a cost effective way. However, after that initial decision to establish the RTO, the company realised that there were more benefits to be gained for them in using nationally recognised training more widely and having an RTO to deliver and award the training. The provision of nationally recognised training enabled Optus to develop a reputation as an employer of choice in a tightening ↑ labour market and it also helped to develop visible career pathways for employees in the organisation. Thus, the use of nationally recognised training enabled Optus to link its requirements for skills development that was delivered primarily on-the-job to the need to give employees a visible career de-
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velopment pathway. As discussed above, the training was also very tightly linked to the ↑ performance management system. Thus, since its inception at Optus, nationally recognised training became increasingly central to the human resource strategy of the company. The use of nationally recognised training progressed at Optus from a cost effective means of providing high volume training to a central element of the company’s entire human resource strategy. Optus was developing the strategic importance of nationally recognised training and Training Packages in the company still further by utilising the competences in Training Packages to underpin the performance management system. The company developed a Success Profile based on four sets of standards including Knowledge, Behaviours, Personal Attributes and Experience. A Success Profile could therefore be developed for any job in the organisation and could help the company identify the development needs of individuals who aspired to those jobs. In many cases, the standards for each of these components could be described very effectively by using the competences developed for the relevant Training Package. This process of designing standards that could be used for both performance management for incumbents and development plans for aspirants was a major program for the Organisation Development section within Learning and Development at Optus. The development of the silo-like divisional structure at Optus had impeded effective management development in the company by making it more difficult for people to change division or function to gain the wider experience they required for promotion to senior management positions. The new approach to management development allowed the company to move people more freely around the organisation to gain the skills and experience they needed to move on. This process was being underwritten by the development of Success Profiles for groups of jobs in the organisation. These “models” were built from feedback from focus groups of job holders but also from the competences contained in the relevant training packages where there was a suitable qualification. In this way, the competences contained in the Training Package were used not only to build the basis of the Success Profile for a
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job but also ensured that the appropriate qualification was tailored to fulfilling the requirements of individuals to gain the skills necessary to move into the job or simply perform at a higher standard. 4.5.7
Conclusion
The Optus case study provides a very good example of how training can lead the development of more sophisticated approaches to human resource management and support the introduction and maintenance of ↑ high performance work systems practices. The structure and comprehensiveness of the training packages that underpin nationally recognised training in ↑ Australia enabled Optus to centre its human resource management activities on development activities rather than on employee relations, the more traditional base for human resource management in Australian organisations. Optus also exhibits many of the aspects of a high ↑ performance work organisation. The extensive use of teamwork, the high performance standards in terms of time and quality of customer service, the use of regular feedback through the performance management system and the focus on the development of employee skills are all hallmarks of high performance work systems as discussed earlier in this chapter. Underpinning these work practices at Optus was the nationally recognised training. Through the training they received, employees not only learned the skills to perform the job to the standards expected by the organisation but were also inducted into the performance management system which was the central feature of Optus high performance work systems. The training was also closely linked to organisation development activities in the organisation and to management development. It is not surprising, therefore, that training had become the most important element of Optus human resource management strategy since it was training that provided the foundation for this organisation to implement a high performance work systems.
Case Studies of TVET Research
4.6
Youth, Work and Identity. Life Perspectives and Interests of Young People – a Research Project Andreas Witzel
4.6.1
Background and Objectives of the Study
Focusing on young people and adolescence in the 1980s, the differentiated qualitative investigation of Martin Baethge and colleagues contributed significantly towards generating a theory of the subjective meaning of work and gainful employment in life. The results of their detailed and comprehensive interview analyses are presented as a typology, which relate identity building and life perspectives by specifying employment trajectories as well as ↑ work orientations and ↑ life concepts and how they shape individuals’ behaviour and decision-making. The Sociological Research Institute of Göttingen (‘Soziologisches Forschungsinstitut Göttingen – SOFI’) conducted this study between 1983 and 1987 on behalf of the Hans Boeckler Foundation (‘Hans-Böckler Stiftung’), The Federal Ministry of Youth, Family, Gender and Health (‘Bundesministerium für Jugend, Familie, Frauen und Gesundheit’) and the German Confederation of Trade Unions (‘Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund’). The study was published in 1988 by Martin Baethge, Brigitte Hantsche, Wolfgang Pelull and Ulrich Voskamp. The study originated from questioning some cultural-historical assessments of public opinion research in the beginning of the 1980s, which postulated that work was losing significance among young people. The scientific discourse of the ‘working society in crisis’ and related ↑ value shifts further nurtured this idea. Gorz (1983) and Schaff (1985) in particular postulated that the ‘disappearance of work’ would result in work-related norms and professional ethics becoming less influential on an individual’s behaviour. These assumptions were based on observed general trends such as the rapid progress in manufacturing industries, overall reduction of working hours, simplification
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of ↑ work processes and more equal working conditions at the level of jobs that require high skills and creativity. Other authors reckoned that the relative decrease of total working time over the life span would lead to work losing its meaning for the individual, while the relative expansion of leisure time would lead to individuals prioritising values associated with leisure such as fun and enjoyment (cf. OPASCHOWSKI 1985). Against the current political and economic conditions Inglehart’s (1979) hypothesis of a universal value shift from materialistic (physical ↑ well-being and substantial security) to post-materialistic values (self-realisation, intellectual and aesthetic fulfilment, political ↑ participation and social recognition) due to prosperity and the gaining significance of leisure rather evoke an idealistic notion. Even at that time different authors questioned those ideas and criticised that Ingelhart’s analysis was lacking a more differentiated assessment (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 20– 26). This critical position also presented an opposing perspective to most of contemporary research on youth and adolescence, which also tended to followed the idea of disruptive modes of individuals’ integration into society (cf. FISCHER / FUCHS / ZINNECKER 1985; by contrast HEINZ /K RÜGER / RETTKE et al. 1985). Derived from assumptions contrary to Inglehart’s value shift hypotheses the authors postulated a structural change of adolescence based on changing patterns of socialisation during adolescence as well as changing structures of the ↑ labour market, vocational education and training and companybased work that young people are confronted with [translated from German] (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 37). The epoch-marking change from a work-oriented to a more school-based adolescence would offer young people more scope for personal development and some kind of alleviation, for example a psycho-social moratorium, through a delayed confrontation with company-specific norms, a more consciously experienced liberation from the parents and the realisation of a personal lifestyle based on experiences among peers. Furthermore, the authors assumed a shift from a ‘production-oriented’ to a ‘consumption-oriented’
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socialisation paradigm by which internal, receptive and reflexive activities and orientations would be prioritised over activities more externally oriented towards nature and the environment. Similar consequences were anticipated in line with the critical considerations mentioned earlier, namely the decreasing influence of work-related internalised norms: “While young people are becoming ever less embedded in real life and work contexts, their unstable young personality is losing important traditional supporting pillars of protection and orientation” [translated from German] (ibid., 45).
Finally, the assessment of unstable and unpredictable labour market developments was linked to the well-known situation of shortages of vocational ↑ training places and raising unemployment. The devaluation of vocational qualifications and certificates and problems related to ↑ school-to-work transition were the result. This, on the one hand, privileges the skilled and higher qualified employees while, on the other hand, people finding themselves at the lower end of the social ladder are faced with impoverishment due to poor working conditions, their exclusion from further and continuous training and lack of personal resources that could compensate for educational exclusion. 4.6.2
Research and Methodological Approach of the Study
With the aim of developing a theory of the subjective meaning of work and gainful employment the study connects to a concept of identity – in line with Habermas (1973; 1976) and Krappmann (1969) – that, on the one hand, claims a competence-based approach: Individuals are consistent in terms of their capacity to act and interact even if role expectations and life situations are inconsistent and changing (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 28). According to the second constituent of identity individuals monitor and control their actions and interactions on the basis of a normative concept of life plans and design. This normative concept integrates everything people aim for in life and how and where they feel themselves (ibid.). In line with a dynamic approach towards identity the individual continuously balances the different components of their personal and social
identity, which further develop and grow as the individual is challenged to deal with the environment and contextual embedding. Corresponding to the trend of rediscovering qualitative methods during the 1970s, the study is methodologically remarkable as it applies descriptive and interpretive methods. It also ascertains the inadequacy of quantitative, standardised methods particularly in terms of the classical forms of investigation based on surveys, which tend to “fail to obtain information of the genesis of individual attitudes and their respective social contexts. They further ignore to what extent the collected opinions are mirrored in reality, that is if they are at all binding for the individuals in terms of concrete actions. Thus, the inner meaning of opinions and statements remains vague. The main reason for this can be found in the standardised phrasing along common language patterns with which opinions are commonly being assessed. The result is that ‘public virtues’ are being confused with personal dispositions of action” [translated from German] (ibid., 30).
When investigating the ‘inner’ ↑ structuration of orientations that are relevant for concrete actions and ↑ life concepts by means of topic-centred interviews (ibid., 33) the topics for a further ‘cautious inquiry’ were determined in advance. There was, however, scope for adaptation of length, focus and linguistic variations of paraphrasing, which made the interviewee the actor of a rather open conversation. This approach helped to avoid the risk that the researchers would pre-determine the direction the investigated topics would take. The outlined combination of open approach and some form of ↑ interview guidelines evokes certain parallels with the methodological characteristics of the ↑ problem-centred interview (WITZEL 1982; 2000). The sample for data analyses comprised n = 168 dependent employees aged between 19 and 25 years (accounting for an extended understanding of youth) working in different sectors (such as manufacturing, administration, ↑ social work and care) and regions. Some of the participants were unqualified, unemployed or worked for voluntary organisations. Gender constituted another distinctive category (male and female participants were almost equally distributed) as well as union membership (cf. Table of 15 groups of investigation at BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 58). Against the assumption that work experience and the variety of
Case Studies of TVET Research
socialisation contexts highly influence how an individual relates to work, the study did not include pupils, apprentices and students. The large sample made the data analysis a challenging task, which required compromising between obtaining “a detailed description of individual cases which cannot be generalised, and the generalisation of experiences at a relatively high categorical level, which would eliminate all individual particularities” (ibid.).
This compromise was realised by following a historical approach. Thematic oriented analyses of the young people’s broad descriptions lead to a complex typology of their perceptions and the subjectively valued importance of central work experiences and tasks. In parallel, descriptive categories of less complex perceptions, social experiences and structural variables were also elaborated. This multi-level approach made it possible to connect “complex attitudes and orientations observed in individual cases with socio-demographic features (gender, social background, education)” on the basis of theory of probabilities, i.e. an actionoriented vagueness (for more details and critical notes on the vagueness of action orientation see Zinn 2001, 60). The analyses of individuals’ attitudes towards work was structured along two dimensions: their expectations of work on the basis of their own work experiences, and the meaning of work in life (main interests and plans for the future) in terms of “giving life a direction, something everyone aims for and which to identify becomes a major task during adolescence” [translated from German] (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 37).
The following sections present the extensive analysis and description of empirical findings. It shows how young people deal with their work and ↑ labour market situation against the background of their employment trajectories (ibid. Chapter 2, 57– 180) and the meaning that work and occupation have for their life concept (ibid. Chapter 3, 181– 256). What will be ignored, as it is less relevant for the focus of this handbook, are the interpretation of findings on young people’s attitudes towards leisure and leisure activities (ibid. Chapter 4, 257– 288.) and unions (ibid. Chapter 5, 289–388).
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4.6.3
Young People’s Employment Trajectories and how they Consider Their Work Situation
The authors started out with exploring the participants’ experiences of making the transition from school to initial vocational training and later gainful employment. Chosen categories for differentiating between different levels of ‘crisis’ were the participants’ work attitude, some of their socio-demographic features and whether they had successfully mastered the transition processes. A “relatively easy transition into the desired apprenticeship programme” or “relatively smooth transition into an acceptable apprenticeship without having had a prior clear priority in terms of deciding for a particular occupational specialisation” (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 61) exemplified experiences of the first threshold not affected by a crisis. By contrast stood provisional solutions, great efforts for realising occupational priorities, remaining on waiting lists or ending up in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs. Taking the experience of crises at the first and second threshold together (in correlation) resulted in employment trajectories covering four to nine years. Those were categorised into two positive career examples (covering about half of the participants), three types of negative careers (about two fifths) and one average pattern (about 10 per cent). Another analysis of ‘crises’ explored the social, educational and family aspects. The result was that pupils with low ↑ educational attainment or without having any school-leaving certificate, children from the lower class having negative experiences at school, an aggressive and confrontational mode of interaction or lack of reflection about work and occupational choices at home, all could be found among the young people mostly affected by crises. According to the main suppositions of attribution theory the failures of such ‘losers’ are not the result of their own efforts (as is the case with ‘successful’ young people), but they are based on external factors that are considered to be ‘structural obstacles’. The typology of employment trajectories is followed by the analysis of how the young people come to terms with their current work situation and how this relates to their personal ↑ work biography.
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This presents a major part of the publication and means that the authors essentially base their typology of occupational orientations on structural information and data. Reducing the six career types (ibid., 66) to four (ibid., 79–108) and combining those with the participants’ current attitudes and reactions to then making another extension to five types that incorporate work experiences (ibid., 160–166) is from a methodological point of view rather confusing. This step is not explained either. In the description of the young people categorised according to the five types the focus is placed on “the expectations of the work at the company and the standards against which those are being assessed” (ibid., 78). These five types are further extended by different variations, each of which is illustrated by a singly case making each one function as a prototype for similar cases. The reader is challenged not to lose track, as the typology is not well categorised and the concrete steps towards a higher level of generalisation of the individual case descriptions is not clear.
Type A: Young skilled workers employment trajectory characterised by continuity (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 79–108) This type on the “bright side” (ibid., 79) of the training and ↑ labour market is represented by half of the sample and applies to insurance, bank and industrial clerks, skilled administrative staff, nurses, mechanics and mechanical engineers and skilled workers trained in alternative trades. They all have in common that they found a qualified job corresponding to their initial vocational training and characterised by challenging and complex tasks and autonomy at work. Young people of this first type come from a supporting social and family environment; they have a relatively high level of education and assess their working situation positively. They state that their expectations of work are being met and that they experience scope for ↑ participation and active involvement. Variations: (a) From work satisfaction to professional development (n = 30)
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Features of the case description: Positive interim assessment of one’s own situation, which is regarded as temporary and transitory as it “loses its attractiveness and becomes boring when staying on for too long” (ibid., 82). Other characteristic features are “a curious view ahead” (ibid., 83), organisational ↑ commitment, investing in broadening one’s own competences and one’s own horizon. Money, status, gaining influence and making a career are less important than “scope for self-realisation” and “intellectual challenges” (ibid., 84). (b) Status and recognition as motivating factors for making a career – the small group of careerists (“not even one in ten cases”). Features of case description: Most important goals are: power and influence, recognition and good reputation, which are most commonly found among bank clerks with a milieu-specific social and educational background. (c) Having reached all professional expectations – high level of work commitment (four out of ten). Features of case description: A “rather conservative work attitude oriented towards continuity” (ibid., 94). Work expectations have largely been fulfilled; the negative aspects of work are tolerable. (d) “Making the most of a satisfying social environment”. Features of case description: The young people feel committed to their working environment, “because it is at work where they feel socially integrated, receive social recognition and experience that their needs for social interaction are being met” (ibid., 100). This is
reflected by a good work atmosphere and a “feeling of social belonging” (ibid., 103) in relation to colleagues and supervisors. It is due to this social dimension of work that the young people neither aim to change their workplace nor their employer. Although work should involve some varying tasks, it does not present great challenges and is rather perceived as a routine and necessity. Financial aspects, stress, status and career prospects seem to be less important. (e) Seeking alternatives – the minority of young people, who are disillusioned (10 per cent). Features of case description: Disappointment with respect to their high expectations; several attempts
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to initiate a change and “stubbornly trying to retain the so far obtained benefits by holding on to learned strategies of coping”.
Type B: Young people with employment trajectories characterised by discontinuities – taking advantage of a ‘second chance’ to consolidate employment perspectives (“one in ten cases”) (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 109–116.) This type refers to young people, who had difficulties as young job entrants or experienced employment discontinuities after having completed their initial vocational training. It also includes negative career examples characterised by highly individualised pathways and several periods of unemployment. The majority of the young people in this category had a low or intermediate educational background and rather poor school-leaving certificates. Their traineeship/apprenticeship presents a provisional or second-best solution resulting in the job not corresponding to their skills. Their ↑ work orientation focuses on making compromises in order to secure their job. Variations: (a) What matters most is job security – reorientation from skilled to semi-skilled work. (b) What matters most is the working environment – finding a new start after periods of unemployment.
Type C: Skilled workers in under qualified jobs – in search of jobs, which match their qualification to avoid social degradation and psychological impoverishment (12 per cent) (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 16–131.) This type is found mostly among male skilled workers such as toolmakers, who are proud of their skills. Working below their qualification level is perceived as a burden, but is accepted so as not to risk losing the job. This form of acceptance, however, is hard for them and although often refuted in research and public opinion they persist on claiming to work according to their qualification in order to improve their status. Variations:
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(a) “You will become what your job makes of you” – pursuing qualified work The reasons for this position are illustrated by the toolmaker in the automobile industry, an occupational specialisation that is considered to be at the higher end of all areas of ↑ metal working. The ↑ young workers continue to expect to get a job that will ultimately match their qualification, while concurrently ruling out the idea of pursuing any form of further training, mainly because they do not consider themselves equipped for theory-based learning (ibid., 126). Rather they emphasise the advantages of practical work experience that would also correspond to their intermediate school-leaving certificate in contrast to their more theoretically oriented colleagues with a higher education certificate. This idea of opposing theoretical and ↑ practical knowledge and skills had already been described in the study of Heinz et al. (1985, 138–140) and was explained as the “personalisation of structural effects”. (b) Further training as a way out of under qualified employment Advancing into positions, which are more intellectually challenging and involve more responsibilities. This is combined with prospects for promotion and higher status.
Type D: Young people with crisis-ridden employment trajectories – different forms of resignation, opposition and self-assertiveness (28 per cent) (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 131–157) This category combines the employment trajectory example five and six, both of which are characterised by different precarious features such as having attended a special school, having dropped out of school, difficult regional ↑ labour market conditions and a socially ↑ disadvantaged and/or poor educational family background. Variations: (a) In the group of those having a job young women with repetitive and very demanding work predominate. From a defensive situation they emphasise the positive aspects of their job. The minority, however, suffer from poor and restrictive work-
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ing conditions and seek alternatives. Two ways of dealing with this situation can be distinguished: – Resignation and adjustment in the case of unskilled or semi-qualified young people. – Resistance against the restrictive working conditions and looking for alternatives. (b) Of the group of unemployed youths also two ways of dealing with this situation can be distinguished: – Young people who are socially excluded culminating in the demonstrative protesting of the punks. – Between hope and resignation – young people who have the ‘wrong’ qualification and are now undergoing a special re-training supported by the labour office. Analysing the connections between the different patterns of transition from vocational training into gainful employment on the one hand, and how the young people experience and deal with their situation on the other hand, the authors conclude that the young people’s expectations of work have not really been disappointed: “The image of a generation, who redefine their initial high expectations of work due to frustrating work experiences, going off in a huff to carefully not waste their energy, does not reflect the reality. The majority of these young people rather try to cope with the difficult situation on the labour market by holding on to their expectations and struggling for it with a high level of personal commitment” [translated from German] (ibid., 159).
Baethge and his team underpin these findings with the new distribution of five typical forms of coping with the work situation according to which the majority of young people belong to the types of: – “Activities geared towards initiating a change in terms of career progression”; – “Activities geared towards initiating a change in terms of getting out of an unsatisfying work situation”; and – “Making the most of an unsatisfying job situation”. By contrast, the types that represent “acceptance of the situation with elements of resignation or retreat” and “suffering from the situation” only account for 19 per cent of the sample. A further result refers to the new attitude towards work of young males as well as females, which emphasises that work should be purposeful and meet
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individual interests (73 per cent) rather than prioritising material security and seeing working merely as a means of earning a living (27 per cent). 42 per cent of the youths consider what their tasks involve and gaining self-confidence as important, while another 24 per cent of predominantly females emphasise the communicative and social aspects of work. Interestingly, the authors also include young people with a career and status orientation in this category arguing that such an orientation would also accentuate immaterial values in terms of reaching out for status elevation and social recognition. Taking the social and communicative aspects aside, similarities can be found in terms of the three ways of coping with the work situation on the one hand, and the socio-demographic variables such as social background, level of education and employment status of the young people on the other hand. It is rather the young people with a higher social and educational background (particularly those coming from families with a white collar or civil servant tradition), a higher school leaving certificate (corresponding to a intermediate and ‘A’ levels) and the skilled workers who emphasise scope for personal interests and self-realisation at work. Only 7 per cent of the young people emphasise the material aspects of work. Their working conditions are highly restrictive, which makes it difficult for them to identify with their work. Another 20 per cent consider material values in terms of job security and the level of income as important. In summary values such as self-realisation are prioritised against the material and reproductive aspects of work despite the difficult situation on the ↑ labour market. 4.6.4
Work and Occupational Orientations in the Life of Young People
The analysis takes on a different perspective when focusing on the normative identity concept, which directs the young people’s actions and interactions in the context of life planning. The authors, however, do not generate explicitly a connection with the typology of how young people deal with their work and labour market situation. Following Erikson (1966), identifying a ↑ life concept is a central psychosocial and fundamental-
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ly stable developmental task during adolescence in relation to the institutions work, leisure and family/relationships. These three institutional areas mark the categories of the typology of the young people’s statements, which are expressed in the interview topics “what to achieve in life” and “how to achieve it” (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 182). The summary of this part of the study confirms again the stated objective of refuting the view that young people disappointedly turn away from work: “It cannot be concluded that work as a guiding principle in life is being abandoned when it comes to developing a somewhat binding orientation in terms of one’s own life perspectives” [translated from German] (ibid., 187).
The typology serves as a “rather instrumental construct to understand and descriptively classify the data”. The theoretical assumptions of the psychosocial ↑ development tasks during adolescence provide the background for it (ibid., 185). Like the typology, the presentation refers to single cases and variations along four major categories – in this case life concepts (ibid., 181–237). – Centrality of work and an occupational orientation as major dimensions of identification (‘work oriented’): 31 per cent of the young people refer to work as a central dimension for developing their identity and life perspectives. The partner, family and leisure are less important. – Work and private life as balanced points of reference (‘balanced’): 30 per cent of the young people develop positive interests in both spheres without subordinating one or the other. That work should be purposeful and meaningful is regarded as more important than making a career (ibid., 188). The partner and family life or hobbies and cultural activities are emphasised when it comes to private life and partly compensate for a lack of social recognition at work. – Family-oriented life concept with a subordinated, but still significant meaning of work (‘familyoriented’): For 23 per cent of the young people work is clearly less important than the partner and the family for identity building and self-definition. – Leisure-oriented life concept with a detached attitude towards work:
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16 per cent of more ‘hedonistic oriented’ young people favour having fun in life over responsibilities and obligations. Their attitude towards work is rather distant and detached. The gender distribution of the first type centrality of work and occupational orientation is only slightly unbalanced (37 per cent males against 25 per cent females). Women’s ↑ commitment to work in relation to “other spheres of social life” – illustrated on the basis of one example – contrasts with their male counterparts, who instead “experience pressures to be successful and comply with role expectations at work”. From a contemporary point of view (cf. for example KRÜGER / BORN 1991; KÜHN 2004) it is surprising that this is described as relatively unproblematic: “Where conflicts of interests arise, the young people are generally able to be flexible and solve such conflicts” (BAETHGE / HANTSCHE / PELLUL / VOSKAMP 1988, 205). Slight gender differences of the type work and private life as balanced points of reference only occur regarding personal inclinations and interests. While young males almost exclusively consider ‘private life’ as enjoying life and having fun, young women clearly relate private life to the partner and the family. At one point the clear categorisation of the typology becomes a little bit fuzzy: The statements “without work no money and no enjoyment” (ibid., 229) or “today I need my job more than ever to afford my hobbies” (ibid., 236) were classified as ‘leisure oriented’ while they could also be interpreted as ‘balanced’. With 34 per cent females and only 13 per cent males clearly represents the family-oriented ↑ life concept a traditional pattern of orientation with an asymmetric partner concept. Women refer to the family as part of “life fulfilment” or a “sphere that compensates for working life” (ibid., 218). The leisure-oriented life concept is with 22 per cent of males twice as strongly represented as among women (11 per cent). This difference is not further explained. Work and the family are both mostly ignored: “For the following years the priority is to enjoy personal freedom […]” (ibid., 231). The dominant role of work and its centrality for developing a life concept is another proof for the relatively high importance of work for young people’s identity formation. Similar to ‘expectations of
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work’ is the ‘centrality of work’ closely connected with the socio-demographic features ‘social background’, ‘level of education and training’ and ‘work-related status’. Young people with ‘A-level’ certificates are up to 90 per cent work oriented and contrast with low educated youths, who have a much stronger family and leisure orientation. Similarly higher qualified employees and those with a higher ↑ professional status are more work and occupational oriented than unskilled or semi-qualified workers and employees among whom family orientation predominates. Considering the different types of employment trajectory the authors conclude that apart from the positive aspects of a more individualised work attitude with expectations of having an interesting job, scope for self-realisation and the possibility of employing the personal skills profile, a reverse trend of occupational and social exclusion is also notable. This is reinforced by the socialisation dynamics generated through economic crisis. Only half of the young people whose employment trajectories are characterised by crisis have a work and occupation-centred life concept. 4.6.5
Importance of the Study for Vocational Education in Theory and Practice
The study of Baethge et al. (1988) surely is shaped by the aim of showing that high expectations of work persist despite experiences of crisis. Against the background of current developments on the training and ↑ labour market, which are generally explained as being the economic consequence of ↑ globalisation processes, this topic almost provokes one to undertake follow-up ↑ comparative studies. The analysis of how young people relate to work is assessed from a subjective perspective. It starts out by analysing patterns of employment trajectories (which could be unproblematic or characterised by discontinuities and crises) and outcomes of selection processes (such as skilled workers working below their qualification). Those issues are looked at in terms of identifying corresponding responses and orientations of young people. The empirical results of work expectations give a positive answer to the question whether work can still be considered a central category of social in-
tegration. In a later publication, Baethge (1991) reassesses the key findings of the study relating them to the development of modern industrial societies. He concludes that modernisation leads to work and the ↑ performance of ↑ work tasks undergoing a process of normative subjectivity (‘normative Subjektivierung’) in terms of individuals attributing a higher value to having a meaningful job. Working to make a living, by contrast, is not the main expectation. As the significance of work is increasingly linked to personal identity formation, Baethge concludes that the model of social and political integration through associations and representative bodies is losing its foundation. The justification of the large sample (Baethge/ Hantsche/ Pellul/ Voskamp 1988, footnote 16, 392) shows that when qualitative methods were applied at the time the study was published it was more common to concentrate the analysis on a few individual cases. For developing the typology, however, the authors suitably decided to use extensive data. The vivid and complex description makes it possible to get insight into the life perspectives and interests of young people. This insight is particularly vital to address theoretical and practical issues of competence development at school and work. Critical assessments of the sample, however, persist (cf. LEMPERT 2002, 72) when it comes to drawing quantitative conclusions on the young people’s orientations and attitudes on the basis of a qualitative analysis. In order to generate representative results more groups of young people (for example representing construction and textile and food industries) would need to be included. Weighting the investigated groups according to their proportional distribution in the overall sample would further be necessary. Not to revert to a deterministic model of the relationship between the individual and society also represents an innovative approach. The interactionist approach rather emphasises the actor and his/her occupational and work-related orientations and actions and how those are shaped by the individual’s concrete work experiences. Although the typology of employment trajectories is taken as the basis for classifying orientations and responses, the authors do not postulate that the environment has deterministic affects on the individual. The in-
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terdependent perspective is expressed in the variations of types like, for example, when a precarious employment trajectory is specified in terms of ‘resistance’, ‘non-adjustment’ or ‘↑ career changes’, and unproblematic trajectories are further differentiated into ‘disappointment’ or ‘looking for alternatives’. When focusing on orientations that are relevant for and guiding concrete actions the authors themselves acknowledged the importance of young people’s work and life experiences in linking, on the one hand, ↑ work orientations and ↑ life concepts, and combining those with employment trajectories on the other. Although presenting a complex and challenging undertaking, the authors further reckon that ↑ longitudinal studies are necessary to foster work-related identity building in the long run (ibid., 27). That this has been realised in more recent life course research reveals the major weaknesses of the study clearly contradicting the claim of the authors to have accounted for the linkage between individuals’ orientations and their concrete actions. A more up-to-date longitudinal study of female life concepts, for example, reveals the divergence between life plans and concrete actions when it comes to starting a family and making arrangements of parental leave (cf. BORN /K RÜGER / LORENZ-MEYER 1996). Further, young women’s life plans depend on their biographical circumstances, which influence how those plans are being translated and transformed into concrete decisions and actions (cf. GEISSLER / OECHSLE 1996). The key results of the study consist of the typology of transitions into gainful employment and the related young people’s orientation towards work. Partly influenced by the findings of Baethge and colleagues a series of other typologies of work-related biographical orientations and actions were developed in the following decades (MÜLLER 1990; KÖNIG 1993; SCHERR 1995; GEISSLER / OECHSLE 1996; CORSTEN 1998; WITZEL /KÜHN 2000). Issues of transition into gainful employment remain topical to date. As they address the relationship between personal identity and work-related roles or – even more fundamentally – between the individual and social structure it remains a research topic of wider interest (see for example WAHLER 1997, 222– 226; ZINN 2001, 55–61; LEMPERT 2002, 63–77).
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The lack of ↑ comparative studies makes the interpretation of the findings incomplete, first as concerns the interpretation of meaningful work having priority over a more materialistic work orientation related to income; moreover, this is proposed as a future trend without presenting any significant evidence for it. Second, as concerns the effects of experiences of crises: It remains an unanswered question in what way the young people’s biographical trajectories and orientations differ in terms of periods of crisis and periods of stability. Dynamics of social exclusion persist even under easing ↑ labour market conditions, and the structural frameworks for realisation still restrain the young people’s occupational interests and aspirations. Therefore transitions, which in many aspects are considered as unproblematic, can be interpreted as a highly cognitive adjustment of young people to labour market restrictions. Other ↑ longitudinal studies that were conducted even before Baethge and colleagues published their findings (cf. HEINZ / K RÜGER / RETTKE
ET AL.
1985; WAHLER / WITZEL
1997; WITZEL 2001) showed that in this context the main achievement consists of retrospectively reinterpreting negative experiences of realising occupational aspirations to be on the ‘wrong track’, and assessing the outcomes as the consequences of personal decisions and efforts. The obvious endeavour to come to terms with educational and occupational selection processes then entails interpreting occupational pathways ultimately realised on the basis of labour market restrictions as something planned, and substantiating this interpretation by referring to, for example, an inclination already developed during childhood.
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4.7
Implementing Dual Vocational Education in China: A Case of Transnational Innovation Transfer through a GermanChinese Research and Development Project Zhao Zhiqun and Xu Han
4.7.1
Context
This paper discusses a research and development project on ↑ China’s vocational education in the 1990’s –“Research and ↑ Experimentation of China’s Vocational Education Reform Promotion through Learning from the German ↑ Dual System” (referred to as “VERDualS” hereafter), which is jointly executed by the Central Institute of Vocational and Technical Education (↑ CIVTE) of the Chinese Ministry of Education, the Institute of Vocational and Technical Education Liaoning (RIBB-L) and Shanghai (RIBB-S). During the late 1970s, China started adopting its reform and opening up policies with the gradual transition from the planned economy to the market economy. Vocational education saw rapid development. However, the quality of the vocational education was hardly adapted to the demand on human resources from the social, economic and technological development. Therefore, China had to review its traditional model of vocational education system and carry out subsequent reform which cried out for guidance from advanced experience and reference models. The ever-increasing exchanges with the outside world made both the educational circle and economic circle greatly interested in the dual system of German vocational education, and so a series of ↑ model trials and ↑ pilot projects were organized to introduce the German experience and to reform the traditional Chinese vocational education system. In 1991, The German Government through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (↑ GTZ) supported the Chinese Government in establishing three vocational education research institutes, namely the CIVTE, RIBB-L and RIBB-S. The core task of these three institutes
was to “draw on international and domestic experience for the development of the vocational education system” ,… and “engage in research and development as well as conduct ↑ model trials” and “provide consultancy services to the government” (SEK/HSST/GTZ 1994). Therefore the common tasks for the three institutes at the outset were to implement the project VERDualS and to formulate evidence-based suggestions and opinions for the further development of Chinese vocational education based on the survey and analysis of the existing model trials and ↑ pilot projects for implementation of the dual system. The research project VERDualS was then listed as one of the key national projects in the ninth fiveyear plan of Chinese Social Sciences Research (1996–2000). Two books were its main results: “Future-oriented ↑ Experimentation – the Practice of the Dual System of Vocational Education in ↑ China” (THE VERDUALS TASK FORCE 1998) and “ History and Status – The German Dual System of Vocational Education” (CIVTE 1998a), the first one was awarded the First Prize of the second National Distinguished Achievement of Educational Scientific Research. 4.7.2
Main Research Issues and Results
VERDualS studied issues that need to be addressed urgently for the Chinese vocational education system in its transition from quantitative growth to qualitative progress, such as how to closely link the specialties and ↑ curriculum development with the ↑ labour market; select the basic model for running schools from the perspective of social progress; play the role of the enterprise in vocational education and improve the teachinglearning quality especially the practical qualification of the graduates. By way of the comparative educational subject of “drawing on international experience through international cooperation”, VERDualS explored the fundamental rules for vocational education at two levels of macro school operating mechanism and micro teaching-learning process. The project consisted of three parts: – The study and analysis of the original dual system of vocational education (→ 1.4): collect and
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analyze information on the German ↑ dual system for the other two parts; – Model trials (→ 2.4): empirical data were collected from the dual system practiced in China through the model trials and pilot projects; and corresponding interpretations were provided; – Teaching-learning process comparison (→ 3.7.7): Comparison was made between the dual system (in German and Chinese pilot projects) and the current teaching-learning process of Chinese traditional vocational education in the field of mechanical and electronic specialties in order to look for rules for vocational education. The project results can be summarized from the following three aspects:
Understanding the Original Dual System of Vocational Education The results revealed that the dual system was produced by the historical development in Germany and characterized by typical social and cultural features. Due to the different traditions, political systems and economic mechanisms in China and Germany, the dual system can not be copied straightforwardly to China. However, quite a lot of experience from the dual system can be introduced to China, namely the educational mentality, management system and teaching-learning models. The Chinese concept of dual vocational education consists of the following constituents: (1) The essence of the dual system is “the combination of theory and practice with the emphasis on practice; cooperation between the school and the enterprise with the emphasis on the enterprise”, which reflects the four aspects of the ↑ educational process: integration between – Education and production; – Learning and working – Theoretical concepts and practical skills – Social integration and development of personality. (2) The dual system applies a hierarchical and taskdivision based management with a complete information network, clearly-defined legal procedures and an effective consultancy agency for decisionmaking. On the basis of ↑ statistics, means of information based guidance, timely monitoring and
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control, consultation as well as direct investment on the establishment of cross-enterprise training centres are used to guide and regulate the operation of vocational education. An Information network on training and the ↑ labour market is set up to provide society with policy information and information about market demands through the Annual ↑ Report on Vocational Education and diversified vocational counselling to juveniles so as to ensure that the decisions about vocational education made by enterprises and individuals are based on good information. (3) Relevance and of training content is ensured by the dominant position of the enterprise in the training. The specialties (Ausbildungsberuf) in the dual system are based on vocational analysis and geared to “broad foundation and multi-skills”. The curriculum is oriented towards vocational qualification and closely linked with vocational practice, enterprise needs and students’ career development. The teaching-learning processes focused on students pay great attention to practice and respect of human needs. 4.7.3
Model Trials
The project covered three types of ↑ model trials: – Since 1983, within the framework of the SinoGerman Technical Cooperation, over 30 enterprise training centres or ↑ vocational schools were established following the dual system model in order to implement the pilot projects of the dual system of vocational education; – The model trials were guided by the three vocational education institutes ↑ CIVTE, RIBB-L and RIBB-S; regional trials were supported in six cities such as Suzhou and Wuxi with the support of the Ministry of Education and local government); – Additionally, quite a few vocational schools took their own initiative to learn from and to explore ways to introduce the German experience. In this process, the Sino-German Technical Cooperation Project would normally assign a German expert to provide on-site coaching. Whereas, those schools who took their own initiative to conduct the trial were too spread out geographically and were not able to have close exchanges; therefore, the project VERDualS focused on the trials that were under the direct guidance of the three
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vocational education institutes. For instance, the RIBB-L conducted the trial in 13 vocational middle schools for ca. 1200 students from 10 specialties such as mechanics, electrical engineering, agriculture, and finance etc. The achievements can be summarized by the following four points: (1) ↑ Vocational competence oriented training was established. The technicians trained in the vocational education system of the previous planned economy in ↑ China have limited knowledge, single skill and weak adaptability to their new posts. During the model trials, cooperation was established with enterprises to jointly identify new training objectives oriented to vocational competence for those pilot specialties so as to expand professional knowledge coverage, increase students’ adaptability and strengthen the awareness on environmental protection and other ↑ key competences. (2) A comprehensive curriculum focused on vocational qualifications was devised. The traditional vocational education had its curriculum based on a theoretical knowledge and specialty system. The trial was not confined to the specialty system and established a comprehensive curriculum based on vocational qualifications by eliminating some courses. A new three-stage curriculum structure was developed to include “vocational basic training, professional training and vocational post training” and replaced the old three-stage structure of “cultural class, professional basic class and professional class”. (3) The learning contents were reformed to be more basic, extensive, practical and progressive. The theoretical learning contents in the traditional Chinese vocational education tend to be excessive and recondite with insufficient coordination between each subject and with out-of-date knowledge. The teaching guidelines developed through the trials were based on the production and development needs of enterprises and were able to provide broader work-based skills, reduce the depth of theoretical knowledge with more attention paid to the importance of the working process in the vocational learning. All these had become the basis for the broader curriculum reform in China (ZHAO 2004).
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(4) Exploration was made on student-centred ways and means of the teaching-learning organisation. Pilot schools set up a new teaching arrangement unit to apply more flexible means to the teachinglearning arrangement and more diversified teaching approaches, e. g. the teaching of the agricultural specialty was arranged according to the farming seasons etc. The student-oriented teaching-learning methods were introduced to reform the traditional front teaching method (XU 2001). The project conducted a follow-up survey among 2340 students from 2 graduations in 27 ↑ vocational schools. The survey revealed that students trained with ↑ dual system models can more quickly adapt to the job requirements and are highly spoken of by the enterprises since they are knowledgeable, multi-skilled, well-accomplished ethically and have strong practical ability (THE VERDUALS TASK FORCE 1998). 4.7.4
Difficulties with Replicating the Dual System Experience in China
The results of VERDualS have shown that even though the vocational educational management system of the dual system was not introduced to ↑ China in its entirety, there will still be difficulties in replicating some experiences of the dual system: (1) it is hard for teachers to adapt. The teachers are used to classroom type of theoretical teaching and it is hard for them to break away from the discipline-based curriculum; furthermore, they have insufficient experience of flexible teaching arrangements and vocational practice; (2) To intensify teaching through practice needs a higher proportion of ↑ practical training. However, when the enterprise support is generally missing in China, it becomes a big challenge to address the input on teaching facilities as well as to establish a model combining teaching and production and resource sharing; (3) Due to the limited number and variety of media for selection, the ↑ teaching and learning process is generally riddled with the lack of diversified supporting materials and media (THE VERDUALS TASK FORCE 1998).
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4.7.5
Methodology
The guidelines followed in the design of ↑ research methodologies in VERDualS were: to conduct an analysis at the level of the educational system and teaching-learning process through document review, study tour and joint international and national workshops; to gain experience from other countries (such as Canada and ↑ Australia) while conducting comparisons between China and Germany; to make comparisons on specific subjects such as means to foster teachers while conducting comprehensive comparison (YANG 1998). The entire research lasted for 10 years and could be divided into three stages: (1) Study and analysis of the original ↑ dual system model. Study tours to Germany and a review of relevant documents on German vocational education were arranged for administrative and research staff to allow them to analyze the connotation of the dual system and experiences to be adopted, thus laying a foundation for conducting the ↑ model trials. (2) Model trials. These mainly refer to the experience from the reform conducted by the ↑ vocational schools and relevant enterprises directly guided by the three vocational education institutes. The purpose was to explore the feasibility and conditions for the application of the German experience to China. People paid their attention mainly to the technical issues such as the establishment, operation and coordination of the pilot project and the formulation of specific policies that are strongly characterized by straight copying. (3) The summing-up and replication of the experience from the trial. The summing-up and analysis of the trial would abstract experience of general significance for wider replication. This was a process of localizing German experience. Its focus was to choose transferable contents and adaptable forms on the basis of the Chinese situation and to work out a reform and development concept through understanding the essentials, applying the rules and transforming the patterns. As an important symbol of this stage, quite a lot of useful German experience was adopted in a series of regulations and documents on vocational education promulgated by the government in the late 1990s.
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Since we had project staffs come from over 10 Chinese and German vocational education institutes, six pilot cities and a number of school enterprises committed to vocational education reform, therefore, the research and reform and the theoretical study and practical ↑ experimentation were carried out abreast and mutually supplemented. During the project implementation, its periodic achievements were already used to guide the government and schools in the reform in many aspects and played an important role in the development of the vocational education reform. Typical example is the “↑ Report on Vocational Education in ↑ China” whose compilation was started during the project implementation. 4.7.6
Summary
VERDualS was the largest organized action in contemporary Chinese history to learn from foreign experience and to review and reform the vocational education system. Its impact on the development of the Chinese vocational education system is far more profound than a normal research project and its practical significance is far more important than its theoretical significance: (1) The inferior social status of vocational education in China was reconsidered. After the project, people’s understanding of vocational education was no longer confined to the Confucius tradition and they came to understand that vocational education is an important means to realize the strategic task of ↑ human resources development in order to further economic development as well as to provide another type of education to help realize individual survival and development (compared with general education). People started to believe that the recognition of the importance of vocational education will be increased along with social progress and economic development; this is very helpful in improving the widespread pessimistic atmosphere resulting from the ↑ disadvantaged position that vocational education had in its competition with general education at the end of last the century. (2) People have recognized that whether the enterprise can play its role or not is an important indicator for the level of vocational education development. Vocational education should reach beyond
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the education. More consideration should be given to wider perspectives like economic and social development rather than only to the education itself. Policy conditions should be created to enable enterprises to get involved in the vocational education and take a more active role in school administration, ↑ curriculum development, financial input, consultancy for ↑ development policy and evaluation of education. All these were later on reflected in the relevant policies and documents of the Chinese Government (MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND MINISTRY OF LABOUR 2003). (3) The project activities encouraged the administrators and teachers to rationally criticize and consider the teaching and learning traditions based on Chinese culture and developed over the past thousands of years, and increased their enthusiasm for accepting foreign ideas. This has laid a good ideological foundation for future educational and teaching-learning reform. Since then, problems encountered in introducing advanced foreign educational and teaching-learning models (e. g. learning-field curriculum, action-oriented teaching methods and the special vocational qualification certificate etc.) are more of a technical nature and less of a conceptual or ideological nature. (4) Due to the limited experience in a developing country, the design of ↑ research methodology lacked sufficient theoretical support and systematic thinking; and research on the original German models was not profound. But the procedures tested and developed by the project VERDualS for introducing foreign experience, namely “master the essentials of the experience and the tranferable contents – research on subjective elements such as conditions and environment for introduction – create conditions and find out alternatives and conduct tests – sum up experience and replicate results from the pilot”, may be of general significance for ↑ developing countries in their learning from the advanced experience of vocational education from the developed countries through their foreign exchange and cooperation (THE VERDUALS TASK FORCE 1998).
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4.8
The Assessment: Knowledge, Skills and Competitiveness Ewart Keep and Ken Mayhew
4.8.1
Preliminary Remark
The autumn 1988 issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy considered the UK’s deficiencies in vocational education and training (VET). It was there that Finegold and Soskice first popularized the notion of the ‘low skills/low quality’ equilibrium. This Assessment originally introduces a range of articles which discussed developments in the decade that has passed since then in the same journal (issue no. 1, 1999). It argues that, despite massive policy initiatives, there has been only limited improvement in the UK’s relative VET ↑ performance. Considerable progress has been made in analysis of market failures affecting the supply of skills, and in analysis of the possible causes and consequences of low employer demand for skills (‘↑ systems failure’). The recent Competitiveness White Paper reflects this improved understanding. However, there is still an imperfect appreciation of the nature of skills and of their contribution to the development of a more competitive, higher value-added economy. The article ends by suggesting how progress might be made on this front. This article was selected for re-print as a case study within this handbook since it exemplifies the considerations which were instrumental to the foundation of The Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) ↑ Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE), that commenced operations in October 1998, and started its second five-year ↑ research programme in October 2003. The aim of the Centre is to examine the links between the acquisition and use of skills and knowledge, product market strategies and performance (measured in a variety of ways). Some of the references in this text therefore are linked to individual papers within issue no. 1, 1999 of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. All individual papers have been added to the list of references.
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4.8.2
Introduction
The autumn 1988 issue of the ‘Oxford Review of Economic Policy’ was devoted to education and training. It received considerable publicity and became very influential in national debate about Britain’s vocational education and training problems, not least because it was here that David Finegold and David Soskice first popularized the notion of ‘the low skills/low quality equilibrium’. This marked a new stage in the debate about the role that skills and knowledge might play in competitiveness and organisational performance within advanced economies (→ 3.5). In the decade that has passed since then, academic thinking and analysis in the field of vocational education and training (VET) has moved on at a substantial rate. The articles which make up that issue of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy devoted to these developments (issue no. 1, 1999) are testimony to some of the areas in which our understanding of the processes that create and sustain skills and of the interrelationship between skills, knowledge, competitiveness, and economic performance has developed. This Assessment considers whether policymaking has advanced at the same rate. Section 2 outlines the nature of Britain’s VET failings as they were perceived at the time of the 1988 issue. It goes on to describe the policy initiatives which were already under way and which were introduced subsequently, arguing that, substantial though they were, they led to only limited progress. Section 3 explores why this was the case. It sets out the two major generic explanations: market and ↑ administrative failure and ↑ systems failure. Section 4 considers aspects of the policy treatment of market and administrative failure. Section 5 discusses how debate on systems failure and on the demand side has developed since the late 1980s, while section 6 evaluates the current government’s stance as exemplified in the recent Competitiveness White Paper. Section 7 presents our conclusions.
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4.8.3
The 1988 Issue’s View of UK VET Performance and the Policy Responses
Keep and Mayhew (1988) described how the UK policy-making community had long exhibited ‘cycles of concern’ about the VET performance. The late 1970s saw commentators beginning to rediscover the UK’s long-standing shortcomings. The UK was compared unfavourably with our international competitors along a number of dimensions. These were that: too many of the youths left school at the first opportunity; too many of them not only did not possess formal qualifications but were deficient in basic literacy and numeracy; there was a creaking, narrow, and inefficient apprenticeship system which was in decline; there was little or no formal training for young entrants to the workforce who did not embark upon apprenticeships; adult training was virtually absent. One prominent aspect of the Conservatives’ ‘supply-side revolution’ in the 1980s involved an attempt to remedy these VET failings. There were major changes in policy and institutions. When the 1988 issue was published, policy changes concerning work-based training were well under way, but the policy revolution concerning full-time education had only just begun. These official initiatives are thoroughly described elsewhere, and so here we mention them only in outline. The key point is that these efforts concentrated almost exclusively on promoting the supply of skills. Little stress was placed on addressing the possible lack of demand for skills, which is what the Finegold-Soskice hypothesis emphasized. This general thrust of policy continued into the 1990s. In the field of training, Industrial Training Boards (ITBs) were dismantled, thereby largely removing private-sector coordination at the sectoral level. At the same time, national tripartite arrangements in the shape of the Manpower Services Commission’s successor – the Training Agency – were also abolished, thereby leaving no single body with a responsibility for national VET strategy. Instead, the stress was on locally delivered policy initiatives via the Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs). In contrast to the broad constituency represented on the ITBs, the TECs were designed to be employer-led and their boards consisted large-
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ly of employers. They were charged with delivering central government policy, and were the channel through which the cash made available for the support of work-based training flowed. The particular subsidies changed several times during the 1980s. By the end of that decade the main ones were Youth Training (YT) and its adult equivalent, Employment Training (ET). The government insisted that it was essential that, in contrast to what had been the British tradition, a much higher proportion of training should be certified by testing and qualifications. These qualifications should be unified and comparable across sectors. Thus National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) were introduced at a variety of levels, ranging from the most basic (Level 1) to Level 5, which was meant to be the equivalent of a post-graduate degree. Perhaps the most constructive innovation was Investors in People (IIP). Organisations received a ‘kitemark’ of good practice to indicate not only that they were good trainers, but that training decisions were properly integrated into broader corporate planning and strategy. The later reforms of the education system involved massive institutional change. The precise form of this differed from one segment of the educational system to the next. But the overarching theme was to introduce quasi-markets, where greater competition between institutions was driven by greater and better-informed exercise of consumer choice. Such competition was meant to stimulate greater ↑ efficiency and quality, but, as is so often the case, with the introduction of quasi-markets came greater regulation, supervision, and inspection, in order to minimize market failure. Central government control over education, in terms of both content and process, increased dramatically. One example would be the introduction of the national curriculum. Accompanying these changes was greater emphasis on preparing pupils for the world of work while they were still in full-time education. This was exemplified by the introduction of General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs). These were meant to offer a vocational alternative to more traditional academic approaches and, like their sister NVQs, were available at a number of different levels. But GNVQs were only one element of this new emphasis on the vocational. For
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example, all children in their GCSE year were required to go on work placements. What was the upshot of this huge surge of policy activity? Certainly by the end of the 1980s, there was significantly greater explicit awareness of the importance of education and training in achieving national economic success, not only in official circles but also among business and union leaders. The number of people obtaining qualifications increased. In terms of full-time education, this clearly represents an advance. This is the case even if one accepts that GCSEs are easier to obtain than were O-levels and that there has been grade inflation at A-level. However, there were worrying developments at the top of the educational ladder. Syllabus dilution means that students are arriving at university with a narrow base of knowledge in particular subjects. More contentious is the possibility that they are arriving with their ↑ cognitive skills less well developed than they used to be. Turning to work-based training, it would hardly be surprising to discover that qualifications acquired had increased since, as we have seen, the new system was designed to be significantly more qualifications driven. However, whether this signals a significant improvement in training volume and quality is much more doubtful. Until recently the common interpretation of the official ↑ statistics, derived from the Labour Force Survey, was that workbased training had increased in the 1980s and into the 1990s. Felstead et al. (1997) show that this view requires careful interpretation. Certainly the number of workers undergoing training increased, but the average duration of training per person fell. If we define the volume of training as the number of people being trained multiplied by the duration of training undertaken, the volume of training has probably remained pretty constant. Other evidence suggests limited, if any, ‘improvement’ in work-based training for the young. Despite the expenditure of very considerable sums of public money, attempts in the shape of the Youth Training Scheme (YTS) and its successor YT to create a high-quality, work-based training route for young entrants to the work-force not entering apprenticeship largely failed to produce the desired outcome. YTS and YT, as well as ET, became recognized largely as schemes to get the unemployed
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back into work rather than substantive devices for improving skills. To the extent that business took up NVQs, the vast majority were at the low end I and NVQ 2 while there were persistent criticisms of the content of many specific GNVQs as devised by the industry-led bodies and National Training Organisations. International comparisons are notoriously difficult, but the most reliable ones show that the UK still lags behind its major competitors, particularly in intermediate skills. Such comparisons are tricky at any given point in time, they are even more so in a time-series dimension. However, there is scant evidence that there has been significant progress in closing the gap that had been observed in the late 1970s. In other words, on the whole the relative deficiencies of the UK VET ↑ performance, which were noted in the 1988 issue of the journal, remain today. Some commentators have argued that the lie is given to the lack of demand hypothesis by evidence of reported skills shortages. The first report of the National Skills Task Force (1998) provides useful information in this regard. The report distinguishes between ‘recruitment difficulties’ and ‘skill shortages’, as problems which are experienced at the recruitment stage, and ‘skill gaps’, as problems experienced with an employer’s existing stock of workers. It suggests that many apparent skill shortages are in fact broader recruitment difficulties. Genuine skill shortage and evident skill gaps are such as to be consistent with the demand hypothesis for the economy at large. Why was there so much activity and such a substantial increase in awareness of the problem, and yet apparently so little achievement? 4.8.4
The Underlying Problems with VET Policy
As we have seen, in the late 1980s the conventional diagnoses of the UK’s deficiencies involved describing problems on the ‘supply side’. These descriptions fell into two broad categories. The first was the failure of the full-time education system to deliver the right sort of education to a large enough group of youngsters. The second suggested that there was insufficient work-based training, for which the most common explanation involved a variety of market failures including ex-
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ternalities. Essentially, it was argued, the social return to investment in ↑ general training was higher than the private return to the employer, because the employer could not be certain that a worker for whose training he or she had paid would not leave for another job. Therefore the aggregate of privateemployer decisions added up to less than the socially optimal amount of training. The failure of the workers themselves to fill the gap by paying for the investment was explained by capital market failures, lack of information, and risk aversion. In other words, the conventional ↑ diagnosis was that work-based training was prejudiced by a series of market failures affecting the decision-taking of both employers and individual workers. The failures of the full-time education system were attributed to a number of factors. These included administrative and professional decisions about expenditure, capacity, and syllabus and course content. From time to time it was also argued that signals from the ↑ labour market and the social security system provided individuals with ‘perverse’ incentives which, for example, encouraged them not to stay on at school or to choose the ‘wrong’ subjects at university. To the extent that these market and ↑ administrative failures were at the heart of our VET problems, one has to presume that, by and large, there was nothing inherently British about them. It was to be inferred that the UK had dealt with such failures less well and avoided them less successfully than our competitor countries. Addressing the issue was certainly not a trivial task, but its dimensions and scale were relatively easy to define. Finegold and Soskice’s notion of the low skill/low quality equilibrium suggested that the underlying problem might be far more complex than this. They reminded us that the demand side might be important – that, for whatever reason, large numbers of UK employers did not want or need skilled workers. As Finegold (1999) writes, this possibility had not been ignored in earlier research. However, the stress had been placed on broadly ‘cultural’ explanations of employer attitudes towards skill. The Finegold-Soskice hypothesis moved beyond cultural explanations to an analysis of ‘systems’ failure where employers were reacting rationally to a battery of incentives provided by the institu-
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tions and attitudes they had inherited. They raised the possibility that, rather than market and ↑ administrative failures, the source of our VET problems might be something far more difficult to analyse and define, and far more intractable for policymakers – ↑ systems failure. Against this background, this Assessment continues by asking what progress has been made in research and policy thinking about these issues. Two of the contributions (those by Margaret Stevens and Christine Greenhalgh) are primarily concerned with market and administrative failures. Five (those by Pepper Culpepper, David Finegold, Francis Green et al., Mari Sako and Robin Wensley) are more concerned with the broader dimensions of systems failure. For example, as Green et al. make clear, skills and knowledge are now widely recognized to form simply one important element within a much wider matrix of factors that helps support high levels of economic ↑ performance. In a very different way, Finegold makes a similar point in his review of high skill ecosystems (HSEs) in California. High levels of skill are an important prerequisite for some forms of high-value-added production, but, on their own, they are not sufficient to ensure success. They have to be combined with other parts of a broader package of environmental, cultural, and structural factors that can nurture and support high-performance, high-value-added industries and sectors. The cultural specificity of many skill-supply mechanisms and their location within broader systems of production, industrial relations, inter-firm networks, industrial capital, corporate governance, and politics has also been highlighted by research over the last decade. A common theme to emerge from the articles by Green et al., Culpepper, Finegold, and Sako is the degree to which best-practice models within the field of VET and skill and ↑ knowledge creation tend to be rooted within particular national and regional contexts that make their replication in other environments extremely problematic. The world economy may be becoming more global, but education and training remains an area where skill-supply systems continue to differ quite radically from one country to the
next. Whether any strong degree of convergence is either possible or desirable remains to be seen. Current UK debates about skills have a strong tendency to concentrate on lower-level task-specific skills and a much narrower conception of relevant and useful knowledge (GREEN 1998). As Coffield (1997) has noted, UK approaches to skills mean that there are substantial problems about the role of theoretical knowledge within our qualifications (especially NVQs) and curricula. It is also the case that, in the last decade or so, UK conceptions of what comprises skills have shifted away from hard, technical expertise towards softer interpersonal capabilities, many of which could be conceived of as personal characteristics or attributes rather than as skills in a traditional sense – a point we return to below. This kind of focus in part reflects shifts in the UK’s employment structure and the decline of manufacturing employment and it may well fit the needs of those parts of the economy delivering mass-produced services, but it produces a poor match with the needs of the type of high-tech sectors discussed by Finegold, where theoretical mastery of leading-edge developments is a key to developing and sustaining competitive advantage. If the government is serious about promoting growth in the UK as a knowledge economy, then a training system primarily geared to meet the needs of the lower segments of the service sector may be a problem. 4.8.5
Policy Treatment of Market and Administrative Failure
Largely thanks to Margaret Stevens, the thinking on externalities has moved on. Important among her contributions is the development of the concept of ‘transferable’ skills, in addition to specific and general ones. In the case of transferable skills the ↑ labour market is not fully competitive and, therefore, the training firm can set the wage at less than the value of marginal product in order to recoup costs. It is not able to do so for general skills and will, therefore, not invest in them at all. Thus, if the skills are transferable, employers are willing to bear some of the cost of investment in training, but there would be some under-investment. This is because there is a positive probability that, at some point, the training firm will lose its worker
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to another employer who can afford to pay more by virtue of not having to pay for the training itself. Stevens notes that this fear of poaching might also lead to over-investment in specific skills, the employer using this as a device to lower ↑ mobility and retain workers for as long as possible in order to recoup the costs and gain the benefits of the transferable training. The critical point is that, in the absence of capital market imperfections, labour-market imperfections reduce the amount of training which is of use to the ↑ labour market at large since “the fall in demand [by the worker] outweighs the rise in supply [by the employer] because a worker loses from the reduction in the wage wherever he or she works after training, whereas the firm supplying the training gains only if the worker stays in that firm” (STEVENS 1999).
However, when there are capital-market imperfections which prevent workers from financing training themselves, then these very labour-market imperfections may increase the amount of training undertaken. The importance of Stevens’s theoretical contribution is that it leads to much clearer, detailed thinking about appropriate policy responses to market failure. An important conclusion to emerge from her analysis is that the old UK grant/levy system and the present French system should not be interpreted, as in fact they are, as ways of dealing with ‘poaching externalities’, but rather more appropriately as ways of ‘overcoming’ capital-market imperfections. Her analysis also underlines the real theoretical difficulties of interpreting externalities in the training context. The long-standing disagreement and confusion about how extensive such a problem is in the UK is, therefore, perhaps not surprising. Among a number of detailed policy implications, Stevens’s main conclusions, with regard to the two problems of labour-market and capital-market imperfections, are: – public provision of loans to individuals will have limited impact; – the policy-maker essentially has two options – ‘subsidies financed out of general taxation’ and regulation of ‘training activity of firms’. Following Stevens’s theoretical framework, Greenhalgh argues that training provision in ↑ France is significantly higher than in the UK, and that differ-
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ent policy stances are in part responsible for this. In particular, she states that there are four ‘broad’ forms of policy intervention: – ‘the release of credit-market constraints on workers’ – ‘the establishment or improvement of private property rights and skills’; – ‘the formation of clubs of providers’; and – ‘public subsidy for training investment’. Greenhalgh claims that ↑ France has placed more stress on the last two, in contrast to Britain, which has moved away from them towards the first two. This, she argues, is not a powerful way of dealing with the various forms of market failure involved in training. 4.8.6
The Developing Debate on Systems Failure
How has thinking about the low skill/low quality equilibrium developed since Finegold and Soskice’s initial insight? In a variety of forms its implications have become common currency in the academic community. Finegold now believes that the contrast between the two extremes is, indeed, too stark and there may well be an intermediate position. However, the two extremes remain useful for analytical purposes. Thinking about quality is now clearer. Essentially, it has two dimensions: specification and delivery to specification. Specification of a good or service relates to the number of characteristics it possesses. A low-spec goodwill have relatively few characteristics, and these will change infrequently. It is highly unlikely to be genuinely customized. It is these features which permit the use of Fordist production methods, Taylorized forms of work organisation and job design, and the deployment of relatively unskilled labour. Yet companies whose product strategy is low spec may deliver superbly to that spec. A tendency to conflate these two dimensions of quality may account for some of the observed confusion in the debate. For example, retail bankers might find it hard to accept that their services have become lower spec. They might counter by claiming that the quality of service has improved dramatically in recent years – ↑ banking by phone, out-of-hours banking, an even greater range of services available 24 hours a
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day from cash dispensers. But what they would be describing is delivery to spec rather than the spec itself. The academic literature has become more explicit on the causal role of VET in a low skills/low spec equilibrium. Inadequate VET ↑ performance, as conventionally measured, is increasingly seen as the inevitable consequence and symptom of being in such an equilibrium rather than as a problem in its own right. Indeed, if employers continue to produce low-spec goods using Fordist production methods, clearly it would be absurd and wasteful to increase skill supply – whether at public or private expense. Following this line of argument, Soskice (1993) argued that we might as well give up on the work-based training route. Employers would be irrational to invest more in training if they had no use for trained workers. Government subsidies to encourage them to do so would either be wasted or misused. Rather, Soskice suggested, we should rely on the full-time education system to break out of the low-skills trap. Partly by accident, as opposed to government intent, ↑ participation post-16 and in higher education had increased quite dramatically in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This, Soskice contended, would have two effects in altering the incentives faced by employers. The first is that the workforce as a whole would be more demanding in terms of its aspirations about job content and career goals, and therefore might ‘force’ employers to improve job content and design. The second is that the simple fact that more capable labour is available would give employers a wider range of options about their product and associated production strategies. While both points are probably correct, it would seem to us to be a matter of faith as to whether this would be sufficient to jack us out of any low-skills equilibrium. Thinking has also become clearer about the consequences of remaining in a low-skills trap. This is well reflected in the phraseology of the new government’s Competitiveness White Paper: “In the global economy, capital is mobile, technology spreads quickly and goods can be made in low-cost countries and shipped to developed markets. British business has to compete by exploiting capabilities which competitors find hard to imitate. The UK’s distinctive capabilities are not raw materials, land or cheap labour. They must be our knowledge, skills and creativity ... which
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help create high productivity business process and highvalue goods and services” (DTI 1998, 6).
Though it is too easy to be apocalyptic about the consequences of competing at the low-skill end in the global economy and to overemphasize the impact thus far on Britain of globalization, the message for the future is pretty clear. A UK business which produces low-spec goods or services in a tradable sector is likely to be in competition with producers of similar goods not just in developed countries but in developing ones. The latter will have access to exactly the same technology as we do, and will be at least as able as we are to exploit such technology via Fordist production methods, to achieve economies of scale and high productivity. Competition in low-spec goods is essentially on price and thus on unit labour costs. If there is no reason to think that we will have the advantage in productivity, then we will be competing on labour costs. In other words, UK workers employed in such firms will be competing against workers in ↑ developing countries on pay and conditions. If they are not prepared to accept what (say) a Malaysian worker would expect, then their employer is likely to be driven out of business or the workers are likely to lose their jobs if others who are willing to take poor pay and conditions are available to replace them. By contrast, firms which adopt a high-spec product strategy, are unlikely to be so reliant on price/cost competition. They are competing on the product itself, on its particular characteristics, on their ability to alter these characteristics to meet changing customer needs and taste, and on their ability to ‘customize’. In other words, their products will be high-value added and therefore could allow the payment of higher wages. Thus the last decade has seen much thought about the nature of a possible low skills/low spec equilibrium, and about its origins in the product strategy of firms and in associated production processes. The globalization debate has also provoked much thought about the possible economic and distributional consequences. But there remain many lacunae. There has been limited consideration of how we might escape any such equilibrium. We have already mentioned Soskice’s thesis. Some of the articles mentioned above make a contribution in this regard. In addition to Finegold’s anal-
Case Studies of TVET Research
ysis of the Californian case, Green et al. consider more directly the role of government in three very different economies from the UK. They describe the ‘coordinating function’ of the state in matching supply and demand for skills in Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. They contend that there are two reasons for the state performing this role effectively. The first is that ‘state bureaucracies are likely to be in a better position than private individuals to inform long-term strategic investment in ↑ human capital’. The second reason relates to particular characteristics of these three societies. Specifically: “egalitarianism and social pressure enhancing the demand for education. . . delivered to the economy. . . a highly committed body of pupils and students. Thus the education function of the state becomes potentially much easier, one of directing and controlling skill formation in pursuit of national economic objectives rather than, in addition, having to cajole a reluctant population to leave the family or the work-place for the classroom”.
Thus Green et al. offer some rare insights on what we consider to be the crux of the issue – product strategy. Of course, as with all matters of policy borrowing, lessons from other countries and cultures have to be absorbed carefully. The willingness of the governments of the three Asian countries to conduct what effectively amounts to a centralized industrial policy is something which is difficult to contemplate in the current British environment. In fact, the complexity of ↑ systems failure is almost certainly a major reason for lack of sustained thought among policy-makers about how to cope with it. Understandably, they are reluctant to tackle the intractable. There is another more worrying reason for lack of policy attention to the problem. This is that, although the systems failure we have described has become common currency in debate, the firm empirical evidence to establish the extent to which the UK is producing low-spec products and services is still limited. There are several dimensions to what we have available. Going back for more than a decade and a half, various researchers, stimulated by the initial work of Sig Prais (1995), have conducted a series of bilateral case-study comparisons. These usually took the form of selecting a particular, narrowly defined product and then comparing a limited number of
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British establishments producing it with those in a comparable country, most often Germany. The researchers attempted to ensure that the establishments concerned were as similar as possible in terms of age and size. The upshot of their research was to describe a series of products where the UK version was of lower spec than the foreign counterpart. These products included kitchen furniture and garden tools among others. There are obvious difficulties in inferring too much from case studies of this type. They are expensive to conduct, difficult to generalize, and are done for just one point in time. Several economists, therefore, have periodically tried to obtain more aggregate evidence. Such attempts date back to papers by NEDO, but more recently work has been done by Oulton (1996) and by Buxton et al. (1998). The methodologies employed by the various studies are naturally somewhat different from one to the other. But essentially the researchers compare the longrun price of specific British goods in foreign trade with the price of like ones traded by other countries. The rationale is that price is a proxy for spec. The results are incomplete and equivocal, but tend to support the hypothesis that the UK has a limited presence in high-value-added goods. Other evidence is more indirect. For example, it relates to the poor take-up of NVQs and to the fact that where NVQs are used they are at Levels 1 and 2. Level 2 is the equivalent of GCSEs and Level 1 would not be recognized as a qualification in most European countries. Indeed, many employers use NVQ 1 as a sort of check list to be ticked off item by item as new employees acquire particular competences that have long been required, rather than putting them on newly devised training programmes which would enhance their skills. Another suggestive piece of evidence that training quality is low is the predominance of short courses and programmes. All of this is consistent with employers showing a greater awareness of training but quite rationally aiming this at the low end to match their low skill needs. Thus, the evidence that UK firms are significantly lower spec than their foreign counterparts is patchy; certainly patchy enough to allow the sceptic to ignore or deflect the issue. The standards by which such judgements can be made are strictly compar-
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ative. But our knowledge of other countries is correspondingly thin. The fact that the world does not stand still and that standards change rapidly makes the task of assembling and evaluating appropriate evidence that much more difficult. Even in the case of Germany, the most often cited example of the high skill/high spec economy, there is considerable questioning of whether that strength is under threat (CULPEPPER 1999). As Finegold’s article demonstrates, certain segments of the ↑ US economy have found a route to extremely high spec, but it is uncertain how quantitatively significant this is in the context of the whole US economy. The march of technical progress adds a further dimension of difficulty. There is the possibility that soon it may be feasible to produce high spec by Fordist production (i.e. low skill) methods. Moreover, as analysis proceeds, it is apparent that many of the points around which debates about the UK’s record on skills and economic ↑ performance have revolved may be less fixed or black and white than has hitherto been assumed. For example, both Finegold’s and Wensley’s articles underscore the complexity of models of product-market strategy and managerial choice. Although the general debate about skills and organisational performance has been predicated upon a simple bi-polar model of a high-skills, high-value-added strategy or a low-skills, low-value-added model, the reality may be far more complex and nuanced. Notwithstanding all these uncertainties, it remains clear that the production by significant segments of the economy of broadly defined high-value-added goods and services is the key to achieving simultaneously national economic success and what most people would regard as an acceptable distribution of income. To the extent that UK producers are engaged (actually or potentially) in international competition, it is therefore essential that they produce relatively high spec. There is also the complication of locational competition. This involves not only the long-standing phenomenon of low-spec manufacturers establishing their operations in low-wage countries, but also (because of modern ↑ IT and communications technology) increasingly it applies to the delivery of some nontraded services, once thought to be immune from such influences. Even in the case of the non-traded
and locationally secure segments of activity, competition will drive down labour costs if the producers are low spec. The more the rest of the economy is at this end of the spectrum, the more these segments will be encouraged to be so. 4.8.7
The Competitiveness White Paper
The White Paper (DTI 1998), published in December 1998, marks a major step forward in the evolution of the UK’s national policy perspective on industrial policy and the development of a more competitive, higher-value-added economy. For the first time in the last two decades there is an explicit recognition that there is an enabling/regime competition role for the state (at national, regional, and local levels), not least in terms of addressing the UK’s declining science base and our generally weak record on R&D. There is also an understanding that creating a high-skills economy goes far beyond the relatively simple issues of skill supply and means addressing major structural items, some of which are addressed in issue 1, 1999 of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, such as the importance of inter-firm networks and product innovation and the role of industrial clusters. The inspiration for this new approach and for an emphasis upon a knowledge-driven economy are the Californian high-tech clusters discussed by Finegold. However, despite this broader, systemic perspective, the White Paper’s treatment of skills remains deficient in a number of respects and runs the danger of falling into the traditional UK policy-makers’ trap of assuming that boosting the supply of skilled and educated employees will, of itself, act as a catalyst for economic change and enhanced productivity and competitiveness. There are a number of problems. To begin with, its vision (and even more so that of the accompanying analytical paper (DTI 1998)) is that, on the one hand, the knowledge-driven economy is somehow new and that, on the other, it must apply across all sectors of the economy, and not just those that one might most obviously associate with knowledge (↑ IT, pharmaceuticals, software, consultancy). In trying to sustain this argument, its authors rely upon the need for organisations in all sectors to utilize a range of tacit knowledge. The difficulty comes in the implicit message that this is
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somehow new. A medieval potter probably needed tacit knowledge aplenty. The only new element would be greater competition, but one could argue that this is often cancelled out by the pressures to routinize work organisation and job design in ways that minimize the value of tacit knowledge and the space to utilize it productively – a point returned to below. It is also important to secure an acknowledgement from policy-makers that by adopting this approach the White Paper seems to be conflating (in terms of an appropriate ↑ VET policy response) at least two radically different types of knowledge: – abstract, theoretically based bodies of high-level knowledge of the type typified by Reich as that required by symbolic manipulators and analysts. These are the people who drive forward a knowledge-based economy. The creation of this type of knowledge would appear best suited to formalized education and academic qualifications followed by intensive professional development (see FINEGOLD 1999); – tacit knowledge (→ 5.1.5), which is of particular importance in the service sector and accords with Reich’s category of interpersonal services (see below). For this type of worker many of the ‘skills’ tend to be based on personal characteristics and psychological traits rather than the acquisition of theoretical skills and knowledge. Insofar as qualifications of any sort are relevant, they would appear to accord with lower-level NVQs. The White Paper’s tendency to conflate different types and orders of knowledge is, in part, a reflection of a wider confusion about the meaning of skill which has intensified over the last 15–20 years. In the past, skills, when talked of by national policymakers (usually in connection with manufacturing industry), meant a combination of education qualifications, ‘hard’ technical skills and knowledge, and a variety of forms of manual dexterity and spatial awareness. More recently, the meaning of the term has expanded considerably, partly as a reflection of the shift in employment to service-sector occupations, and is now taken to encompass an additional range of core or key skills, such as literacy, numeracy, problem solving, use of IT, and teamworking. Many employers go further and appear to be using the term ‘skill’ to embrace personal char-
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acteristics and psychological traits. One example would be ‘motivational skills’, which could be taken to mean the ability to fit in and remain cheerful, in some cases in the face of less than ideal employment conditions. There is also beginning to emerge a recognition that in parts of the service sector, rather than seeking technical skills, employers are looking for certain aspects of physical appearance and the ability and willingness of those possessing such attributes to deploy them within the work environment in conjunction with particular forms of behaviour in a way that provides for the delivery of a particular style of service. Nickson et al.’s 1998 research on what they dub ‘aesthetic’ labour in stylish bars, hotels, and retail outlets in Glasgow suggests that, at the leading edge of these generally higher-quality, higher-value-added areas of the service sector, a stylish haircut, good dress sense, and appropriate accent and deportment may be the ‘skills’ that get you the job. The ↑ labour market which Nickson et al.’s study covers could be regarded as the flip side of the knowledge economy reported on by Finegold. These are the clubs and boutiques where the knowledge workers spend their earnings, serviced by a class of worker whose skills are, in fact, personal attributes which in the UK context may well be related to class back-ground (NICKSON / WARHURST/ WITZ / CULLEN 1998). This broadening of the spectrum and mix of knowledge, capabilities, traits, and physical attributes that can be grouped under the umbrella term of skills raises a number of major issues for policymakers, the majority of which cannot be dealt with in detail here. However, it seems important to flag up at least two areas that warrant consideration. First, one of the realities with which policy-makers attempting to forge a national VET (and qualifications) system must grapple is that the spectrum of skills that the system must encompass, in terms of both types and levels, has widened to a point where demands are differentiated and perhaps divergent, and where the use of blanket terms such as ‘upskilling’ may be of limited theoretical and operational value unless the nature of skills being sought is carefully specified and made explicit. A second issue is the fact that, once we move away from theoretical knowledge and technical skills
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and competences, it becomes increasingly difficult to devise national ↑ VET systems, programmes, and qualification structures and certification that can address needs at the softer end of the skills spectrum. Many of the attributes being labelled as skills appear to be personality traits or attitudes which may only be partially amenable to change and enhancement through traditional VET. There is also the question of whether education and training aimed at ensuring that employees are, for example, always motivated, perhaps by accepting as given sub-standard employment conditions or in the face of deficient personnel management, would not raise some very difficult ethical and political issues. Finally, in seeking to address the demands of employers looking for the type of ‘aesthetic labour’ reported on by Nickson et al., VET providers would appear to need to be thinking about speech training, deportment, and personal grooming classes rather than degrees, GCSEs, or NVQS. The White Paper and current national policies on VET hold to a view that employment growth is at the top of the labour-market hierarchy and that therefore demand for higher levels of skill is booming. It is unclear if this represents a realistic analysis of the UK labour market. As mentioned above, Robert Reich, one of the founders of the knowledge-economy approach to economic competitiveness within developed countries, has propounded a three-fold occupational typology (1991): – high-level symbolic manipulators or analysts, precisely the types of knowledge worker discussed in Finegold’s article; – a dwindling group of those engaged in routine production – for example, workers in car factories, low-level supervisors, and data-entry staff; – a third group providing interpersonal services – waiters, hotel receptionists, security guards, shop assistants, and hairdressers. All of these groups require skills, particularly if skills are broadly defined in the ways touched on above. However, the skill requirements of each group are liable to differ, and some grasp of the relative scale of growth in these three broad groupings and a detailed analysis of their real skill needs would appear of more use in designing and developing an effective ↑ VET system than blanket assumptions about universal upskilling across the
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whole economy. For instance, the technical skill requirements of some workers in group two appear to be being reduced by technological change and new methods of production. If this typology holds any truth, then it has important implications for ↑ VET policy. Put bluntly, long periods of formalized post-↑ compulsory education and training and high levels of academic qualification would not necessarily appear tremendously relevant to fitting people for employment in inter-personal services. Even Reich admits that only a limited proportion of the workforce can be employed as symbolic manipulators and US Bureau of Labour Statistics figures suggest that the proportion of the ↑ US workforce that can genuinely be de-scribed as symbolic analysts may be as low as 7 per cent (HENWOOD 1996). This raises issues about the need for ever greater expansion of post-compulsory education – the White Paper trails a further 700,000 students in ↑ further education. Scottish higher education already has a 45 per cent age ↑ participation. Are 45 per cent of the future Scottish work-force going to be symbolic analysts? The White Paper and (again to a much greater extent) its accompanying Analytical Paper also tend to conflate producing relatively high-tech products (for example, computers and ↑ IT equipment) with a workforce of highly skilled knowledge workers. This is not necessarily always the case. The workers who solder together integrated circuit boards do not need degrees. They need attention to detail, concentration, and manual dexterity. The high-level skills in such organisations are concentrated in the R&D, design, and product-management functions. In other areas of the economy this polarization is even starker. In much of the service sector the core organisational competences – those skills and ↑ bodies of knowledge that give the organisation its competitive edge (PRAHALAD / HAMEL 1990) are even more concentrated. In many multiple retail chains they are located in the purchasing, logistics, and marketing functions within the head office. Store managers, never mind the shopfloor workers, are reduced to ciphers with minimal discretion who implement detailed plans and formulae created by a small band of high-level experts. Again, this raises questions about what value uni-
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versal upskilling, particularly if conceived of in terms of formalized VET and qualifications, can have in these circumstances. This leads us on to the issue of work organisation and job design. Blanket use of terms such as ‘empowerment’ by consultants and business commentators should not obscure the reality that, in much of the service sector and even in parts of manufacturing (ACKROYD / PROCTER 1998), what is sometimes occurring is the implementation of a very different, largely Taylorist model. Far from seeking an autonomous workforce of polyvalent knowledge workers to whom high levels of discretion have been delegated in order to produce high-spec, customized goods and services, many organisations continue to need workers to perform narrowly specified, closely supervised, repetitive tasks, in an environment where the work has been organized and the job designed in order to allow minimal discretion (THOMPSON / WARHURST 1998). Attempts by some service organisations to impose scripted interactions between front-line operatives and customers suggest that even tacit knowledge may be being seen as of limited value in delivering competitive advantage, particularly where quality is seen by management as equalling consistent delivery to a relatively low spec rather than the customized delivery of higher-spec services. Work by Dench et al. (1998) on employers’ demand for and use of core or key skills noted that “the generally low level of autonomy allowed to employees especially in non-managerial roles and in less skilled jobs was a theme emerging from many of our indepth interviews … in many organizations, efficient delivery is seen in terms of employees working in fairly prescribed ways” (DENCH ET AL. 1998, 58).
and a study of job satisfaction in UK manufacturing by the London School of Economics’ (LSE), Centre for Economic ↑ Performance (PATTERSON / WEST 1998) concluded that ‘for many people… jobs are impoverished, monotonous and de-skilling ... current managerial approaches to job design are counter-productive’ (ibid. 5). All this suggests that movement towards the ↑ OECD’s preferred model of the ‘high performance workplace’, with its associated attempts to produce work-organisation and people-management systems that can capitalize on high levels of skill, may be too slow and too limited in large swathes of UK employment.
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Current UK ↑ VET policies are failing to address these issues and appear incapable of acknowledging that skills are often a third-order issue. Unless and until first-order questions, such as choice of product market and competitive strategy, and consequent second-order decisions about work organisation and job design, are confronted, the underlying causes of Britain’s skills problem will continue to be ignored. The danger of policies and institutional devices (such as the National Targets for Education and Training) which concentrate on boosting the supply of qualifications and formalized skills and knowledge is that they appear to offer a relatively swift and simple short cut to a wideranging set of desired outcomes – increased economic competitiveness, greater productivity, rising GDP, and greater social inclusion – without having to confront complex and difficult choices about how businesses choose to compete. A final area of difficulty is the generalizability of the Californian example. As has been suggested above, ↑ comparative VET research has tended to underline the degree to which successful national ↑ VET systems are rooted in particular societal contexts and are therefore difficult to transplant. The Californian example looks less daunting in this respect, in that at least some of the major elements of the supportive infrastructure or ecosystem appear replicable in the UK without transgressing major ideological barriers or attempting sweeping changes in the underlying national culture. However, as Finegold observes, the high-tech clusters do not represent the bulk of employment in the state, though they do plainly generate a disproportionate percentage of its GDP. Moreover, California is not typical of the ↑ US economy as a whole. It is a state with a very high concentration of relatively well-paid, high-skilled employment. The picture elsewhere in America is rather more bleak. As Cappelli et al. (1997) have made clear, despite massive change and upheaval in the 1980s and 1990s, in most American organisations the ↑ OECD’s model of the high-performance, high-skill, high-trust workplace has not been realized. Elements of the high-performance model have been diffused, but the new system of employee relations and work organisation that is emerging appears to be based in the main on heightened job
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insecurity, few opportunities for training or career progression, work intensification, and, in many cases, reduced real wages. Cappelli and his team of co-authors conclude that this emergent model makes it difficult for the high-performance vision to prosper, largely owing to the fact that it undermines employee ↑ commitment and motivation and hinders upskilling. It might, therefore, be argued that, in seeking to copy the atypical conditions that pertain within limited high-performance, high-tech clusters in the ↑ USA, the DTI may succeed in replicating narrow, sectorally based islands of excellence within the UK economy without making much impact on the vast bulk of UK employment. As noted above, this is not the DTI’s aim. What it wants is a knowledge-driven economy embracing all sectors, but if this is the desired outcome, the USA may not provide all the answers. These difficulties notwithstanding, the White Paper represents a new turn in the UK’s approach to industrial policy, and as such is deserving of welcome. After nearly two decades in which the role of government tended to be limited to exhortation and to a very narrowly delimited range of supplyside measures, a different sort of agenda is starting to emerge – one which takes on board many of the lessons that academic research across a range of disciplines has generated. For example, the White Paper’s emphasis upon the need for stronger inter-firm networks reflects the findings of much of the work undertaken under the Economic and Social Research Council’s ↑ research programme on ‘Contracts and Competition’ (see ARRIGHETTI / BACHMANN / DEAKIN 1997; DEAKIN / MICHIE 1997; LANE 1997) and in Sako (1999). Moreover, although the White Paper’s treatment of skills is in places problematic, at least it is one that locates the topic within a wider perspective and may thereby, in the longer term, pose a significant challenge to traditional approaches to national ↑ VET policy. As many of the articles in issue 1, 1999 of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy suggest, such a challenge would be timely. Indeed, if further proof were needed that enhanced skills may be a necessary but are not a sufficient condition for economic success, we need look no further than the current travails of the Rover Group. This is an organ-
isation that has invested heavily in skills, for example, by developing high-↑ quality systems of apprenticeship training, and has placed a heavy emphasis upon turning itself into a ‘learning company’. Whatever the successes of this strategy in boosting ↑ skill levels within the workforce and in stressing the importance of skill in relation to product quality and manufacturing ↑ efficiency, these have not been sufficient to enable the group to avoid heavy losses. The lead time on a full payback on investment in skills may be long and may only be realized in conjunction with other changes, such as heavy investment in new plant and machinery. More skills, on their own, are not enough to guarantee success. 4.8.8
The Policy Progress and Research – in Search of New Directions
This Assessment has underscored a number of the potential lessons that contributors to issue 1, 1999 of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy can provide to policy-makers. Often the message is that swift, simple solutions to the UK’s difficulties with VET may not be readily available. As is often the way with academic commentators, we therefore stand open to the accusation of having a problem for every solution. Our response would be that effective policies have to be grounded in a full appreciation of the tangled and often complex inter-relationships that underlie current conditions. This is particularly important when we find ourselves confronting potential ↑ systems failures, which, by their very nature, tend not to be amenable to straightforward or narrowly-focused solutions. For example, the National Skills Task Force notes in its first report that: “it would be a mistake to treat the current demands of employers and individuals for skills as coterminous with the needs of the economy… the demand from individuals and employers is conditioned by the current structure of incentives they face and the information they have about education and training opportunities and their economic benefits. It cannot be assumed that these necessarily reflect the wider needs of the economy for economic growth and stability” (1998, 33).
In other words, the stakeholders in the national ↑ VET system are acting in ways that can be rationalized as appropriate and logical within the frame-
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work of attitudes, traditions, and incentives which they experience (JERVIS 1997). Unfortunately, the result may well be sub-optimal from the viewpoint of society as a whole. This is a quite fundamental problem for national ↑ VET policy, the more so in a country that has a voluntaristic approach to training and where the main lever for change has tended to be exhortation. Moves to change the system of incentives would plainly not be either simple or easy. A large number of interest groups (often, in the UK context, rather weakly organized) would be involved, and the policy interventions required to produce any radical change would need to be wideranging, to involve many different policy-makers and public and private agencies, and to be introduced in a coordinated manner. Such an approach to policy formulation has, to date, been rare in the UK, where uncoordinated, fragmented incrementalism has been the norm. The government’s attempts to tackle social deprivation and poverty via a central policy unit represents one of the few attempts in recent times to marshal a genuinely strategic, multi-agency initiative and to deliver the kind of ‘joined-up thinking’ that confronting ↑ systems failures requires (JERVIS 1997). How can research aid this task? We would suggest that the approach advocated by Schön (1987) (→ 5.1.5) has much to recommend it. He argues that if practitioners (and, from our point of view, researchers) are to engage effectively with extremely important but messy and confusing practical problems that appear to defy solution, rather than simply confine themselves to dealing with relatively unimportant issues which have the advantage of being easily managed, then they need to address the issues from a fresh perspective. The most important step is to confront the ‘problem of problem setting’ (ibid., 4). Schön suggests that ‘it is not by technical problem solving that we convert problematic situations to well-formed problems; rather, it is through naming and framing that technical problem solving becomes possible’ (ibid., 5). The aim must be to construct ‘a well formed problem’ (ibid., 6). In the area of VET this is a potentially very useful pointer to building a better approach. Many of the aspects of the problems in UK VET ↑ performance
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are not clearly specified. The ‘naming and framing’ process has often been partial, and, most importantly, the tendency to specify individual facets of the problem without adequate reference to other elements in the picture limits the potential for research to support integrated policy-making. As Jervis points out (JERVIS 1997, 4), within national systems ‘it is the interaction of the parts which are at least as important as the operations of its components’, yet much research has focused down on the components rather than how they operate together to create particular attitudes and incentive structures. A narrowly focused approach to research also encourages the already strong tendency by policy-makers to launch another initiative, scheme, or programme targeted at a small and supposedly discrete failing or weakness. Unfortunately, all too often the result is that the initiative sinks as a result of striking the unseen bulk of the rest of the wider problem. The fate of YTS, we contend, is an example of this phenomenon. Researchers, we would argue, need to invest significantly greater time and effort in trying to ‘name and frame’, with the aim of evolving a better class of question. The research community also needs to develop a stronger focus on the integration and synthesis of existing research findings. Such a process would help us to identify with much greater clarity where the real gaps in our knowledge are. At the moment, the field of ↑ VET research in the UK tends to be fragmented by organisational and disciplinary divides, and to lack welldeveloped mechanisms and fora within which the interchange and synthesis of ideas can take place, particularly beyond a mono-disciplinary perspective. As a recent, ESRC-commissioned overview of UK VET re-search commented, “all too often the model of research that emerges from our review is that of moles burrowing away in parallel tunnels, each unaware of the efforts of their colleagues. Unless and until research becomes better integrated and able to adopt an holistic approach, although our knowledge of the detail may improve, understanding of the deep-seated problems that confront UK VET will remain, at best, fragmentary” (BROWN / K EEP 1998, 106; see also HUDDLESTON / UNWIN 1997).
We do not underestimate the scale of the challenge which a more integrative approach poses for both policy-makers and researchers, but as suggested
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above, without progress in this direction, the prognosis for major advances would seem poor.
4.9
Learning to Cook: Analysing Apprentice’s Knowledge and Skill Construction in the Workplace Susan James
4.9.1
Introduction
In the Republic, Plato (LODGE 1947) puts forward a ↑ Theory of Education that does not involve learning in an educational institution but rather emphasises the importance of learning through one’s occupation. Dewey (1944, 309–310, emphasis in original), an advocate of learning by doing, states, ‘Education through occupations consequently combines within itself more of the factors conducive to learning than any other method… The only adequate training for occupations is training through occupations’. People have historically learnt how to become teachers, doctors, lawyers, craftsmen, artisans, church leaders and philosophers, amongst others, through doing their jobs under the guidance of more experienced workers. As Zuboff (1988, 395, cited by HODKINSON 2005, 12) states, Learning is no longer a separate activity that occurs either before one enters the workplace or in remote classroom settings… the behaviours that define learning and behaviours that define being productive are one and the same. Learning is not something that requires time out from being engaged in productive activity; learning is the heart of productive activity.
In recent years there has been a focus on ↑ learning in the workplace to understand how knowledge and skill is constructed in these environments and the literature is extensive and rapidly increasing (for example, BILLETT 1995; 1996; 2001; 2002; BOUD / GARRICK 1999; ERAUT, 2000a; 2000b; 2001; ERAUT/ALDERTON / COLE / SENKER 1998; FULLER / UNWIN 2003; 2003; FULLER / HODKINSON / HODKINSON / UNWIN 2005; HODKINSON 2005 amongst others) but as Billett (2001, 2) rightly states, However, there persists a deeply rooted ambivalence towards learning in workplaces. On the one hand, there
is a valuing of the authentic experiences that workplaces provide for the development of the vocational knowledge needed at work. On the other hand, workplaces are characterised as being ‘informal’ learning environments that fail to provide coherence in the structuring of learning experiences, are devoid of access to instructional episodes and lead to piecemeal, concrete and situationally specific learning outcomes.
Part of this ambivalence could be due to the nature of the subject under scrutiny. So much of the learning that occurs in workplaces, and the knowledge and skill that is constructed through the everyday practices of work, becomes implicit and tacit (ERAUT 2000a; 2000b; 2001) and therefore quite an elusive phenomenon. However, it is often the most elusive phenomena that are the most enticing. One of the most well known pieces of research into ↑ learning in the workplace is Lave’s (1993a) study of West African tailors whereby she argues the tailors learn their trade by gradually becoming participants able to engage fully as members of an existing ↑ community of practice. Similar work on learning to move from a novice to an expert has been conducted by Billett (1995; 2001) focusing on hairdressers’ knowledge and skill construction, Scribner’s (1999) work on dairy worker’s social construction of knowledge, and Hutchins (1993) research into navigator’s learning their ↑ profession. All of these studies were conducted using non-participant observation techniques (→ 5.2) combined with interviews or, in the case of Felstead et al. (2005) augmenting case study work with a survey which highlights smaller, perhaps less significant but no less important, changes in capability or understanding in learning at work. What these studies do not do is delve in any great detail into how the data, no doubt very rich and descriptive, was analysed to understand what and how learning took place; that is the purpose of this chapter. Explanation is given for how such rich and descriptive data can be analysed and comes from the research conducted for a doctoral study to understand how elements of the workplace provided ↑ affordances (BILLETT 2001) for the processes of knowledge and skill construction. It is proposed that by using such an approach for analysis, a deeper understanding of such an elusive and
Case Studies of TVET Research
complex phenomenon as learning in the workplace can be gained. 4.9.2
The Research
Many opportunities for learning reside within the production environment of a workplace. A main purpose of this research was to identify these opportunities in order to understand how elements of the workplace provide ↑ affordances (BILLETT 2001) for learning. To do this, young people training to be chefs were the focus to illustrate how knowledge and skill is constructed during apprenticeship on the trajectory toward becoming a chef. The data sets generated were used to answer the following ↑ research questions: (1) What sorts of knowledge and skill are required to become a chef, and how is this assessed in the workplace and through the NVQ? (2) How are knowledge and skill constructed in the activity system of a kitchen? (3) How do the activities in a kitchen promote or inhibit learning? (4) How do the ontogenies of the apprentices and more experienced co-participants affect knowledge and skill construction in the workplace and the NVQ assessment process?
Tab. 1: Overview of the kitchens
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4.9.3
The Sites
The kitchens were specifically chosen to gain an understanding of the processes of knowledge and skill construction in the workplace. The different kitchens allowed comparisons to be made along a number of dimensions including cultural, historical, social, structural and organisational. Table 1 provides an overview of the sites in this study. 4.9.4
Participant Observation
We know that learning occurs in the workplace. The reproduction of the vocational culture depends on a person learning his or her job so that the organisation may survive. What we do not know a great deal about is how the processes of learning enable ↑ performance. Consequently, to understand the processes involved in an apprentice’s construction of knowledge and skill, it is necessary to understand the workplace as a whole, the apprentice’s place within the establishment, the tasks completed and the conversations he/she is involved in. Initially non-participant observation data collection techniques were adopted so that the workplace could be observed and an understanding gained of how the kitchen and the workers in it related. But as the week wore on, the authenticity of the working day observed could be seriously ques-
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tioned. It is very unusual to have someone standing or sitting around in a kitchen (RUHLMAN 1997; 2001) and kitchens are hectic, hot places fraught with tension that was more often than not relieved through swearing, practical jokes and a lot of yelling (BOURDAIN 2000; 2001). In the first three days, not one sign of this tension relief was seen and it was becoming increasingly, and painfully, evident how another person’s presence, particularly the note taking, was affecting the workers in the kitchen. Generally, the only people who enter a kitchen to take notes are health and hygiene inspectors or assessors of some kind. Consequently, participant observation techniques were adopted for the second week and there was a noticeable difference in the atmosphere of the kitchen. Although the data was not as detailed as in the previous week (because exact conversations were not able to be recorded), it was a more accurate reflection of the daily experiences of the people working in the kitchen. What is lost in detail is gained in validity because the data collected using participant observation techniques provides a more accurate account of the kitchens and the workers in it. Working collaboratively on tasks proved more conducive to conversations with the apprentice and was a way of gleaning data that might otherwise have stayed under the surface if using non-participant techniques (ROBSON 1993, 197). Working with the apprentices in the kitchens afforded a variety of different data types: general but detailed descriptions of the kitchens including maps, ↑ task analysis sheets, field notes, and interview transcripts. Participant observation and semistructured interviews allowed a variety of levels of information to be discovered: the observation data allowed an understanding of the activity systems as a whole; the interview data allowed an understanding of how the chef and the apprentice/s saw their roles and provided the opportunity to clarify and confirm my observations from the four weeks spent in each kitchen. Furthermore, through participant observation, extrapolation of the processes involved in an apprentice’s learning from the data collected in the three kitchens of this study, enabled an understanding of the learning processes that occurred more broadly: ‘The focus of atten-
tion is on explaining the phenomenon, on making it intelligible’ (ALASUUTARI 1995, 147). 4.9.5
Data Analysis
Analytical Strategies (Method) The ethnographic approach adopted for this study generated data that could be used to produce rich descriptive accounts (BURGESS 1984; HAMMERSLEY/ ATKINSON 1995). The data allowed the perspective of the apprentices to be understood from an analysis of the interactions in the activity system/s that shaped the processes of learning both on-the-job and off-the-job. To capture the apprentice’s world (SCHÜTZ 1954, 267) the emergent ↑ research design evolved through juxtaposing the collected data against the ↑ research questions and theoretical frameworks after each period spent in the kitchens. Each data set influenced and shaped the subsequent sets of data through the specific aspects observed and through the questions asked during the semi-structured interview. This process of data collection and analysis is similar to that used by Burgess et al. (BURGESS / POLE / EVANS /PRIESTLEY 1994) where the sequential study of four case study sites – secondary schools in Warwickshire – provided a strategy to research a ‘Records of Achievement’ scheme. The authors (ibid., 143) state, In our view, data analysis is not a discrete element of the research process which can be neatly bracketed off from other phases of the project. Instead, we would argue that data analysis is integral to the way in which questions are posed, sites selected and data collected…As we indicated in the introduction to that report, our study was designed to portray an ever-changing situation in four contrasting schools. This allowed us to examine schools in different phases of development and with different experiences of Records of Achievement.
Although Burgess et al. focus on the development of schools, and a particular program, the same principles of data collection were applied to the data sets collected in this study. As Figure 1 illustrates, data set X was produced from the ↑ field research at Chives. In the months before the data collection at Gastronomique, the data from Chives was analysed with reference to the research questions. When aspects of the research questions remained unanswered or more data was needed to
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answer fully the research questions, the observations and research questions were re-focused for the subsequent kitchen, resulting in data set Y: ‘As analytical ideas develop and change, what is ‘significant’ and what must be included in the field notes also changes’ (HAMMERSLEY/ATKINSON 1995, 180). Again, analysis continued after the ↑ field research at Gastronomique, and this in turn affected the data collection at Sebs, producing data set Z.
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framed by broader layers of context and the dynamics between them’ (SELLMAN / BEDWARD / COLE / DANIELS 2002, 892) when analysing the processes of an apprentice’s development. This approach was used by Rogoff et al. (2002, 267) to analyse their research on girl scouts planning to remember: The distributed, mutual contributions of individuals, their partners, and community institutions to planning can be studied with analyses that focus on one or another of these contributions, keeping key aspects of the other parts of the analysis.
Consequently, by focusing on collective activity, the interpersonal and the individual, three units of analysis provided interconnected lenses of analytic foci (ROGOFF 1995) which emphasise various aspects of activity at various times (see also SELLMAN / BEDWARD / COLE / DANIELS 2002, 891). However, Rogoff et al. (2002, 268–269, emphasis in original) have stated that,
Fig. 1: The influence of the research questions on the data sets.
The rest of this chapter explains how the theoretical and empirical resources were used in the analytical strategy adopted for the data collected. The strategy for the analysis of the data can be broken into three stages: (1) Community-level analysis; (2) Interpersonal-level analysis; and (3) Individual-level analysis. Each of these stages of analysis is dependent on the others rather than separate, concrete steps that do not overlap and within the three stages of analysis, three units for analysis were used: (1) ↑ Activity Theory (ENGESTRÖM 1987) (discussed further in next section); (2) The ↑ Conceptual Analysis Framework – CAF (based on MOORE 1981); and (3) The Individual (ROGOFF / TOPPING / BAKERSENNETT / LACASA 2002, ENGESTRÖM 1987). Using multiple units of analysis to focus and re-focus on the data emphasises ‘the interconnections between layers of context’, and focuses attention ‘on understanding how “activity” is shaped and
… researchers still struggle with how to conceive of the contributions of companions and culture to cognition. The field often seems to be dominated by an either/ or conception in which either the person or the outside world is regarded as responsible for development… [but] Sociocultural theory (also called cultural/historical theory) offers a major shift in the unit of analysis. The unit of analysis becomes the whole sociocultural activity… Employing sociocultural activity as the unit of analysis allows us to see how cognitive processes extend across individual efforts, the participation of partners, and institutions and cultural traditions.
The work of Cole (1998) and Sellman et al. (2002) is used to overcome the either/or conception in this study. Cole (ibid., 133) uses three rings to diagram-
Fig. 2: Three stages and three foci of analysis
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matically illustrate that ‘culture can be represented as the weaving together of layers of context’, while Sellman et al. (ibid., 892) adapted Cole’s diagram to illustrate the layers of context with regard to students’ exclusion. In the context of this study, the diagram was adapted to account for the interconnection between the collective, interpersonal and individual activity, and the effect of the cultural/ historic aspects of the hospitality industry, the features of the kitchen and the activity and tasks occurring in the kitchen on the learning process. Figure 2 represents the three stages of analysis integrating the three units of analysis. The next section describes the three units of analysis and the penultimate section explains the three stages of analysis. Units of analysis The decision to use an existing theory – ↑ Activity Theory – and analysis framework rather than a Grounded Theory approach (GLASER / STRAUSS 1967) emanated from the initial reading and the formulation of the ↑ research questions. Using a more analytic induction process with an existing theory and the ↑ Conceptual Analysis Framework to guide the analysis (ROBSON 1993, 201; HAMMERSLEY/ATKINSON 1995, 201) seemed the most suitable given the data collection methods and time frame. Nonetheless, the theory and Conceptual Analysis Framework were not taken at face value: kitchens are far more complex than the theoretical ideas used. Rogoff et al. (2002, 270, emphasis in original) provide a good explanation of the use of three foci of analysis, A personal focus of analysis highlights individuals’ contributions and change in the activity; an interpersonal focus of analysis highlights the contributions that occur as people communicate and coordinate efforts, whether face-to-face or more distally; and a community focus of analysis highlights contributions to the activity that derive from dynamic cultural practices and institutional traditions and tools.
Using multiple units of analysis allows focus on one unit while essential information from the other units can be used to help make sense of the primary data. For example, analysing the task an apprentice (the individual) undertakes may be the focus, while the influence of other chefs (the interpersonal), in the form of instruction or workflow, can also
be taken into account. Rogoff et al. (2002, 270) refer to this as ‘primary and secondary focus’.
Activity Theory Activity Theory (ENGESTRÖM 1987) (→ 3.4.2) enables us to look at a system of activity, for example, a kitchen. Sellman et al. (2002) explicate the use of ↑ Activity Theory nicely when they say ‘Activity Theory (ENGESTRÖM 1999) presents a unit of analysis, the Activity System (see COLE 1996, 40), which is useful in representing the individual embedded in the cultural-historical practice of social institutions’. Activity Theory provided the conceptual categories necessary to approach the activity system – the kitchens – and was used to think of a kitchen in terms of the categories of division of labour, community, rules, instruments/tools/artefacts, the object and the subject’s (the apprentice’s) place within this activity system. The following diagrammatical representation (Figure 3) of Activity Theory helps to illustrate this point:
Fig. 3: Activity Theory triangle
However, these categories do not do justice to the complexity of the kitchens in this study. For example, during analysis it became evident that the division of labour is far more complex than a simple category. The division of labour is a composite of the space, tempo, routines, hierarchy and workflow. Activity Theory, enhanced by the ↑ CAF, brought to the fore aspects of the kitchens, such as the overall effect of the structure and organisation of a kitchen on the activity within, which Activity Theory and the CAF each used in isolation, did not. For example, Table 2 breaks down a
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Tab. 2: Breakdown of a menu
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menu from Gastronomique into its parts and details which chefs are involved in each menu item’s preparation. Activity Theory highlighted the division of labour and the CAF broke the menu items down further to explicate the role of each chef in the making of the dish. Consequently, by theoretically triangulating (DENZIN 1988) the data, a second focus of analysis provided a finer grained examination of the data.
The Conceptual Analysis Framework Figure 2 illustrated the levels and stages of analysis as a set of mutually influencing rings. The influence of Activity Theory, the outer ring, on the interpersonal as a unit of analysis, is fundamental to understanding how an apprentice constructs knowledge and skill in the workplace, because Activity Theory highlights community activity while the CAF allows analysis of the interpersonal relationships that constitute the community. After applying Activity Theory in the first stage of analysis, the CAF enabled a more in-depth, second stage of analysis and provided a different focus allowing more detail of the kitchens, the workers and the activity within to come to the surface as elucidated in the previous section. The CAF was based on (1981) work where he and his team worked in The School for Experiential Learning (SEL) to ‘develop a systematic approach to locating the pedagogy and curriculum of experiential education’ (MOORE 1981, ii). The purpose of the study was ‘to examine these various experiences and try to figure a way to analyze them in terms of education’ (ibid., 13). Moore’s report proposed ‘a conceptual framework for analyzing the social organisation of education in nonclassroom environments’ (ibid., ii) focusing on four major areas; and it is these four areas that form the basis of the analysis of the data collected in this research: – The logical-technical and pragmatic features of the organisation and its activities; – Analysis of the tasks broken down into three phases of establishing, accomplishing and processing; – The features of the participants; and – The organisational analysis of the site. However, Moore’s (1981) framework was modified for this study so that the data collected would be
more relevant and exhaustive (Appendix 1 shows the CAF that was extended and refined for use in this study). For example, Moore’s framework, while taking into account the features of the participant (ibid., 99–101), does so at a very basic level, citing and briefly discussing the ‘Social Stock of Knowledge’ (BERGER / LUCKMANN 1966). Although the framework for analysis encompassed features of the participant such as personality, motivation and chemistry, during the data collection phase, additional aspects of the apprentices presented themselves as relevant, including previous experience and how the apprentices embodied their status as chefs. In the kitchens it was obvious how influential these other factors were in the apprentices take-up of the opportunities presented to them to construct knowledge and skill, hence it seemed imperative to include these in the analysis framework. In other words, the ↑ Conceptual Analysis Framework highlighted the interpersonal in the kitchen.
The Individual Although the community and the interpersonal affect the knowledge and skill construction of the individual, these two aspects do not exclusively contribute and determine what and how individuals learn: the individual decides what information is taken in and what is considered relevant or irrelevant (WERTSCH 1998, 181; BILLETT 2002). An individual brings to a situation prior knowledge, experience, motivation and a disposition that influences the processes of learning (PRAWAT 1989; BILLETT 1996). The prior knowledge and experience may have been gained the previous day or could be part of their personal history – their ontogeny – and will influence the learning processes. As Billett (2001, 37) states, How individuals engage in workplace activities and the learning that results from those activities is unlikely to be uniform. This is because each individual uses different bases for thinking and acting at work. Rather than simply ‘internalising’ knowledge through experiences, each individual’s learning is influenced by the knowledge that they possess and bring to the situation. These individual influences are the product of personal histories. The actual process of learning – of making sense of things – is a reciprocal process through which the learn-
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er also transforms their view of the source of knowledge (VALSINER 1994).
To understand how the individual accesses and uses these resources as part of the process of knowledge and skill construction requires the individual to be a separate unit of analysis. The strategy of using the three units of analysis, as foci, will now be discussed in more detail. 4.9.6
Stages of Analysis
In the first instance, the data collected through participant observation and semi-structured interviews was analysed using the categories provided by ↑ Activity Theory (ENGESTRÖM 1987) – the community level of analysis (ROGOFF 1995). The second stage of analysis involved the amended Conceptual Analysis Framework (CAF) – the interpersonal level of analysis. The third stage involved analysis of the apprentice’s development in the kitchens – the individual level of analysis (ROGOFF 1995).
Stage One: Community-Level Analysis Participant observation provided the opportunity to begin analysis from the very beginning of data collection. Immersion in each of the three sites soon brought to the fore many aspects of the kitchens that are more noticeable as a worker rather than as a mere visitor, such as the structure and organisation of these activity systems with their hierarchy, tempo and routine, space, workflow and division of labour. Orientation and familiarisation with the data, the first stage of analysis for many researchers (for example, PENDRY 1996), began from the first day of data collection in each ↑ field research site in this study, as discussed previously. Immersion in the three kitchens provided familiarity, which resulted in descriptive accounts of the kitchens with ↑ Activity Theory (ENGESTRÖM 1987) providing orientation in the sites, a way of thinking about the kitchens. Initially, the data collected in the first site – Chives – was coded only with the categories from the CAF using Atlas/ti (illustrated below in Figure 4). Activity Theory at this stage had not been adopted for analysis. Whilst the CAF provided an initial way of thinking about the data collected, the authen-
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tic accounts generated by being a participant observer illuminated many aspects of the workplace that the framework was not capable of incorporating and portraying (discussed in the previous section). From working in the kitchen of Chives for a month, the coding and analysis seemed too specific, and yet not specific enough in some areas, to adequately capture what was occurring in the kitchen, and initially did not do justice to the data collected. For example, working in the kitchen is not just a matter of completing tasks to produce menu items; there are a number of factors at play such as timing and co-operation among chefs. Consequently, adopting ↑ Activity Theory (ENGESTRÖM 1987) as a heuristic device to guide the first stage of analysis provided a way of thinking about the kitchens on a macro level, and enhanced the use of the ↑ CAF to analyse the data at a second, micro level. For the first stage of analysis, the Activity Theory triangle (ENGESTRÖM 1987) provided a way of thinking about the kitchens; what activity was occurring, how it was occurring, and who and what was involved: a conceptual organisation of the data. The conceptual categories of the triangle – division of labour, community, rules, subject, instruments, and object – provided codes for the data when using Atlas/ti. These codes became umbrella categories and allowed analysis on a macro level. An illustration of how the categories from the triangle were used appears in Figure 4.
Fig. 4: Application of codes to the data in Atlas/ti using Activity Theory
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The first stage of analysis brought to the fore a number of issues in these workplaces that may promote or inhibit the learning experiences of an apprentice such as organisational and structural factors, the role and ontogeny of the head chefs and the recapitulation of their own apprenticeship, and the dichotomies of learning in the activity systems of a kitchen and a ↑ Further Education College.
Stage Two: Interpersonal-Level Analysis After the broad conceptual categories from Activity Theory (ENGESTRÖM 1987) were applied to the data, the CAF was used to code and further analyse the data. The conceptual categories from the triangle provided direction for applying the ideas in the CAF. For example, the conceptual category of ‘division of labour’ was applied to the data in the first stage. In the second stage, this umbrella code emphasised the data involving tasks. The codes from the CAF were then applied to the data. This coding highlighted who established the tasks and how this occurred, what was involved in accomplishing a task, and who processes the task (formatively and summatively) and what form the processing takes. This second stage of coding involved many readings of the data to ensure the codes were representing and capturing the data. During this stage, referral to the first stage occurred (as per Figure 2) and also helped to ensure that the data coded in the first stage was thorough. Coding the data in the second stage using the framework gave a different emphasis to that taken in the first stage. For example, when coding the organisational ethos and ideology (OEI), the first stage of analysis highlighted the division of labour and rules inherent in the kitchens but when breaking these categories down to discern how the apprentice is a) integrated into the organisational ethos, and b) how the apprentice is expected to learn about the organisational ethos and ideology, provided a different emphasis to the division of labour and the rules of the community. Looking at the data with a different focus helped to ensure that many aspects were covered. Hammersley and Atkinson (1995, 213) point out that Glaser and Strauss (1967) call this the ‘constant comparative method’ whereby ‘in this procedure, the analyst examines each item of data coded in terms of a
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particular category, and notes its similarities with and differences to other data that have been similarly categorized’. The second stage of analysis also brought to the fore a more in-depth level of analysis than had originally been anticipated. From the ↑ task analysis sheets and the prolific reading of the field notes, episodes of learning became apparent, as did the facilitation and modes of these learning episodes. So not only was the apprentice’s trajectory visible but also the mechanisms used to aid the knowledge and skill construction along the trajectory. To explain, the ↑ task analysis sheet, which was developed from the ↑ CAF, identified and allowed exploration of the tasks the apprentices completed. This, in turn, led to an identification of how the learning was facilitated. From the facilitation of learning, the mechanisms of learning were identified and examples from the task analysis sheets and field notes were used to illustrate the processes involved in an apprentice’s learning. The CAF also allowed analysis of the individual to begin in the first and second stages, making a smooth transition to the third stage of analysis. This is because the individual had already been highlighted by ↑ Activity Theory (ENGESTRÖM 1987) as the subject, and in the features of the participants in the CAF.
Stage Three: Individual-Level Analysis The subject (or individual) – the apprentices – had been identified in the first and second stages of analysis. After the second stage of coding and analysis was completed, the third stage of analysis involved re-reading the coded transcripts to identify any patterns or anomalies to do with the individual not yet discovered. The third stage of reading the data focussed on the ‘individuals’ contributions and change in the activity’ (ROGOFF / TOPPING / BAKER-SENNETT / LACASA 2002, 270). From this level of analysis, a typology of chefs and apprentices was developed from across the three sites and distinguished the effects on, and processes of, learning among the apprentices. During this third stage, constant reference to stages one and two of the analysis were made, not only to understand the development of the individual but also the individual’s role in the wider context of the kitchens (ROG-
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2002). 4.9.7
Conclusion
The phenomenon under investigation in this study was complex, as were the sites chosen for the ↑ field research. The apprentices’ processes of knowledge and skill construction in the kitchens are developmental. The apprentice starts in the workplace with none, or very little, of the knowledge and skill needed to be a chef. It is through ↑ participation in the kitchen and the completion of tasks in the workplace that knowledge and skill are constructed on the trajectory toward becoming a chef. Consequently, using more than one theory to guide analysis of the data over a variety of levels – ‘theoretical tringulation’ (DENZIN 1988) – to draw out the learning processes and make explicit the trajectories of the apprentices has many advantages, and the multi-level analysis was a particular strength of this study: When one set of theories does not exhaust the potentialities of the data, other sets can be employed to point to and explain the facts which remain unexplained. Thus, for any initial statement of the field problem a whole series of theories may be successively applied, each yielding different orders of data and each perhaps being limited by the special perspectives and dimensions on which it is predicated (BENSMAN and VIDICH 1960, 165–166, cited by HAMMERSLEY/ATKINSON 1995, 214).
Furthermore, using a number of foci in the analysis helped to link the theoretical frameworks to the design of this research while ensuring the structure was open to changes and flexible enough for findings outside of these frameworks to come to the fore. The ethnographic nature of this research and the rich, thick descriptions the field work elicited, allowed the findings from the analysis to be presented in keeping with the ethnographic philosophy of this study and a more narrative style of story was told of how the apprentices constructed their knowledge and skill whilst working at Chives, Gastronomique and Sebs respectively. As Geertz (1993, 24–25) believes, The tension between the pull of this need to penetrate an unfamiliar universe of symbolic action and the requirements of technical advance in the theory of culture, between the need to grasp and the need to analyze is, as a result, both necessarily great and essentially ir-
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removable. Indeed, the further theoretical development goes, the deeper the tension gets. This is the first condition for cultural theory: it is not its own master. As it is unseverable from the immediacies thick description presents, its freedom to shape itself in terms of its internal logic is rather limited. What generality it contrives to achieve grows out of the delicacy of its distinctions, not the sweep of its abstractions.
Moreover, with the focus and interest shown in ↑ learning in the workplace in recent years (HAWKE 1998; BILLETT 2001, 2), and the precursors for this interest such as the linking of education and training to economic ↑ performance and the perceived need to up-skill the workforce (see for example: WOLF 2002; FINEGOLD / SOSKICE 1988; 1990; K EEP / MAYHEW 1988), ↑ globalisation and competitive performance (BROWN / GREEN / LAUDER 2001), and a change of emphasis from teaching to learning, with particular significance ascribed to the individual’s responsibility for learning (for example: BILLETT 2002; FORRESTER / PAYNE / WARD 1995; CARNOY 1999), research such as this project using a multi-pronged approach for such finegrained analysis can only help to better inform the research, policy, business and education communities.
4.10
Transferability, Flexibility, Mobility as Targets of Vocational Education and Training – The COST Action A11 Frank Achtenhagen and Susanne Weber
4.10.1
The Genesis – the Research Problem
COST is an acronym for “European Co-operation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research”. It is an intergovernmental European framework for international co-operation between nationally funded research activities. COST creates scientific networks and enables scientists to collaborate in a wide spectrum of activities in research and technology. Action A11 was located in the field of Social Sciences. COST financially supports the co-
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ordination within the Action, for example workshops, meetings, short-term scientific missions, publications. Each Action is a network of co-ordinated national research projects in fields that are of interest to at least five COST countries. Action A11 consisted of researchers from 17 different countries. Every ↑ COST Action has an objective and a set of clearly defined goals, which are to be achieved through the co-operative activities of the Action. The Action is formally described in the “Memorandum of Understanding” which is signed by the participating COST countries (further information is given by its website). The Action was a follow-up of the work of an Expert Commission of Research on Vocational Education and Training (VET) installed by the German Research Foundation (DFG 1990). Its recommendations included the proposal for strengthening international co-operation. Achtenhagen – as its chairman – was asked by the COST Committee of Senior Officers to develop a feasibility study for a COST Action in the field of VET. A steering group was nominated to fulfil this task (ACHTENHAGEN / NIJHOF / RAFFE 1995) – together with colleagues from eleven European countries The Feasibility Study was accepted, the Memorandum of Understanding was worked out and the process of obtaining signatories could begin. In 1997, the Action started formally and had its first Management Committee meeting in September 1997. It ended in June 2002 with a final conference in Gothenburg, Sweden. With regard to the so-called “megatrends” and their economic, political and social influences, but also with regard to the increasing importance of upgrading the labour forces and the fight against unemployment (in particular among young people), the COST Action A11 tried to bring together new ↑ research approaches which have been emerging in nearly all highly industrialised countries. The new research agenda should incorporate a broad range and a flexible mix of relevant approaches, providing a concise conceptual and theoretical basis for research. A decisive step forward has been the concentration on teaching-learning aspect (→ 3.7.7) and not on organisational and institutional aspects as is the case in most countries
(→ 1). As social sciences can contribute directly to the development of the teaching-training-/learning-working dimensions of VET, corresponding social research in a number of related disciplines and fields has been, therefore, recognized as being directly relevant to a successful restructuring of vocational education and training. The main objective of the Action was to increase knowledge about the development of flexibility, transferability and ↑ mobility in the fields of VET. These targets are accepted worldwide. However, there is a lack of understanding for, and explanation of, these attitudes and their consequences for an effective behaviour on the ↑ labour market and in private life. Although these topics have to be judged as under-researched, a multitude of research and political programmes on VET already exist. The Action aimed at improving knowledge about an effective preparation for the labour market as well as for private life under various headings. Since individual European Member countries have very different systems of vocational education and training, the effects of teaching and learning could be studied under different institutional conditions. Thus, it’s research contributed to a better understanding of the targets and effects of vocational education and training. One of the major goals of the COST Feasibility Study and the different empirical ↑ research approaches in Member countries has been the development of theories which can help to integrate research ideas and findings. This is of particular importance since problems of VET are dealt with by experts from many disciplines: general education and ↑ adult education, ↑ curriculum development, sociology, psychology, didactics, engineering, economics and business management. 4.10.2
The Research Concept and the Methodological Design
The Action concentrated on five central topics to be worked out by research groups: Context/Input of VET; processes of VET: developmental work research, complex ↑ teaching-learning environments; initial conditions for VET; output of VET: evaluation and assessment. These topics were op-
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erationalised by formulating sub-problems as a research agenda:
(1) Context/Input (Chairs: Lorna Unwin, UK; Antti Kauppi, FIN) As the above-mentioned “megatrends” change working conditions, new forms and ways of preparing for ↑ participation in working life are needed, and the following questions have to be dealt with: (a) How should working life problems and needs be included in vocational teaching-learning processes on the job as well as in schools at different levels? (b) How should vocational education and training be used to modify working conditions and to define new jobs? (c) How can new qualification requirements be mapped, including ↑ key qualifications at the worksite, as well as questions relating to the role of ↑ domain specific knowledge, general problem-solving behaviour, and the necessity and effects of team work? (d) What should be the basic qualification requirements for young adults without sufficient formal education to prevent them from permanent unemployment?
(2) Process (Chairs: Yrjö Engeström, FIN; Terttu Tuomi-Gröhn, FIN) (a) Descriptions and analyses of learning opportunities in different places: worksite, learning corner, ↑ vocational school, etc. (b) Transfer from learning processes to the worksite and from worksite processes to learning. (c) Interaction of learning processes at different (working and learning) places and ↑ practical training with regard to the outcome. (d) Interaction between the utilization of domain specific knowledge and general problem-solving techniques, including the ability to adapt learning processes to new tasks. (e) Promotion of transformative learning: effective coping with changed situations, influencing working conditions and behaving in different contexts (“boundary crossing”).
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(3) Complex Teaching-Learning Arrangements/Environments (Chairs: Peter Sloane, D; Regina Mulder, NL) (a) Mapping different approaches of complex teaching-learning arrangements/environments with regard to teaching styles and the multimedia/ internet equipment needed, as well as modes of individual versus collaborative learning. (b) Opportunities to run vocational education and training by a series of complex teaching-learning arrangements/environments as units of a curriculum. (c) Possibilities of embedding complex teachinglearning arrangements/environments into processes at the worksite. (d) Effective handling of multimedia and open ↑ distance learning procedures with regard to the use of complex teaching-learning arrangements/ environments. (e) Possibilities of modelling and simulating real life situations by including different contexts, also intercultural similarities and differences, in complex teaching-learning arrangements/environments. (f) Possibilities of self-directed versus goal-directed learning within complex teaching-learning arrangements. (g) Investigation on the balance of casuistic and systematized teaching-learning processes.
(4) Initial Conditions (Chairs: Wim Nijhof, NL; Loek Nieuwenhuis, NL) (a) Identification of advantageous and disadvantageous factors for action- and activity-oriented ↑ teaching and learning strategies: the role of employers, enterprises, unions, teaching and learning traditions, etc. (b) Identification of needs for the training of fulltime and part-time teachers and trainers with regard to process conditions – especially the effective use of complex teaching-learning arrangements/environments. (c) Identification of a new self-image of teachers and trainers with regard to their activities in com-
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plex situations and to the needs of fostering ↑ selfdirected learning of students and apprentices.
(5) Output – Evaluation and Assessment (Chairs: Klaus Beck, D; Frank Coffield, UK)
(6) exchange of ideas and research results by meetings, conferences and publications. The Chairs of the whole Action were Frank Achtenhagen (Germany) and Frank Coffield (UK). 4.10.3
(a) Development of evaluation procedures by which flexibility attitudes can be related to personality factors, to the effects of vocational education and training and to their interaction. (b) Development of evaluation procedures by which the development of cognition (e. g. complex problem solving), emotion, motivation, social behaviour (such as communication and collaboration) and moral judgement can be assessed. (c) Ranking the results of vocational education and training for various professional levels according to EU regulations. (d) Describing results of vocational education and training for young adults with very low formal education. (e) Mid- and long-term evaluation of vocational education and training, with regard to ↑ mobility (within and between enterprises and branches). (f) Development of authentic and valid procedures of hands-on assessment (also for large scale). (g) Comparison of the effects of different complex teaching-learning arrangements/environments. Major types of activity for each Working Group have been, according to the statements of the Memorandum of Understanding, the following – with the Groups also adapting them according to their individual members’ expertise: (1) A synthesis of the state of research in each participating country as the starting point for research on the European level; (2) an identification of research gaps, but also of promising ↑ research approaches; (3) stimulation of common bi- or multi-lateral European research projects; (4) common research and exchange of research results should lead to more stringently formulated theories about the different problems to be tackled; (5) the formulation of consequences for the development of transferability, flexibility and ↑ mobility;
The Research Process
The Feasibility Study saw a clear connection in that learning which provides high transfer effects being the best guarantee for possible high mobility – under the premise that a flexible system of VET supports the quality, but also the necessary quantity of teaching and training as well as of learning and working. It was at the beginning of the Action very hard to identify competent researchers within the different participating countries and to persuade them to cooperate. The development of such knowledge during the Action and of the corresponding networks that developed marks one of its major effects. A central aspect and question is always why did the Action focus on teaching/training and learning/working processes. Through the Feasibility Study, as well as by the Memorandum of Understanding, we emphasized that research on vocational and occupational education and training is mainly focussed on institutional, organisational and political topics. The micro level does not play a decisive role. This can be clearly demonstrated by a comprehensive study by ↑ CEDEFOP on “Training in Europe”. The corresponding report consists of three thick volumes with 34 articles by 55 colleagues. Optimistically judged: only 1.5 articles are related to teaching/training and learning processes themselves; only 2 of the 55 authors also worked in the Action; while a third colleague left the Action some years ago as he had changed his job (cf. DESCY/ TESSARING 2001). The major reason for the Action’s focus towards teaching-learning processes can briefly be described by a strong conviction: VET, which is to a large degree run in ↑ vocational schools, can only survive outside enterprises or stay independent if it reaches a highly esteemed status, if vocational schools can clearly demonstrate by their success that their procedures – which include curricula, didactics, methods and media – provide better learning results than those got by firm-based processes. Behind this thesis there is a conviction that work-
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site learning is not principally better and more effective than school learning. This experience is also supported by research results which demonstrate that so-called authentic learning experiences are not necessarily better than those made at vocational schools. Learning at the worksite only gets its positive effects if authenticity of possible and necessary learning experience is set centre stage (cf. ACHTENHAGEN / WEBER 2003). As the literature confronts us with the problems of “↑ inert” or “↑ tacit” knowledge, we examined closely the problems of decontextualisation or transfer through the work of Working Groups 2 and 3. Here, the real and most remarkable research progress is marked by the fact that Engeström’s ↑ activity theory-approach goes beyond traditional concepts of transfer. The emphasis on developmental transfer and expansive learning opens up new possibilities for changed learning procedures at the worksite as well as in schools. The results, therefore, not only mark a decisive progress in the fields of VET, but also over and above that more generally for teaching and learning. Here, an important fact is again confirmed: research on VET creates many results which can also be used more generally (cf. TUOMI-GRÖHN / ENGESTRÖM 2003; ACHTENHAGEN / GRUBB 2001). With regard to the flexibility of pathways one aspect is of great importance: the acceptance of VET by the academic tracks of the ↑ school system and by the institutions of higher education (RAFFE 2002). School history up to our days is full of examples of how vocational programmes have lost their character by becoming more general: a process of “colonisation”. Through the emphasis on aspects of teaching-learning which include curricular, didactic and method research and development, it can be and it should be demonstrated that vocational goals and content are taught at a comparable level as academic representatives claim for their institutions. It also can be shown that the traditional goal and content structure of academic education have their origin in the Ancient Greek enkyklios paideia which is still the norm for most European countries. But it is also evident that the corresponding academic subjects do not cover the most important domains of our daily life: economy, technology, law, medicine and pedagogy. Here, the relationship
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to vocational goal and content structures is visible; research has to work out the necessary teachinglearning steps – a procedure which might help blur the sharp contrasts between academic and ↑ vocational school tracks and their consequences for the flexibility of pathways to disappear. The major problem the Action has been confronted with is the concept of ↑ mobility. The Feasibility Study operationalised this concept as follows: “Mobility is defined by the potential to effectively supply and demand on the ↑ labour market (within and between career patterns and enterprises)” (iii). The Action did not make great advances on this topic. Coffield gave the explanation that “the issue of mobility has been steadily rising to the top of the political agenda in all European countries during the life of this ↑ COST Action” (COFFIELD 2002, 30). The major problem is caused by the fact that mobility as a consequence of the strength or weakness of VET is interwoven with problems of migrant workers. The problem, therefore, was not adequately researchable – especially as with regard to the non-migrant country people the effects of flexibility measures could not sufficiently be operationalised. The results of the ↑ research programme are manifold, as the central goals of this COST Action A11 cover a broad range of ↑ research questions. The division of the work by creating five Working Groups may serve as an example. It was the plan when instigating the Action’s program to develop research questions within each Working Group with regard to the overarching themes, but also to monitor the fact that most research topics in the fields of VET can be treated from a multifaceted perspective, and that it is worthwhile to bring together and compare and contrast the research results from the different Working Groups. In the following sections the Action’s main results are listed without mention of all possible and necessary links to each other. (1) New understanding of the concept of transfer out of the development of ↑ activity theory: The main point is the overcoming of “↑ inert knowledge” – a knowledge which is learned in VET programmes but cannot be used at the worksite. Theoretical approaches have been developed and evaluated in different workplaces and branches. The outcomes exceed traditional concepts of trans-
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fer and have significant implications for changing practices in VET (cf. the contributions to TUOMIGRÖHN / ENGESTRÖM 2003). But empirical understanding of developmental transfer is still at an early stage. We need further studies that, over extended periods of time, describe and analyse how different activity systems interact and create possibilities for expansive learning. These studies need to explore the relationship between the material world, individuals’ learning trajectories, institutional trajectories and different activity systems. By varying the level of description, we can develop a better understanding of the collective transformation that takes place, and also of how individuals learn as part of this collective change. (2) Construction, implementation and evaluation of complex ↑ teaching-learning environments: The main point is to develop new ways to overcome a linear, reductionist structure of vocational and occupational curricula, training plans and instructional and training processes. The new complex teaching–learning environments should correspond to the increasing complexity of tasks at the worksite. They are developed with regard to different branches and have also been evaluated (cf. K REMER / SLOANE 2001; MULDER / SLOANE 2004). Results demonstrate that complex teaching-learning environments are powerful tools for improving VET. As they were also run for the development of strategic knowledge, the level of achievement – with regard to formal criteria – was equal or even higher than those in the comparable academic tracks. This is an important argument with regard to the “colonisation” effects mentioned by Raffe (2002). (3) Evaluation of learning theories with regard to ↑ workplace learning and also under the auspices of ↑ lifelong learning: Models of elaboration, expansion and externalisation have been developed, but achievement motivation and metacognition also play a decisive role. This work was mainly theory-driven – waiting for (collaborative) empirical research. (4) Evaluation and assessment procedures with regard to vocational education and training on the micro, meso and macro levels – whereby results related to the different levels are combined with
Handbook of TVET Research
each other: Progress is demonstrated by the fact that (a) evaluation and assessment in the fields of vocational education and training were found to be seriously under-developed and (b) the relations between these different levels were not treated adequately. Therefore, an alternative approach was developed: the identification of national examples of best practice and their description in a way which allows for ↑ abstraction from cultural specificities thus fostering transfer (BECK 1999; BREUER / BECK 2002; ECCLESTONE 2002). (5) The Action described thoroughly and exemplarily political, administrative and institutional conditions of vocational education and training: This fact must be emphasized as the vocational educational sector in each country can be seen to a great extent as terra incognita. A lot of descriptive country studies published by other institutions show that the authors are not informed sufficiently about the cultural, political and historical context within which policymaking occurs (cf. NIEUWENHUIS / NIJHOF 2001). (6) The Action demonstrates the cultural embeddedness of vocational education and training – by selected country studies as well as by teachinglearning studies according to the ↑ activity theory approach (cf. for example: BROWN /K EEP 2000, for the UK). (7) The concept of flexibility can now be more stringently formulated and evaluated: with regard to the flexibility of input (e. g. greater responsiveness, more flexible qualification and certification structures), flexibility of process (e. g. flexibility in the method, place, pace, or sequence of study, or more individualized pathways) and flexibility of output (transferable skills, ↑ key qualifications, worker ↑ mobility). This has also to be seen in the context of flexible pathways. In particular, a connection is made to larger policy-driven programmes (as e. g. run by the ↑ OECD 2000c: Making Transitions Work: From Initial Education to Working Life; 2002) (cf. STEINER / GRAMLINGER / GEHMACHER / SCHURER 2000; NIJHOF /K IEFT / WOERKOM 2001). (8) New findings with regard to the formulation of curricula for ↑ vocational schools and training plans for enterprises have been developed. (9) Programmes and recommendations for the education and training of vocational teacher’s as well
Case Studies of TVET Research
as of enterprise trainers, were discussed and proposed. These results are related to the topics and central ↑ research questions of the field. In addition, structures and recommendations for the promotion of research in the fields of vocational education and training have been developing: (10) The Action identified competent researchers and research institutions in the fields of VET. This was an important step for the development of research from a European perspective. (11) The Action identified contributions of different scientific disciplines to the solution of VET problems. This is a necessary condition for the development of ↑ multidisciplinary research projects – which also corresponds better to complex problems at the level of workplaces. (12) The Action identified different culturally bound contributions to the solution of shared VET problems. This is a necessary and promising step for the development of a European research perspective. (13) The Action started the first joint research projects run by researchers from different European countries. These projects are new in the sense that they exploit the Action’s collected and published knowledge, and have defined new and innovative research themes. (14) The Action explicitly promoted the scientific careers of promising young researchers. The key measures have been: Short-term scientific missions (study visits at other research laboratories) and Forums for young researchers, which led to intensive tutoring by senior researchers, promoted the possibilities of presenting papers at conferences and subsequently to publish them. (15) The Action enabled researchers to come into contact with politicians, policy-makers and administrators from other countries dealing with problems of VET. (16) Maybe the most important point from a European perspective has been the development of collegiality, increased personal knowledge, friendship and trust – in short, a new network of researchers in the field of VET. The signs of new growth are the planning of joint research projects, symposia and international conferences, exchange of re-
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searchers (lecturing in other universities, tutoring projects, helping with doctoral programmes), joint editorship for larger publications etc. If one tries to weigh the Action’s results a description on the quantitative level can be given: 15 books came out of the Action; the participants of the five Working Groups published hundreds of articles and books which were inspired by the Action and can directly be related to it (see the list in ACHTENHAGEN / THÅNG 2002 and selected papers and reports of the Working Groups in ACHTENHAGEN / JOHN 2003). Although the Action’s results can on the whole be judged very positively, we also need to highlight some of the factors that constrained the work of the Action. There was one particular and important disadvantage for Action A11: financial cuts. During the last two years of the project, the constantly deteriorating financial situation of COST was especially bad for the fields of vocational and occupational education and training. As the scientific disciplines which cope with research in this area are usually underfinanced – compared to other disciplines such as natural sciences, medicine or engineering – the financial cuts and the corresponding reduction of meetings decisively hindered the Action’s activities. This was very unfortunate as these cuts happened at the very time when the Action was beginning to demonstrate how well it could work and all activities were beginning to flourish. The fact that the necessary reduction of activities, which could not be compensated for by national or institutional funds, also led to the withdrawal of many former active members – especially from some Mediterranean countries – caused a serious discontinuity in joint work which had been successfully launched, and also a lack of motivation. One example is that planned contributions to books or conferences were not delivered. The fruitfulness and the necessity of a ↑ COST Action in these fields can be demonstrated overwhelmingly by the Action’s activities. We have also shown the necessity for a stabilized continuing promotion of this highly important but still under-developed area. It is a pity that we are finally confronted with a paradox: On the one hand VET is at the top of the priority list of EU programmes; on the other hand the EU stops successful European activities
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when they get to the point of demonstrating success. Hence, well-developed accumulated research capital has been wasted. 4.10.4
The Scientific and Practical Relevance
The last point will be the outlook and give some hints for further necessary activities of research and development: (1) We need much more endeavour with regard to research on the level of teaching/training – learning/working processes. (2) The research done on transfer – in all Working Groups – shows remarkable progress, especially as comparable research is on the way on different topics in different countries – which includes also bi- and multi-relational projects. (3) Research on flexibility has produced a much more elaborated structure. (4) The ↑ mobility problem is still unsolved. The complexity is too great; this Action, therefore, could not efficiently deal with this topic. But better ↑ teaching/training and learning strategies might and will contribute to a (partial) solution. We close with some more general remarks: – All Working Groups were heterogeneous in composition (i.e. psychologists, sociologists, educationalists and economists). Members contributed from markedly different national contexts and different research paradigms (e. g. quantitative vs. qualitative). Colleagues were at different stages in their careers (e. g. senior professors and PhD students) and different levels of competence in English. Given this heterogeneity, the real surprise was that the groups overcame it, saw it as a challenge and, as a result, became highly productive. – New networks were established and those who met in 1997 as professional counterparts parted in 2002 as personal friends. Participants can now contact specialists in other EU countries with ease. – Some colleagues reported that COST had given their research an international dimension which it had not had previously. – Max Weber wrote, Comparison is critical for the social sciences. If one understands only his/ her own system, one probably does not understand its real strengths and weaknesses very well. Inter-
national debates and discussions helped colleagues to revise and refine their concepts, to consider new perspectives on VET, to re-consider neglected topics, to respond to different questions posed by foreign experts, and to estimate where their own system and society lie in the continuum of such systems and societies across Europe. – Regular meetings helped to break down national stereotypes but they may also have served to overcome professional stereotypes. – In general, colleagues felt that the meetings encouraged them to become more tolerant of different research paradigms, of different styles of debating and discussion, and even ways of running meetings. – A hidden benefit of COST is the impact on those colleagues or participants who were not part of the Action but who were involved indirectly: by receiving copies of papers, commenting on COST papers before publication and being provided with contacts in other countries for their own research. – COST meetings also encouraged the development of ↑ communities of practice among VET researchers in countries where such colleagues were dispersed, few in number and with restricted opportunities to meet as a group. COST provided the focus and the stimulus for setting up these new forums, which still last after this particular ↑ COST Action has come to an end. – The dialogue between researchers, policy-makers and trainers was considered mutually beneficial, with, for example, policy-makers being put in touch with researchers throughout Europe. The meetings helped the participants to appreciate the different agendas, timetables, values and constraints of both researchers and policy-makers. – We have examples where participants have formed new alliances to carry out evaluations, to undertake consultancy work, to provide data and information for ongoing research projects, and to begin the process of writing new research proposals. So COST is having that most important of all outcomes – it is leading to new research. Further research is needed on these central topics of VET. One possible way forward might be European co-operation on a VET-PISA for which a feasibility study has just been published (BAETHGE / ACHTENHAGEN /ARENDS ET AL. 2006).
Case Studies of TVET Research
There is no such thing as the method of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) research. This may be a surprising way to introduce a chapter of a handbook which is supposed to deal precisely with methodological reflections on methods specific to technical and vocational education and training. In fact, of course, on the basis of the enormous breadth of the thematic field, which can only be mastered in ↑ interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary (→ 5.1.4) fashion, TVET research necessarily participates in the whole methodological array of the social sciences. This is due on the one hand to the plurality of its scientific goals. Alongside the knowledge interest there is a distinct development and design interest, on equal terms (→ 5.1.1; → 5.1.4; → 5.3). TVET research therefore pursues theoretical, pragmatic and normative scientific aims: it takes in description, analysis, interpretation, explanation and nomologisation, critique and design of vocational and vocation-relevant education, qualification and socialisation processes and their determining factors. On the other hand, the questions and thematic fields it deals with are extraordinarily diverse: for example, metatheoretical self-reflection; the analysis of the societal conditions of vocational education and training; reflections on the anthropological significance of occupation as such and its educational significance; and the determination of the role of occupations as organisational patterns in modern societies. It concerns the analysis of vocational teaching activities in international and temporal comparison, as well as the clarification and definition of the aims of vocational teaching in close cooperation with ↑ curriculum research and subject and field didactics and with the aid of ideas from ↑ vocational education theory, qualifications research, activity and workplace analyses, and ↑ professionalisation research. It concerns the acquisition of didactic and methodical design recommendations with recourse to, for example, ideas from expertise and competence research and pedagogical psychology. That is, it concerns questions about suitable ↑ learning environment, suitable learning objects, ↑ teaching methods to be applied, and media to be employed. TVET research investigates these and other tasks, again with different methodological implications at the mac-
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ro-level of vocational education and training systems, at the meso-level of vocational education and training institutions and courses, and at the microlevel of concrete occupational learning processes. Alongside intentional vocational education and training, questions of socialisation in occupation and workplace are also of interest. The concern here is the identification of promotive, restrictive or didactically disturbing functional influences on the development of personality; the understanding of the connection between work experiences and personality development, and also, decisively, the humanisation of work and occupation. In addition, the problems of ↑ informal learning are increasingly coming into view. Last but not least, in anthropological and socio-philosophical references – that is, where TVET research explicitly or implicitly takes human and societal models as points of departure – it unavoidably introduces normative questions into its analytical framework. In light of such breadth, as revealed impressively by the present handbook, there is scarcely a method from the ↑ humanities or the empirical sciences that TVET research could dispense with. There are of course numerous publications on the diversity of the general methods applied in TVET. In addition, the methodological foundation of such standard methods has been well described by the philosophy of science. Section 5 of this handbook therefore focuses on those methods, that have particular relevance for the domain of TVET research, and investigates the interdependency of research domain and methods applied. Section 5.1 specifically concentrates on the question of how far TVET ↑ research methods need to be subject-related. For reasons of economy TVET research will do what it can to implement standard methods (→ 5.1.6). However, this endeavour finds its limits in the peculiarity of TVET research which must be reflected in its methodological choices. Occupational work and education/ training processes are the domain of vocational research and TVET research. Occupations, however – as significant as content-independent ↑ crosscurricular competences may be (→ 3.7.2) – have a domain of their own which constitutes them as social entities within a given economic and industrial culture: the ensemble of the activities which
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constitute this occupation in terms of their contents (→ 5.1.1). The fact that a ‘professional’ has very accurate knowledge of this domain is precisely what makes him a professional. Questions about expected knowledge and skills in a specific vocational setting, and questions about the learning paths on which the requisite competence can be acquired, analytic and design questions, are never questions about an occupation in the abstract but always questions about the domain features of a specific occupation. In the contributions to section 5, therefore, the following ↑ central questions of a TVET ↑ research methodology emerge: to what extent is it requisite to situate and contextualise the various applied methods with specific regard to the research domain in order to fit them as closely as possible to the work contents and the knowledge and knowhow incorporated in occupational work? And to what extent and in what manner must a researcher be familiar with the relevant occupational domain? How well must he, for example, in the role of an observer, interviewer or developer of teachinglearning arrangements, know the domain which for the professional makes the occupation this concrete and not just any occupation? Must he, as for example Garfinkel demands for ↑ studies of work (→ 5.2.8), even himself be specifically qualified in that domain before he begins his research? Questions of this kind do not directly touch the subject-relatedness of methods (in contrast to the ideal of methodological unity) but above all the domain expertise (in contrast to the ‘domain indifference’) of the researcher. To put it more precisely, whoever wants to study service technicians who fix copying machines probably does not need a special method, but they may have to be a service technician who fixes copying machines. Precisely that is the core message of ↑ ethnomethodology: the more the method recedes into the background (not: the more ‘specialised’ or subject-related it becomes) the more unobscured becomes the view of the object. However, it might be the case that not only the research process itself requires familiarity with the research domain but also the development of adequate ↑ research methods. In other words: the subject-relatedness of methods may require ↑ domain-specific expertise.
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It is becoming increasingly clear that the answer to the question about the requisite degree of subjectrelatedness, as well as that of domain expertise depends decisively on the nature of occupational knowledge. In this respect it is helpful to consider under what ideal-typical conditions the TVET researcher’s familiarity with the domain can be suspended. Consider two extreme existential modalities of occupational knowledge: – Occupational knowledge can – in the borderline case of mere behaviour – be fully subsumed by observable action. The patterns of activity in this case are fairly invariable; the necessity of sympathetic understanding and the ↑ decoding of the meaning intended in action is not applicable. The external observer, therefore, if he is observing the worker in the exercise of his activity, has seen virtually everything that is to be seen in relation to the occupation and vocational knowledge in question. – Even if occupational knowledge, on the contrary, consists of a series of highly complex dispositions which can find expression in a very large or even unlimited number of concrete and situationspecific ways of acting, its analysis would not become a decoding task which presupposes a high degree of familiarity with the object; if his occupational knowledge was consciously available in its entirety to the professional he could explicate it in the form of a number of conditional action rules (‘if-then’) and procedural provisions and no relevant background knowledge would be required for the interpretation of this explication. Therefore a comprehensive decontextualisation of this occupational knowledge would be presupposed. Obviously, these two conditions apply only to narrow segments of occupational knowledge. First, occupational know-how, in Gilbert Ryle’s words (1949, 44 ff.), is practically never ‘a single-track disposition like a reflex or a habit’; grasping it is always ‘in a certain manner to look beyond the ↑ performance itself’. Second, the meaning of what anyone may say about his occupation, the object of his work, and the contents of his knowledge of his working processes is revealed only in light of a network of implicit meaning references. Thirdly, a certain speechlessness is typical of the expert experienced in a particular occupation regarding what he can do and how he can do it. On account
Case Studies of TVET Research
of this speechlessness, occupational knowledge is to a considerable extent ↑ tacit knowing (→ 5.1.5). This entails that the professional can only help the TVET researcher ‘to look beyond the performance itself’ to a limited extent. The researcher must therefore look himself. He can do this, in turn, only if he understands the occupation and its typical tasks from the inside. Mere observation and mere questioning devoid of any ↑ domain-specific competence clearly do not reach the object of investigation, at least not in all cases. Ryle (1949, 53) reached precisely this conclusion in the course of a very penetrating confrontation with the distinction between knowing how and knowing that (cf. NEUWEG 1998; 2000a): The knowledge that is required for understanding intelligent performances of a specific kind is some degree of competence in performances of that kind. The competent critic of prose-style, experimental technique, or embroidery, must at least know how to write, experiment or sew. (…) For one person to see the jokes that another makes, the one thing he must have is a sense of humour of which those jokes are exercises.
The situation of the TVET researcher, when he wants to or has to approach the contents of the occupation, is like the difficult and methodologically often inadequately considered situation of an ethnologist who would like to study an alien culture. He understands many and perhaps the most decisive of their practices only when and to the extent that he himself masters them, and he can only master them after passing through a socialisation process in this culture – as a result of which the culture is no longer alien to him and he is no longer a researcher. A fundamental dilemma arises from this: it is a matter of putting proximity and ↑ distance in the research process in sustained tension (→ 3.4.1; → 5.1.3; ). Then, the closer the TVET researcher finds himself to the object – in the borderline case he is himself an expert in the domain and member of the corresponding ↑ community of practice (→ 5.1.2) – the sooner he finds acceptance among those he is researching and the sooner the occupation and the occupational knowledge are revealed to him. With increasing proximity, however, he becomes increasingly less able
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– to assist the professionals in the explication of this knowledge, or more precisely: to compel them to explicate, – to represent this knowledge in such a way that it becomes an intersubjective object accessible to third-party analysis, and – to take the perspective of the novice who is still unable to do what is already obvious to the expert – an important requirement when it comes to designing vocational learning paths. In the extreme case the researcher who is all too close to the object is only in a position to do what Bergmann (→ 5.2.8) considers to be the danger of ↑ ethnomethodology which elevates proximity to the status of a programme: he doubles the object descriptively. On the other hand, the greater the distance from the ↑ research object, the greater the ability of the TVET researcher as interested layman to pose the questions which provoke the professional to explicate his ↑ implicit knowledge. However, the more exoteric the representations of occupational knowledge, the more likely it becomes that vocational practise in some – perhaps the – essential aspects remains not understood. The dilemma behind this expert paradox (→ 5.1.6) can be expressed more radically: the self-evident practices which make up the practise of the occupation can only be defined by someone to whom they are not self-evident. However, then they are possibly unintelligible to him. It seems that there is a choice between the internal perspective of ‘seen, but unnoticed’ (GARFINKEL 1967a) and the external perspective of ‘noticed, but unseen’. While the expert in the domain knows all the answers but hardly has any questions, the researcher who is not oriented to any particular object has many questions to which he receives either no answers from the more or less voiceless masters or only such as are unintelligible to him. It should be pointed out that the issue of domain expertise cannot be solved simply by the TVET researcher becoming qualified not only in (general) TVET research but beyond that, depending on the domain, for example, in natural science, technology, social science, economics, or the law. This is because the technical knowledge acquired in an academic discipline does not help with practices, modes of thinking and knowledge formats estab-
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lished in the ↑ occupational field – as in the case of work-process knowledge – which regularly cut across or (in the case of ↑ implicit knowledge) go beyond the corresponding scientific knowledge. A discipline is not an occupation. The fundamental methodological problems rooted in the very domain of TVET research are furthermore brought to a head by the fact that assumptions about the structure of occupational knowledge and the applied ↑ research methods mutually condition one another. The nature of the practices and forms of knowledge inscribed in occupational work patterns and cultures and the adequate research methods for a particular vocational domain become ‘known’ often only after a research process in which already-defined methods come to be applied – due to which its ‘results’ in the worst case are methodological artefacts. Obviously one needs, in advance, a theory of the occupational ↑ domainspecific knowledge and know-how in order to be able to define the ↑ research methodology appropriately. Just as obviously one reaches a theory of occupational knowledge only through an appropriate use of methodology. Whoever, for example, would like to find out whether professionals act in accordance with rules cannot simply enquire about rules because the danger is that such rules will only be found under the pressure of rationalisation in the enquiry situation (→ 5.1.5). Only against the background of well-founded hypotheses about the forms of action control typical of certain tasks in the occupational field can an appropriate research method be defined. However, without a somehow methodologically attained pre-experience one will not attain hypotheses. This chicken-and-egg problem is particularly precarious because occupational knowing-that and knowing-how have conscious and implicit, decontextualisable and situated, exoteric and esoteric parts without the relevant zones always being definable in advance. This can be elucidated by the example of domain specific concepts and their acquisition – also because this example is sometimes used pars pro toto. The claim common among learning theory constructivists that all knowing is like language (BROWN / COLLINS / DUGUID 1989, 32 f.) indicates that meaning is not ultimately apprehendable in terms of explicit definitions; every act
Handbook of TVET Research
of application enriches and changes semantics and therefore concepts must be acquired in a ‘situated’ way. That also means they could be studied only in radical proximity to the object, that is, in situ. Of course, the claim that concepts are constantly under construction relates to different kinds of concepts in different ways and, correspondingly, each domain requires different research methods and degrees of domain expertise. For a psychiatrist the semantics of the concept ‘depressed’ will change in the course of decades of application to concrete patients in concrete situations; that of the concept ‘unique selling proposition’ for the marketing expert too; while the semantics of the concept ‘arithmetical mean’ (hopefully) will not change for the statistician. It is correspondingly understandable why the concept of depression or the concept of a USP in their full wealth of meaning have to be opened up by ↑ participation in occupational practice; however, it is not obvious why a neat and precise explanation in relation to a few examples is not enough for the acquisition of the concept of the mean. All in all, it is evident that the problem of subject-relatedness and domain expertise calls for a number of differentiations. It is likely that: – the problem does not even arise as such for some ↑ research questions because the specific contents of a particular occupation are out of scope; – ceteris paribus the meso and, above all, the micro levels of TVET research require a more intensive familiarity with the object; – in the analysis of occupational mastery occupation-specific technical competence is beneficial or even indispensable, while on the other hand questions of occupational development and theoretical and practical questions of teaching-learning additionally and particularly require the ability to take on the outside perspective of a novice; and – the esoteric character of a practice field and the required degree of domain expertise varies from occupation to occupation, in respect to which, alongside the contents of work and knowledge, the degree of algorithmisability of occupational ↑ performances, the relative proportions of different knowledge modalities (for example, implicit, explicit-practical, explicit-scientific) and the relative proportions of different forms of activity control
Case Studies of TVET Research
(for example, routine, rule following, consciously planned, intuitive-improvisational, creative) will play a role. TVET research must therefore, as significant as the identity creating function of a general TVET research remains, be differentiated in relation to occupation (-al field) and be pursued to a great extent in a ↑ domain-specific and subject-related way (→ 5.1.1). To that extent it is humanistic, social and ↑ vocational science research. The methodological challenge here consists less in the discovery of new methods than in the choice of methods appropriate to the object; in the finding of the right measure of occupational technical competence by the researcher; in the formation – where applicable – of teams of researchers with deliberately very different domain expertise, and – regarding the variety of occupational domains with which TVET research has to do – in the concrete-social organisation of inter- and transdisciplinarity.
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Section 5: Research Methods 5.1 Methodological Aspects Georg Hans Neuweg/Peter Putz 5.2 Interview and Observation Methods Winfried Hacker 5.3 Experimental Research, Developmental Methods Peter Röben 5.4 Evaluation, Quality Development and Assurance Jürgen van Buer/Eugenie A. Samier
Research Methods
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5.1.0 Introduction: Methodological Aspects Georg Hans Neuweg and Peter Putz There is no such thing as the method of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) research. This may be a surprising way to introduce a chapter of a handbook which is supposed to deal precisely with methodological reflections on methods specific to technical and vocational education and training. In fact, of course, on the basis of the enormous breadth of the thematic field, which can only be mastered in ↑ interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary (→ 5.1.4) fashion, TVET research necessarily participates in the whole methodological array of the social sciences. This is due on the one hand to the plurality of its scientific goals. Alongside the knowledge interest there is a distinct development and design interest, on equal terms (→ 5.1.1; → 5.1.4; → 5.3). TVET research therefore pursues theoretical, pragmatic and normative scientific aims: it takes in description, analysis, interpretation, explanation and nomologisation, critique and design of vocational and vocation-relevant education, qualification and socialisation processes and their determining factors. On the other hand, the questions and thematic fields it deals with are extraordinarily diverse: for example, metatheoretical self-reflection; the analysis of the societal conditions of vocational education and training; reflections on the anthropological significance of occupation as such and its educational significance; and the determination of the role of occupations as organisational patterns in modern societies. It concerns the analysis of vocational teaching activities in international and temporal comparison, as well as the clarification and definition of the aims of vocational teaching in close cooperation with ↑ curriculum research and subject and field didactics and with the aid of ideas from ↑ vocational education theory, qualifications research, activity and workplace analyses, and ↑ professionalisation research. It concerns the acquisition of didactic and methodical design recommendations with recourse to, for example, ideas from expertise and competence research and pedagogical psychology. That is, it concerns questions about suitable ↑ learning environment, suita-
ble learning objects, ↑ teaching methods to be applied, and media to be employed. TVET research investigates these and other tasks, again with different methodological implications at the macro-level of vocational education and training systems, at the meso-level of vocational education and training institutions and courses, and at the microlevel of concrete occupational learning processes. Alongside intentional vocational education and training, questions of socialisation in occupation and workplace are also of interest. The concern here is the identification of promotive, restrictive or didactically disturbing functional influences on the development of personality; the understanding of the connection between work experiences and personality development, and also, decisively, the humanisation of work and occupation. In addition, the problems of ↑ informal learning are increasingly coming into view. Last but not least, in anthropological and socio-philosophical references – that is, where TVET research explicitly or implicitly takes human and societal models as points of departure – it unavoidably introduces normative questions into its analytical framework. In light of such breadth, as revealed impressively by the present handbook, there is scarcely a method from the ↑ humanities or the empirical sciences that TVET research could dispense with. There are of course numerous publications on the diversity of the general methods applied in TVET. In addition, the methodological foundation of such standard methods has been well described by the philosophy of science. Section 5 of this handbook therefore focuses on those methods, that have particular relevance for the domain of TVET research, and investigates the interdependency of research domain and methods applied. Section 5.1 specifically concentrates on the question of how far TVET ↑ research methods need to be subject-related. For reasons of economy TVET research will do what it can to implement standard methods (→ 5.1.6). However, this endeavour finds its limits in the peculiarity of TVET research which must be reflected in its methodolog-
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ical choices. Occupational work and education/ training processes are the domain of vocational research and TVET research. Occupations, however – as significant as content-independent ↑ crosscurricular competences may be (→ 3.7.2) – have a domain of their own which constitutes them as social entities within a given economic and industrial culture: the ensemble of the activities which constitute this occupation in terms of their contents (→ 5.1.1). The fact that a ‘professional’ has very accurate knowledge of this domain is precisely what makes him a professional. Questions about expected knowledge and skills in a specific vocational setting, and questions about the learning paths on which the requisite competence can be acquired, analytic and design questions, are never questions about an occupation in the abstract but always questions about the domain features of a specific occupation. In the contributions to section 5, therefore, the following ↑ central questions of a TVET ↑ research methodology emerge: to what extent is it requisite to situate and contextualise the various applied methods with specific regard to the research domain in order to fit them as closely as possible to the work contents and the knowledge and knowhow incorporated in occupational work? And to what extent and in what manner must a researcher be familiar with the relevant occupational domain? How well must he, for example, in the role of an observer, interviewer or developer of teachinglearning arrangements, know the domain which for the professional makes the occupation this concrete and not just any occupation? Must he, as for example Garfinkel demands for ↑ studies of work (→ 5.2.8), even himself be specifically qualified in that domain before he begins his research? Questions of this kind do not directly touch the subject-relatedness of methods (in contrast to the ideal of methodological unity) but above all the domain expertise (in contrast to the ‘domain indifference’) of the researcher. To put it more precisely, whoever wants to study service technicians who fix copying machines probably does not need a special method, but they may have to be a service technician who fixes copying machines. Precisely that is the core message of ↑ ethnomethodology: the more the method recedes into the background
Handbook of TVET Research
(not: the more ‘specialised’ or subject-related it becomes) the more unobscured becomes the view of the object. However, it might be the case that not only the research process itself requires familiarity with the research domain but also the development of adequate ↑ research methods. In other words: the subject-relatedness of methods may require ↑ domain-specific expertise. It is becoming increasingly clear that the answer to the question about the requisite degree of subjectrelatedness, as well as that of domain expertise depends decisively on the nature of occupational knowledge. In this respect it is helpful to consider under what ideal-typical conditions the TVET researcher’s familiarity with the domain can be suspended. Consider two extreme existential modalities of occupational knowledge: – Occupational knowledge can – in the borderline case of mere behaviour – be fully subsumed by observable action. The patterns of activity in this case are fairly invariable; the necessity of sympathetic understanding and the ↑ decoding of the meaning intended in action is not applicable. The external observer, therefore, if he is observing the worker in the exercise of his activity, has seen virtually everything that is to be seen in relation to the occupation and vocational knowledge in question. – Even if occupational knowledge, on the contrary, consists of a series of highly complex dispositions which can find expression in a very large or even unlimited number of concrete and situationspecific ways of acting, its analysis would not become a decoding task which presupposes a high degree of familiarity with the object; if his occupational knowledge was consciously available in its entirety to the professional he could explicate it in the form of a number of conditional action rules (‘if-then’) and procedural provisions and no relevant background knowledge would be required for the interpretation of this explication. Therefore a comprehensive decontextualisation of this occupational knowledge would be presupposed. Obviously, these two conditions apply only to narrow segments of occupational knowledge. First, occupational know-how, in Gilbert Ryle’s words (1949, 44 ff.), is practically never ‘a single-track disposition like a reflex or a habit’; grasping it is always ‘in a certain manner to look beyond the
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↑ performance itself’. Second, the meaning of what anyone may say about his occupation, the object of his work, and the contents of his knowledge of his working processes is revealed only in light of a network of implicit meaning references. Thirdly, a certain speechlessness is typical of the expert experienced in a particular occupation regarding what he can do and how he can do it. On account of this speechlessness, occupational knowledge is to a considerable extent ↑ tacit knowing (→ 5.1.5). This entails that the professional can only help the TVET researcher ‘to look beyond the performance itself’ to a limited extent. The researcher must therefore look himself. He can do this, in turn, only if he understands the occupation and its typical tasks from the inside. Mere observation and mere questioning devoid of any ↑ domain-specific competence clearly do not reach the object of investigation, at least not in all cases. Ryle (1949, 53) reached precisely this conclusion in the course of a very penetrating confrontation with the distinction between knowing how and knowing that (cf. NEUWEG 1998; 2000a): The knowledge that is required for understanding intelligent performances of a specific kind is some degree of competence in performances of that kind. The competent critic of prose-style, experimental technique, or embroidery, must at least know how to write, experiment or sew. (…) For one person to see the jokes that another makes, the one thing he must have is a sense of humour of which those jokes are exercises.
The situation of the TVET researcher, when he wants to or has to approach the contents of the occupation, is like the difficult and methodologically often inadequately considered situation of an ethnologist who would like to study an alien culture. He understands many and perhaps the most decisive of their practices only when and to the extent that he himself masters them, and he can only master them after passing through a socialisation process in this culture – as a result of which the culture is no longer alien to him and he is no longer a researcher. A fundamental dilemma arises from this: it is a matter of putting proximity and ↑ distance in the research process in sustained tension (→ 3.4.1; → 5.1.3; ). Then, the closer the TVET researcher finds himself to the object – in the borderline case he is himself an expert in the domain and mem-
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ber of the corresponding ↑ community of practice (→ 5.1.2) – the sooner he finds acceptance among those he is researching and the sooner the occupation and the occupational knowledge are revealed to him. With increasing proximity, however, he becomes increasingly less able – to assist the professionals in the explication of this knowledge, or more precisely: to compel them to explicate, – to represent this knowledge in such a way that it becomes an intersubjective object accessible to third-party analysis, and – to take the perspective of the novice who is still unable to do what is already obvious to the expert – an important requirement when it comes to designing vocational learning paths. In the extreme case the researcher who is all too close to the object is only in a position to do what Bergmann (→ 5.2.8) considers to be the danger of ↑ ethnomethodology which elevates proximity to the status of a programme: he doubles the object descriptively. On the other hand, the greater the distance from the ↑ research object, the greater the ability of the TVET researcher as interested layman to pose the questions which provoke the professional to explicate his ↑ implicit knowledge. However, the more exoteric the representations of occupational knowledge, the more likely it becomes that vocational practise in some – perhaps the – essential aspects remains not understood. The dilemma behind this expert paradox (→ 5.1.6) can be expressed more radically: the self-evident practices which make up the practise of the occupation can only be defined by someone to whom they are not self-evident. However, then they are possibly unintelligible to him. It seems that there is a choice between the internal perspective of ‘seen, but unnoticed’ (GARFINKEL 1967a) and the external perspective of ‘noticed, but unseen’. While the expert in the domain knows all the answers but hardly has any questions, the researcher who is not oriented to any particular object has many questions to which he receives either no answers from the more or less voiceless masters or only such as are unintelligible to him. It should be pointed out that the issue of domain expertise cannot be solved simply by the TVET researcher becoming qualified not only in (general)
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TVET research but beyond that, depending on the domain, for example, in natural science, technology, social science, economics, or the law. This is because the technical knowledge acquired in an academic discipline does not help with practices, modes of thinking and knowledge formats established in the ↑ occupational field – as in the case of work-process knowledge – which regularly cut across or (in the case of ↑ implicit knowledge) go beyond the corresponding scientific knowledge. A discipline is not an occupation. The fundamental methodological problems rooted in the very domain of TVET research are furthermore brought to a head by the fact that assumptions about the structure of occupational knowledge and the applied ↑ research methods mutually condition one another. The nature of the practices and forms of knowledge inscribed in occupational work patterns and cultures and the adequate research methods for a particular vocational domain become ‘known’ often only after a research process in which already-defined methods come to be applied – due to which its ‘results’ in the worst case are methodological artefacts. Obviously one needs, in advance, a theory of the occupational ↑ domainspecific knowledge and know-how in order to be able to define the ↑ research methodology appropriately. Just as obviously one reaches a theory of occupational knowledge only through an appropriate use of methodology. Whoever, for example, would like to find out whether professionals act in accordance with rules cannot simply enquire about rules because the danger is that such rules will only be found under the pressure of rationalisation in the enquiry situation (→ 5.1.5). Only against the background of well-founded hypotheses about the forms of action control typical of certain tasks in the occupational field can an appropriate research method be defined. However, without a somehow methodologically attained pre-experience one will not attain hypotheses. This chicken-and-egg problem is particularly precarious because occupational knowing-that and knowing-how have conscious and implicit, decontextualisable and situated, exoteric and esoteric parts without the relevant zones always being definable in advance. This can be elucidated by the example of domain specific concepts and their ac-
Handbook of TVET Research
quisition – also because this example is sometimes used pars pro toto. The claim common among learning theory constructivists that all knowing is like language (BROWN / COLLINS / DUGUID 1989, 32 f.) indicates that meaning is not ultimately apprehendable in terms of explicit definitions; every act of application enriches and changes semantics and therefore concepts must be acquired in a ‘situated’ way. That also means they could be studied only in radical proximity to the object, that is, in situ. Of course, the claim that concepts are constantly under construction relates to different kinds of concepts in different ways and, correspondingly, each domain requires different research methods and degrees of domain expertise. For a psychiatrist the semantics of the concept ‘depressed’ will change in the course of decades of application to concrete patients in concrete situations; that of the concept ‘unique selling proposition’ for the marketing expert too; while the semantics of the concept ‘arithmetical mean’ (hopefully) will not change for the statistician. It is correspondingly understandable why the concept of depression or the concept of a USP in their full wealth of meaning have to be opened up by ↑ participation in occupational practice; however, it is not obvious why a neat and precise explanation in relation to a few examples is not enough for the acquisition of the concept of the mean. All in all, it is evident that the problem of subject-relatedness and domain expertise calls for a number of differentiations. It is likely that: – the problem does not even arise as such for some ↑ research questions because the specific contents of a particular occupation are out of scope; – ceteris paribus the meso and, above all, the micro levels of TVET research require a more intensive familiarity with the object; – in the analysis of occupational mastery occupation-specific technical competence is beneficial or even indispensable, while on the other hand questions of occupational development and theoretical and practical questions of teaching-learning additionally and particularly require the ability to take on the outside perspective of a novice; and – the esoteric character of a practice field and the required degree of domain expertise varies from occupation to occupation, in respect to which,
Research Methods
alongside the contents of work and knowledge, the degree of algorithmisability of occupational ↑ performances, the relative proportions of different knowledge modalities (for example, implicit, explicit-practical, explicit-scientific) and the relative proportions of different forms of activity control (for example, routine, rule following, consciously planned, intuitive-improvisational, creative) will play a role. TVET research must therefore, as significant as the identity creating function of a general TVET research remains, be differentiated in relation to occupation (-al field) and be pursued to a great extent in a ↑ domain-specific and subject-related way (→ 5.1.1). To that extent it is humanistic, social and ↑ vocational science research. The methodological challenge here consists less in the discovery of new methods than in the choice of methods appropriate to the object; in the finding of the right measure of occupational technical competence by the researcher; in the formation – where applicable – of teams of researchers with deliberately very different domain expertise, and – regarding the variety of occupational domains with which TVET research has to do – in the concrete-social organisation of inter- and transdisciplinarity.
5.1.1
Subject-Related Research Approach: Vocational Work and Education Processes Felix Rauner
5.1.1.1
On the Problem of Subject-Related Research Methods
The differentiation of the fundamental methods of observation and experiment developed by the natural sciences into a multitude of disciplinary methods, which can be observed in the history of the ↑ humanities and social sciences, is the topic of a controversial debate. TVET research cannot escape this controversy since it is in many respects sociological research, too. Gerhard Kleining holds the pointed opinion that the connection of the methods to their topics diminishes the epistemic potential of the social sciences because it ex-
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cludes all data not generated by disciplinary methods. The subject-related segmentation of empirical social ↑ research methods may also be the cause of the “harmlessness of the social sciences” (K LEINING 1995c, 13). With reference to the history of scientific methods in the natural sciences Kleining argues for a recollection of everyday methods and for the unity of methods by a reversal of their subject-related fragmentation. Harold Garfinkel maintains a radically contrary position. For TVET research this view is quite interesting because the research concept of “↑ Studies of Work” developed by Garfinkel (GARFINKEL 1986; HERITAGE 1984; → 5.2.8) touches one of the central topics of TVET research. The author postulates a “Unique Adequacy Requirement” for research methods. According to this requirement the primacy is with the subject, i.e., the research topic. Even if one neglects the methodological difficulty of accepting the adequacy of a method for the subject matter as a criterion for the selection of methods – what method is there to prove this adequacy in turn? The objective of a uniquely adequate choice and development of research methods will, in the case of any ambiguity, lead to the sacrifice of methods when the latter do not fit the particularity and uniqueness of the subject (op. cit., 57). Uwe Flick et al. point out in their methodological reflections on ↑ qualitative research that the feature of subject adequacy applies in particular to qualitative methods. “For almost every procedure it is possible to detect for what particular subject it was developed. Usually the starting point was the fact that the available methods were inappropriate for this particular topic” (FLICK / K ARDORFF / STEINKE 2000, 22).
TVET research, therefore, faces the question as to whether there are good or even coercive reasons for a differentiation of methods according to specific subject matters or whether Kleining’s position in favour of a unity of methods should be adopted instead. TVET research is basically concerned with occupation-related ↑ work tasks and processes as constitutive elements of the organisation and design of qualification and education processes, which take place in more or less formalised vocational training programmes and systems. Its epistemic interest is directed towards phenomena constituted by the
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situative practices of agents. The contexts of agency therefore are a central source of knowledge and not of distortion. John Heritage, in his analysis of Garfinkel’s “Studies of Work” comes to the conclusion that the traditional studies of occupations lead into a dead end: “The studies […] are largely silent about the matters which make these occupations significant in the first place” (HERITAGE 1984, 298). He refers to the exam-
ple of the analysis of juridical pleas, which is often mentioned by Garfinkel in this regard. The analysis (“Occupational Studies”) was to be conducted on the basis of tape recordings. When the social scientist that had been recruited for this task proposed to apply Robert F. Bales’ categories for the analysis of interaction processes in this study, he was given the answer: “By using Bales’ Interaction Process Analysis I am sure we‘ll learn what about a jury‘s deliberations makes them a small group. But we want to know what about the deliberations makes them a jury” (HERITAGE 1984, 299).
The gap in sociological occupations research, according to Garfinkel, lies in the fact that with its own methods it cannot find out how tasks are solved in occupational practice: “It is just these features of occupations which are systematically absent from the special science literature” (ibid.).
Heritage sees this methodological judgement on the limited scope of social scientific research and ↑ research methods with regard to occupation-related ↑ research problems verified by the fact that there are no methodological guidelines: “No manuals of procedure are available which describe how social scientific concepts can be ‘operationally’ applied to naturally occurring occupational conduct” (op. cit., 301).
Garfinkel has attempted to establish the subject adequacy of methods for the ‘↑ Studies of Work’ by a radical critique of the inadequacy of traditional analysis techniques as well as by an interpretive foundation of analysis “from within” the professional practice of work. He therefore also calls for a comprehensive ↑ domain-specific qualification of researchers who conduct occupational studies (GARFINKEL 1967a; 1986). However, the dilemma that characterises social scientific analyses of work and occupations consists of the fact that even though the right questions can be asked, the meth-
Handbook of TVET Research
ods developed for the problem still define the research topic as a sociological one. The ambition formulated by Garfinkel to clarify what constitutes the contents of professional work can be fulfilled only if the (limited) range of these methods is taken into consideration and the occupational and work studies are conducted by the relevant ↑ vocational disciplines or with their ↑ participation (cf. STRATMANN 1975b; MÜLLGES 1975; R AU NER 2002d). 5.1.1.2
TVET Research between Analysis and Design
The analytical dimension of TVET research is thoroughly connected with the developmental tasks at all levels of professional work and vocational education, from the working and learning individuals up to the structures of the employment and TVET systems. From this the analytical and formative treatment of the contents of professional work and vocational education emerges (→ 5.4.4; → 5.4.5). The analytical dimension of TVET research, due to its proximity to the empirical disciplines, has a sociological imprint, especially as far as research methods are concerned. This is expressed, for instance, by the distinctly sociological ↑ qualification research, which was for some time quite popular in TVET research (GRÜNEWALD / DEGEN /K RICK 1979). The declining interest in this ↑ research field on the part of research and ↑ TVET policy is attributed to the relatively small practical relevance of its results (DYBOWSKI / HAASE / RAUNER 1993). The greater part of the results expected from TVET research aims directly at the planning processes of the modernisation and reorganisation of occupations and ↑ occupational fields, of the corresponding vocational training plans, the development and testing of new training instruments (↑ media research and development) as well as the development and testing of new learning and training methods. These development and design-oriented tasks can be handled only in cooperation with the relevant vocational disciplines and their respective didactics (→ 4.1; → 5.2.1; → 5.2.2).
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Technology as Subject Matter and Instrument in Work and Training Processes
Work Contents and Work Organisation as a Topic of TVET Research
In technical vocational education, technology, in the form of devices, machines and assemblies, but also of components and technical processes, is a work-related subject in ↑ teaching and learning processes. Normally the application of technology is learned in the ↑ work process via tools and user interfaces, which are more or less adapted well to the abilities of the users. In the handling of traditional technologies the qualification of the users as a process of adapting them to the qualification requirements generated by technology is the dominant paradigm. For instance, the technological innovations in the machine tool industry in the 1980s triggered the development of subject-related ↑ research methods. Fritz Böhle und Hans Martin show in the project CeA (Computergestütztes erfahrungsgeleitetes Arbeiten – “computer aided experience-oriented work”) that lathe operators, in their operation of different materials, tools, machines and orders, rely on their very differentiated perception of sounds. Therefore in the case of encapsulated machines bearing microphones, knock sensors, infrared sensors and other devices are installed for a transparent signal transmission in machine tools in order to regain access to the lost or diminished opportunities for the sensual perception of the lathing process, which is a fundamental requirement for experiential learning (MARTIN 1995b; BÖHLE 1995). Engineers from different disciplines, labour researchers, natural scientists and TVET teachers have collaborated on this project in order to adequately address the complex research and developmental tasks adequately with regard to contents and methods. The media and the equipment developed by the BBF/BIBB are examples of development-oriented TVET research that is shaped through implicit methods from the respective disciplines (cf. GUTSCHMIDT/K REIGENFELD / LAUR ET AL. 1974; LAURERNST 1981a). ↑ Interdisciplinarity and the interaction of analysis and design in ↑ media research and development are based, above all, on a mutual understanding of the actors involved, and not so much on an elaborate methodology (→ 4.1).
With the work-oriented turn in the didactics of vocational education the importance of work and task analyses increased. The training contents and objectives were organised in learning fields according to a decision of the Conference of Education Ministers (Kultusministerkonferenz – KMK) on ↑ curriculum development (KMK 1999). They are supposed to be oriented towards the crucial work situations relevant for an occupation and for the development of professional competence. By this notion ↑ educational planning for TVET establishes a connection to developmental foundations of vocational training and learning processes (BREMER 2001). The theoretical concept of developmental tasks by Robert J. Havighurst had already been introduced into ↑ educational research in the 1970s (BLANKERTZ 1983; GRUSCHKA 1985). A similar relevance is attributed to the concept of paradigmatic work situations, which is employed by Patricia Benner in the application of the ↑ novice-expertparadigm (DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1987) for curriculum development in the nursing sector. In TVET research these concepts and methods become more and more important due to the demand for more and stronger subject orientation in ↑ vocational competence development. For the evaluation and measurement of vocational competence development the methodological instrument of vocational developmental tasks was developed (HAASLER 2003; → 5.2.6). Another problem of subject-oriented methodology emerges from technological innovations with an open architecture and structure of ends, whose user-oriented implementation takes place only under consideration of criteria of work organisation and the tutorial design of ↑ work processes. During the re-regulation of the automotive engineering occupations it was examined how the domains of “↑ diagnostics” and “vehicle electronics” could be integrated into the training curricula as learning subjects and objectives and possibly even as specialisations of their own. In the course of an international comparative sector study of the automotive after-sales service sector it could be demonstrated that the qualification requirements for car service could not be conceived of as an enti-
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ty objectively determined by technology. The sector studies on the ↑ car service sector in European countries (RAUNER / RUTH / DEITMER /SENATOR FÜR ARBEIT DER FREIEN HANSESTADT BREMEN 1995), in the ↑ USA (SPÖTTL / RAUNER / MORITZ 1997) and in ↑ Japan (MORITZ / RAUNER / SPÖTTL 1997) as well as the task and work process analyses show that neither the qualification requirements for car service technicians nor the bundling of tasks into occupations and the definition of sub-disciplines can be objectively inferred from technology. The qualification profiles and the areas of specialisation within them are the expression of different corporate and organisational concepts and traditions (RAUNER / SPÖTTL 2002, 51 ff.). Whilst in the ↑ United States the mega-dealers dominate, as the brand specific contractual vendors and the independent auto repair shops with small staff do in Germany, Japan has a variety of distribution channels below the level of individual brands. These have far-reaching consequences on the organisation and design of ↑ work processes and thus on professional qualification requirements. The widespread assumption that professional tasks and qualification requirements are determined by the subject of work, in this case the automobile, has proven to be unsustainable. In general the supposed dependence of the change of professional tasks and qualification requirements on technical and economic change is criticised as technical and economic determinism (LUTZ 1988). ↑ Occupational profiles and qualification requirements are above all deeply rooted in different industrial cultures (RUTH 1995; RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1996). With regard to the subject adequacy of research and development methods this means firstly integration of the dimension of vocational learning both as a dependent and as an independent variable into the methodological concept, and secondly taking the industrial-cultural particularities of the respective worlds of work into consideration in the course of the selection and development of methods.
Handbook of TVET Research
Qualification Elements and Educational Contents Qualification elements and educational contents in vocational education and training are shaped by the experience-based qualification requirements as well as by normative decisions on educational and qualification goals. Both of these reference points can be defined as polarities of a dialectical relationship. They represent opposing concepts in that qualification requirements refer to the existing conditions of the professional world of work, whereas educational goals reach beyond the present state of affairs and transcend reality. This applies in particular to a design-oriented vocational education. Educational goals, however, can engender any effect only if they respond to the facts of professional reality. In this respect qualification requirements are not just objectively fixed since they refer to professional tasks that presuppose, in the process of the organisation and design of corporate work processes, normative decisions, or are shaped by industrial culture. Therefore qualification requirements and objectives of the organisation of educational and work processes are mutually constitutive of each other (→ 3.4.1). Under the circumstances of a technological development that leads to the fusion of computers, networks and media (CNM) into an integrated CNM technology, vocational education and training is strengthened in its function and effect of an independent (which is also) variable. Erich Staudt defines ↑ human resource development strategies which employ the plasticity of CNM based technology in order to adapt the technical environment to the respective qualifications of the employees and to promote competence development as a part of ↑ organisational development as potential oriented organisational development (STAUDT 1999). “Die Verzahnung von Unternehmens, Organisationsund Personalentwicklung stellt neue Anforderungen an Wissenschaft und Praxis, wenn man zu einer Unternehmensführung gelangen und dynamische Umbrüche bewältigen will [The integration of corporate, organisational and human resource development poses new challenges to science and practice if one wants to achieve a single corporate governance and to cope with dynamic transformations]” (STAUDT / K RÖLL / HÖREN 1993, 58).
For subject-related method development this means, for instance, that technical applications in
Research Methods
software development have to be designed and updated in a manner that is complementary to the changing qualification potentials in the enterprise. In these research and development contexts traditional problems and methods of ↑ qualification research lose their meaning. Qualification development becomes a dimension of organisational development, which estimates the change and adaptation potential of technology much higher than the respective potential of the qualification of employees. 5.1.1.3
Implications for Subject-Related Research and Development Methods
TVET research with its subjects categorized according to occupations and ↑ occupational fields is – a part of the ↑ humanities focusing on the development of the human personality for and within processes of professional work; – sociological research as professional work and learning are embedded in a variety of social processes of the educational and employment systems; – research in the ↑ vocational disciplines since the professional work settings are in many ways characterised by professional tasks which have to be mastered and shaped with a view to education and qualification. TVET research can be classified as a part of the agency and development-oriented traditions of science and research. Whenever the levels of the design of qualification processes, the development of training plans as well as the development of media and learning arrangements comes into play, the subjects of TVET research are socio-technical ones. Research projects that attempt to improve the tutorial quality of a computer-based ↑ diagnostic system or of software tools for office work require, on the part of the researchers, discipline-specific design competence, a profound work-process knowledge as well as didactical analysis and design competence. These competences are indispensable for the capacity to select or to develop the adequate ↑ research methods for the respective research and development projects. TVET research requires a high level of occupation-specific and ↑ work process related profession-
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al competence especially at the micro and meso levels. The analysis and design of professional work and education requires different research and development methods in ↑ mechanical engineering than in the office or service sectors. Therefore TVET research has to be differentiated according to occupations, ↑ occupational groups and occupational fields in order to achieve practical relevance in the context of its developmental and design missions. The affinity of work contents and ↑ work process knowledge for the professional knowledge available in the vocational disciplines differs very much between the occupations. Occupations differ in the scope and the quality of implicit, practical and theoretical knowledge. This is reflected in the occupation-specific manifestations of intelligence and competence profiles as they are revealed in the variety of professional work (cf. GARDNER 2002). This in turn is exhibited in the organisation of vocational education processes and training programmes. Occupations do not feature a homogeneous level of prerequisites and are therefore characterised in different ways by the school-leaving qualifications of candidates. Besides those occupations that demand a high level of theoretical knowledge as entry requirement there are other occupations for which this type of knowledge is less important. Therefore the proportions of apprentices with a lower secondary level qualification, e. g. Hauptschulabschluss or Realschulabschluss, and those in possession of a higher qualification like the Abitur are quite different between the various occupations trained in the ↑ dual system of apprenticeship training. This entails far-reaching consequences for the choice and design of research methods in the different occupational domains. Another aspect of subject-related research methods emerges from the criteria of occupation development. For instance, the methodological instruments of qualification and expertise research in the field of professional electrical process engineering differ characteristically from task and work process analyses in avionics. In the first case the core definition for professional work is electrical process engineering. This technique is applied in many fields of process engineering: in chemical industry as well as in the food or steel sectors. In the sec-
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ond case, the context of application, and therefore the work setting, is defined by an aircraft or helicopter. In the two occupational domains the contextual references for “professional” ↑ work tasks are fundamentally different. Analysis techniques and instruments in work process analyses in the domain of avionics need to take into consideration the technical context of aviation engineering. This includes the professional qualification of the researcher. In the case of electrical process engineers, on the other hand, the influences of different economic sectors must be considered. With regard to the aspects of the study that are of professional relevance this means that researchers with different disciplinary competences have to be included. Klaus Ehrlich has shown in this regard that the application of analytic instruments developed for the identification of overlaps between electrical occupations led to problematic results in the investigation of similarities between the occupations of electrical process engineer and industrial electrician. The prior understanding of the researchers, which was shaped by their professional biographies as “trained” electricians/electronics had the consequence that they viewed and analysed ↑ work processes and work objects of electrical process engineers through the lens of their prior knowledge of electrical engineering. Ultimately this led to a grave misinterpretation of the matching potential of the two training curricula (EHRLICH 1998, 128 ff.). In the practice of TVET research the realisation of a subject-related differentiation of the research and development methods has been a methodological aspiration that has been difficult to fulfil because of the variety of occupational domains. Looking back on the past 20 years one can say that the research networks and programmes established in TVET research and the ↑ domain-specific and ↑ interdisciplinary TVET dialogues, e. g. the Hochschultage Berufliche Bildung conference series established in 1980, or the TVET congresses organised by the BIBB, have made an important and perhaps indispensable contribution to the consolidation of the research that was initiated then in the different disciplines, and continues despite humble beginnings, to develop even today.
Handbook of TVET Research
5.1.2
Situated Learning in Communities of Practice as a Research Topic Christoph Clases and Theo Wehner
The social structure of learning (in a vocational or other academic environment) is an integral and at the same time implicit component of what is actually learned, whether in training settings (vocational and otherwise), in informal groups, in teams or departments, in companies or in networks. This is what is meant by the situatedness of learning processes. In this paper we will discuss the theory of ↑ situated learning (LAVE / WENGER 1991), with respect to both its analytical strength and its formative potential. We are thus principally concerned with: (1) the significance of ↑ communities of practice as places of learning, whereby the increasing ↑ participation and ngagement of newcomers in a developing social practice can be made the subject of investigation into learning processes. (2) using the concept of situated learning to clarify the structural relationships of individual learning processes at work as well as questions concerning ↑ organisational development. (3) examining the possibilities and limitations of implementing this concept – initially analytically – in vocational learning practices, with the help of specific suggestions. This paper addresses these three areas and concludes with a critical reflection on the concept of situated learning in communities of practice. 5.1.2.1
Defining and Classifying the Theory of Situated Learning
The theory of situated learning was developed within the context of ethnographical studies (LAVE / WENGER 1991), and forms the basis for formative concepts that deal with questions of setting up communities of practice (WENGER 1999), establishing ties with ↑ knowledge management (WENGER /MCDERMOTT / SNYDER 2002; CLASES 2003) and creating intercompany learning fields (ENDRES / WEHNER 1996). We are highly sceptical with theories of learning or teaching in which it is assumed that ‘pure’ knowledge can be gained without any
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reference to the social context in which it is initially acquired. If the specific circumstances in which the knowledge originated are viewed as being of little consequence, then the learners are ultimately faced with a content that has been cut off from its specific place of origination in a ↑ community of practice, that is, it has been desituated. Lave and Wenger are not alone in their criticism of learning processes in which the situatedness of learning processes is disregarded. Their criticism reflects the claims of a phenomenologically formulated concept of learning (SCHULZE 1993), which, among other things, insists that: – learning should be understood as an autonomous activity, not as an epiphenomenon; – learning should not be reduced to scholastic teach-learn directives set up as curricula; – analysis should not be applied merely to isolated elements that represent partial phenomena but should also take into account more complex processes that have a long-term effect. The move away from behaviouristic ignorance to cognitive, motivational or volitional factors in the learning process marks the cognitive turning point in both teaching theory and psychology. Whereas the highly influential Test-Operate-Test-Exit (TOTE) approach of Miller, Galanter and Pribram (1960), which was even then oriented to the symbol-processing paradigm in psychology, still bears neo-behaviouristic characteristics, the physical symbol system hypothesis of Newell and Simon (1972) represented a real breakthrough in the cognitive sciences and in ↑ artificial intelligence (AI) research. This paradigm implies that not only do human beings operate cognitively, but so do all machines that use rule-controlled mechanisms (of a specific syntax) to represent and manipulate separate physical elements (symbols). Accordingly, from a functional standpoint, every cognitive system may be classified as a representation machine. Thanks to the cognitive approach, the world of thinking and learning has been turned on its head. However, the thinking and learning process is conceptualized by neglecting its pragmatic dimension, that is, the practical learning activity in a social space. This “cognitivistic” reduction generates typical conceptual dilemmas (LAW 2000).
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Approaches to the situatedness of the human processes of thinking, learning and problem-solving are linked by a fundamental criticism of this cognitive world view. However, no real theory of situatedness exists, merely different approaches to using the concept. The term situatedness, which is found as early as Mead (1934), was taken up again in the debate on AI research (WINOGRAD / FLORES 1986) and was thereafter referred to, for a time, as situated activity (SUCHMAN 1987). Further approaches, each with their own focus, then followed (ROGOFF 1990; GREENO / MOORE 1993; CLANCEY 1993; CLASES /ENDRES / WEHNER 1996; K IRSHNER / WHITSON 1997). Related theoretical treatments that also highlight the constitutive role of social practice for learning processes are the concept of distributed cognition of Hutchins (1995) and the contributions of socially shared cognition (RESNICK / LEVINE / TEASLEY 1991). Based on ethnographical studies (for example, LAVE 1988), Lave and Wenger (1991) examined a number of social parameters that affect ↑ situated learning processes from an anthropological perspective. Their interest focused on the structural aspects of the process that turns a newcomer into a full member of a community of practice. They argued for a new analytical perspective by exploring the significance of learning processes in and for communities of practice: firstly, learning creates continuity against the background of specific traditions in a field of practice (a focus on reproduction) and secondly it produces discontinuities and fractures (a focus on innovation), which can lead to the further development of existing forms of organisation. The concept of a community of practice as a place of learning will now be developed. 5.1.2.2
The Concept of a Community of Practice: Between Reproduction and Innovation
The learning processes of newcomers who, over time, develop into experts within a specific context, for example within a particular vocational field or environment, are described by the above authors as having an essentially social character. Thus new company employees acquire the knowledge needed for their work only to a limited extent via formal
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process descriptions or curriculum-based training sessions in which explicit and codified knowledge is documented. Rather, their learning consists of actively acquiring corporate practice by their attempts to reproduce specific action units (BROWN /DUGUID 2001). ↑ Communities of practice that depend precisely on reproducing these action units represent the actual environment in which learning takes place, that is, where knowledge is generated, passed on and modified. “People belong to communities of practice at the same time as they belong to other organisational structures. In their business unit, they shape the organisation. In their teams, they take care of projects. In their networks, they form relationships. And in their communities of practice they develop the knowledge that lets them do these other tasks” (WENGER 1998a).
The term “community of practice” implies neither the physical presence of the participants nor a well-defined and clearly identifiable group with distinctly visible social boundaries. Neither can a community of practice be characterised by the presence of the actors’ common goals – such as a homogeneous community of interest. Moreover, communities of practice do not arise from purely formal organisational parameters but are rather the result of historically developed and shared models of action and interpretation. Formal regulations make up only a small part of these models, which are largely the result of processes of negotiation that are repeatedly carried out in corporate practice between the actors involved. The shared engagement of all the actors in reproducing and passing on an activity system (ENGESTRÖM 1987; RAEITHEL 1992) is characteristic of communities of practice. The term “engagement” covers both the technical artefacts (activity resources) used in a community of practice as well as the formal and informal organisational structures (coordination resources). Both activity and coordination resources may be considered as conveyors of the history or tradition of communities of practice and they are understood by learners as situated, situating and hypostasised aspects of their practice. Examples include workplace descriptions and manuals that are designed to regulate the ↑ performance of ↑ work tasks and ways of handling relevant work resources. Patterns of so-
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cial relationships or ritualised modes of behaviour in formal work organisations are other examples. The resources used should be understood as places of knowledge that are not self-explanatory but need to be interpreted. Thus models of interpretation are produced within the context of communities of practice, which take on a guiding function for those involved in them. We may call these local models of interpretation and understand them as processes of assigning significance that have arisen in a form typical for each community of practice. The reproduction of communities of practice and the creation of continuity occur when local models of interpretation are passed on and relevant tasks are realised. In this context, the particular function of learning processes in communities of practice then becomes clear. Newcomers must be legitimised to participate in the reproduction of tasks, which tend to be marginal at the beginning of the learning process. This is the only way for them to become full members of a community of practice, thereby contributing to its reproduction. However, any attempt to reproduce a community of practice will encounter different perspectives, goals and ways of performing of the actors involved. No identical reproduction is possible, as fractures and shifts occur. The tradition-forming reproductive cycles then become productive innovative cycles. 5.1.2.3
Situated Learning as Legitimised Participation
In communities of practice it is not enough to simply embed learning processes in a contents-based and situational context: on the contrary, learning should be understood as a fundamental and often tacit component of social practice in general. It is not the social context that teaches the learner to act in a specific way, but rather the learner’s perception, redefinition and emotional evaluation of the situation as it emerges, that is, its social situatedness in a community of practice. If vocational practice is reflected as learning practice, then its fundamental aim should direct towards extending the individual’s involvement in socially relevant activities. Acquiring expertise then becomes the vehicle for participating in a full social (working) life.
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The learning content can also be defined by the requirements needed to participate in a ↑ community of practice. At the same time, the motivation to participate in such a community also contributes to boosting the individual’s readiness to acquire the necessary competence and skills. Lave and Wenger (1991) have, with their conceptual triad of legitimate peripheral ↑ participation, proposed analytical concepts that can be used to analyse the specific situatedness of learning processes. These components should not be discussed independently of each other and they are also mutually dependent. In the theory of ↑ situated learning, learners are understood as individuals who: – are involved in a community of practice to a specified degree and are increasingly able to participate in the various tasks in the field of practice; – have a concrete and legitimate form of access in each case; and – occupy different but specific positions of peripherality in relation to the field of practice, that is, they are at a certain ↑ distance to the community’s core activities. On the term legitimacy: learning processes are characterised by the legitimacy of the learners in a community of practice. A learner’s access to a field of practice is always associated with a certain socially coordinated “access authorisation”. This does not concern the institutional legitimacy of an involvement in itself, but rather the form that it assumes. This concept consequently refers to a specific arrangement with respect to the subject being learned. This form of legitimacy is not only a necessary condition but also a constitutive determining factor of the content of the learning situation itself. It has a significant effect on the position of the learner with respect to the person’s extent of access to the knowledge of the community. Just as many strategies that complement legitimacy but aim to exclude and isolate learners can be found in corporate practice; they may be seen as barriers that can restrict potential learning opportunities There are many different forms of legitimacy that are defined by communities of practice. Examples include permission to take part in sessions and group meetings, the more or less autonomous assumption of tasks critical to success with-
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in the community of practice, or the regulation of access rights to information on the Intranet. Access to minutes and other documents, the leeway granted to individual initiatives for contacting various corporate experts, and systematically supported access to other groups or departments (such as via guest attendances, see below), the activities of which are related to the tasks to be learned, are other examples. In the latter case, legitimacy also invariably refers to the places of learning that might lead to a change in perspective for the learner, have an effect on the learner’s situatedness and lead to different learning patterns. On the term participation: despite and because of their peripherality to the central processes of a community of practice, learners are involved in the structure of the community. Their significance arises from the fact that every community of practice needs to initiate learning processes in order to assure its own reproduction. The way the learning processes are initiated leads to various forms of learner involvement in the community’s social practice, and these in turn can affect ↑ organisational development possibilities. The position of legitimate peripherality gives learners more than mere observer status. This concept includes the engagement of learners, who penetrate the culture and the local models of interpretation associated with it. In learning processes, participants may have conflicting perspectives that then become the learning content. By anticipating conflicts, learning processes become dynamic forms of involvement in conceptual terms. Individual learning processes that turn local models of interpretation into a topic of study are then more closely linked to questions of organisational innovation. Hence newcomers become sources of innovation if they – legitimated for this very reason – question established practice. Everything that is time-honoured, proven, routine, can be re-examined with regard to its appropriateness. 5.1.2.4
From Analysis to Intervention: Formative Fields in the Workplace
With regard to the development of framework conditions for corporate learning processes, we will now refer to three formative fields presented elsewhere in more detail (ENDRES / WEHNER 1996).
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Their formulation is linked to the theory of ↑ situated learning: guest attendances between companies; people with border-crossing tasks; and intercompany workshop groups. Guest attendances are used in the first instance to allow a limited amount of communicative exchange, confined to a specific time period, to take place between potential partners. Guest attendances should be run in those sectors where a coordinated process must be assured between spatially separate organisational structures. However, their aim should not be merely to get to know the linking coordination structures but ultimately the potential partners too, so that potential problem areas in the ↑ work process can be recognised and examined. We assume that guest attendances take place in the presence of others, help to build trust between individuals, enable an exchange of views to take place so that existing ideas may be revised. The causes of a lack of corporate coordination cannot, as a rule, be corrected alongside daily business but can only be dealt with through troubleshooting. People with cross-border tasks can then track cooperation problems occurring between groups, teams or departments on the basis of individual cases, moderate and help eliminate them. Thanks to cross-border activities, employees can broaden their social and technical competences by dealing with ↑ critical incidents. This can only happen if they are also authorised to track, moderate and ultimately eliminate problems beyond their department and workplace. In contrast to guest attendees, border-crossers do not keep to fixed sectors but only enter those domains that are experiencing problems: they remain there not solely to get to know the coordination structures but to influence them directly. Border-crossers are consequently characterised by their orientation to resolving individual cases, through which they will obviously also gain much personal insight. People with crossborder tasks can help build up control procedures, which are ultimately used not only to correct individual problems but also to contribute to improving coordination within and between ↑ communities of practice. Intercompany workshop groups, which may be understood as co-construction forums (WEHNER /-
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RAEITHEL / CLASES /ENDRES 1996), are the arena into which the experiences gained by guest attendees and border-crossers flow together. On the basis of cooperative experience, existing cooperative relationships are explicitly examined by systematising known sources of disturbances and treating them in a solution-oriented way. In contrast to the cross-border function, these workshop groups do not merely pursue individual cases; rather, individual topics are examined in order to determine their general validity. In workshop groups, new agreements designed to extend established cooperative relations are developed. They therefore represent a special form of “expansive” cooperation (WEHNER / RAEITHEL / CLASES /ENDRES 1996). An overview of these formative fields is shown in Table 1.
Tab. 1: Overview of the Three Formative Fields
The catalyst for situated learning in the three formative fields comes from anticipated, current or generalised problem areas in communities of practice. They are handled by an exchange of communication and cooperative negotiation, approaches that assume some experience in procedures. The results are a higher level of cooperation, improved depth of insight into the procedures as well as a heightened level of anticipation. The strategic goal is to increase the prognostic validity of cooperatively negotiated coordination structures and to improve cooperative competences on a situational basis.
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5.1.2.5
Situated Learning and Prospects for Research into Vocational Training
In discussing the formative areas, we have noted that, in each case, learning occurs in a specific form. The first characteristic of this form of learning is that it takes place neither in a decontextualised nor an exemplified way but rather alongside actually occurring events in interactive contexts. It can thus be designated as ↑ situated learning and can be clearly distinguished from instructed learning, where the learning objectives and tools are subject to prior professional structuring and are passed on precisely by means of instruction. Situated learning on the other hand “takes place in the background of the activities that ‘make us learn’ and of the perceptions and awareness with which we accompany these activities. Learning is subsumed into what is learned. It disappears as our knowledge and capability grow. It is transformed into knowledge and skills” (SCHULZE 1993, 246).
To conclude, we will take a look at the prospects for research into vocational training that may result from the concept of situated learning in ↑ communities of practice. The findings, which would be suitable for carrying out research into vocational biographies, educational environments or vocational training curricula, would invariably be seen to go beyond a cognitively constrained perspective on (technical or social) problem-solving competences. Vocational training (in factories, relevant training centres, associations, clubs and so forth) would have to be examined as to how far it transgresses an essentially individual-centred approach in practice. It would therefore be necessary to examine not only the knowledge that is (apparently) regarded as necessary but also the skills or competence targeted by specific vocational training courses. An investigation of vocational training approaches and environments as communities of practice would be an obvious first step. This would mean analysing various training courses, including the way they have become institutionalised, in order to identify the (dys)functionality of specific forms of legitimacy, the options for participating and the positions of peripherality. Vocational training biographies are being examined in long-term studies: the factors that influence how successfully individual and organisational competences inter-
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lock could then be discussed. ↑ Comparative studies situated alongside various vocational training routes then become interesting when they focus on the differences between the ↑ knowledge bases of a ↑ community of practice defined by curricula and those used in vocational practice. What are the topics and focal points? What are the key challenges, problems and outstanding questions? Which practical approaches, reference models, standards, instruments, stories, examples of good practice and documents are distributed in communities of practice and how are they made accessible? Under what contextual conditions and to what degree is the peripherality related to pressure to act appropriate to newcomers? If the picture of the muchtouted process of ↑ lifelong learning is indeed correct, then the development of expertise immediately opens up as a topic of research. How do communities of practice change alongside the situated learning processes of their most advanced members? How do the latter continue to develop their own expertise? Even if learning takes place in the ongoing process of living “in the background of … perceptions” (see above) and thus transforms us, ultimately we come across it again in what we have learned. When learning processes are reinterpreted as situated processes, then perhaps they will be understood in a new way.
5.1.3
Distance and Proximity in VET Research Lars Heinemann
5.1.3.1
Introduction: Distance, Proximity and Relation to the Research Objects
The relation of ↑ distance and proximity is a methodological problem, which is not only related to ↑ VET research. In general, the researcher’s different methodological views and actions guide possible perspectives on the object under scrutiny. Proximity and distance enable and constrain results of research in specific ways. At a general level, proximity (e. g. to the professional knowledge of a skilled worker and his/her subjective theories) implies familiarity and thus
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the possibility of identifying relevant forms of knowledge and learning processes and describing them in detail. The danger with this is that mainly, for example in professional discussions, some themes are taken for granted and thus potentially important details and differences may escape notice. Proximity may lead to loss of direction. A more ‘distanced’ approach, where the researcher sees him or herself as a professional outsider, can lead to another pitfall: as relevant forms of knowledge, processes of communication and learning are inseparable from the ways work is carried out and learned and thus inseparable from vocational education (→ 5.1.1), a scientific approach that does not reflect on this knowledge and its bearers may neglect parts of what is really going on. ‘Proximity’ and ‘↑ distance’ refer here to positions inherent in different methodological approaches, e. g. ↑ ethnomethodology, ↑ activity theory, or ↑ action-oriented subject interviews (Fachgespräche, → 5.2.2). These methodological approaches in turn are reflected in the researchers’ personal background – for conducting, for example, a Fachgespräch, some knowledge about the subject of the skilled work in question is indispensable, whilst familiarity with these subjects as a member of the respective ↑ community of practice may blur the view of the way in which for example novices turn into experts. As one sees, ‘proximity’ in this last example refers to proximity in terms of being close to the community of practice that the researcher is looking at. As one should note, this means ↑ research approaches the researcher may have in his disposal cannot be put on a linear scale between distance and proximity. Though one may loosely group techniques like quantitative research, interviews, participative observation on a scale of distance vs. proximity in terms of the researcher and his subjectivity being more or less involved, the kind of proximity we find in Fachgespräche only partly fits on this scale – here, proximity in terms of expert knowledge is required, too. The necessary mixture of these different approaches varies for different research interests and different phases of the research process. This holds true first of all for the trivial case when one works with aggregated empirical data where what is required from the researcher is mastering the relevant meth-
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ods and knowing the field sufficiently to develop sensible hypotheses about the data’s relations. Using qualitative methods, researchers from various social sciences have worked on the field between distance and proximity (see e. g. FLICK 1995b, for social sciences, HAMEYER 1995, for pedagogy, GEERTZ 1988 for ethnology). Here, the focus lies mostly on a (preferably undisguised) observation of the object of research and the researcher’s subjectivity and thus is dealt with in categories of perception. For ↑ VET research, two more aspects have to be added to this: first, the more ↑ domain-specific ↑ research questions, e. g. about typical ↑ work processes and competence, are under scrutiny, the researcher needs some factual proximity to the themes he is researching. Thus, in this area we witnessed the development of specific research techniques (see part 4). Secondly, scientific work in development programmes in VET (e. g. the German Modellversuche, → 5.4.3) has to abandon distance, since while gaining insights into the ↑ research object it is changed at the same time. This article now describes how the specific configuration of the area of ↑ research in VET requires to especially consideration of the relation between distance and proximity. Then, it deals with ways of treating this relation in the research process. Finally, it draws attention to another implication of proximity, the question of value-free research. 5.1.3.2
Distance in the Research Process: Ethnomethodological Indifference, Activity Theory and Comprehension
There is a concept of ideal research in social sciences that draws on the researcher being as invisible as possible, to collect data free from any interference quasi pure. This ideal of pureness, copied from the natural sciences, looks like a methodological fiction and is not only denied by the rich tradition of ↑ qualitative research practice. Even in the methodological discourse of the natural sciences, such an approach has become contested. This holds true first for the general development of research: the old ideal of advancing through falsifiable hypotheses (containing the requirement that these hypotheses have to be revisable intersubjectively, i.e. without relying on the researcher) already has been under heavy attack since the 1960s
Research Methods
by the works of, first, Thomas Kuhn (1962) and later Paul Feyerabend (e. g. 1985), leading to a selfcritique of critical rationalism. Perhaps even more importantly, the science studies, researching the ways and methods by which results are actually produced in natural sciences, showed that for example, when analysing the fermentation of lactic acid, Pasteur worked much more in the way anthropologists since Malinowski have produced results – by means of ‘telling a story’ (LATOUR 1999). Integrated in a field of manifold, not necessarily scientific, interests the focus is on producing material convincing the researcher as much as his environment, i.e. responding to and reshaping existing interests and dominant discourses (see here FOUCAULT 2001). Still, there are a lot of good reasons for distant approaches even in the social sciences and ↑ VET research. Already the Mayo studies of 1927-32 made use of an approach informed by an anthropological model to describe the organisation of work during their time (DINGLEY 1997). The advantage of a method which looks at the workers at their work as members of a distinct culture lies in the fact that this way ↑ work processes, co-ordination and collaboration in their entirety are in the focus of the research. The methodological benefit of such an approach and its descendants like for example ↑ ethnomethodology, ↑ studies of work (→ 5.2.8) and even (though stemming from another tradition) ↑ activity theory is that this way work and its specific organisation are not being taken for granted. As a professional outsider, the researcher is abstracting from his previous knowledge and thus has the opportunity to grasp details of work organisation and development of competence that even the participants themselves are not aware of (see e. g. GOFFMAN 1961) studies on psychiatry. An important methodological postulate of ethnomethodology as well as of studies of work thus lies in the researcher’s professional indifference that secures ↑ distance. The meaning of this postulate lies in hindering the researcher’s previous knowledge in order to neglect really new and different insights or to adapt them to things already known. This does not imply, though, that this distance precludes close examination of the ↑ research objects. Exactly the opposite, as one may see in
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the works of Garfinkel or Goffman. Distance here is a methodological position, not a way research is conducted. A newer example for this kind of research, its advantages and constraints, is provided by John Seely Brown (1999) a former director of research at Xerox. Asked to develop ↑ expert systems that should ease maintenance and repair of office equipment like copiers or printers, he hired some anthropologists to record how the maintenance experts actually did their work. The result was, that the experts ‘told stories’, i.e. developed meaningful subjective theories falling back on their previous experiences. Brown’s measure, thus, was not to develop computer-based expert systems, but to provide the maintenance experts with walkie-talkies raising their possibilities of communication. In this slightly anecdotal story, it is exactly the professional distance of the anthropologists that enabled them to identify a typical way through which incorporated knowledge was communicated and change the ↑ quality management in a way that this knowledge could be better explicated and communicated. The obvious advantage of this approach lies in the fact that the analysis of the object of work has not been done by ‘experts’ from ↑ vocational sciences, but drawing from the point, “that those, who carry out a profession, can better describe and define then everybody else what vocational tasks form their work” (BREMER / R AUNER / RÖBEN 2001, 220).
Obviously, such an approach does not need to be carried out by anthropologists. Expert systems on maintenance at work like DIADOSYS have been developed under ↑ participation of skilled workers (FISCHER 2001a). We find a similar methodological approach in research in the tradition of ‘activity theory’, developed among others by Yrjö Engeström (see e. g. ENGESTRÖM 1987; ENGESTRÖM / MIDDLETON 1996; K EROSUO / ENGESTRÖM 2003). Emanating from Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1986), they developed a model from the notions of ‘shared’ and ‘boundary objects’ that incorporate the subjective views of skilled workers on their ↑ work tasks and work organisation. Here, subjective theories are combined with the framework of a ‘↑ community of practice’ to analyse the relations of communication inside
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an organisation or community like in software design, work at a laboratory or a hospital, flying passenger planes etc. Methodologically, there are important differences between all these approaches depending on whether the research aims mainly at the function of subjective theories for the workers in the ↑ work processes, i.e. the ‘how’ of constituting meaning and co-ordination, or if it aims at the tradition of ‘thick description’, too, on ‘what’ happens, i.e. focussing on the description of behaviour patterns in relation to different levels of meaning and organisation (see GEERTZ 1973). But these approaches all have in common the fact that during the research process, not much factual proximity to the ↑ research object is required, and the tension between ↑ distance and proximity is solved by as rich as possible a description. Here, work is analysed mainly as a social phenomenon, abstracting when possible from the very content of the work undertaken. Likewise, Lave and Wenger (1991) looked at how ↑ situated learning happened, how novices are making use of their legitimate peripheral position to involve themselves in a ↑ community of practice, abstracting from the content of the knowledge these learners learn. The strength of these approaches lies in the fact that they imply the necessary distance when using the typical arsenal of qualitative and quantitative ↑ research methods. The results rely on the possibility of converting the content communicated, e. g. in conversations between health care personal or technicians to the form, as well as the ways these contents are communicated. Professional distance is thus an important methodological prerequisite, first of all in questions of ↑ organisational learning, work organisation and general learning theories. When research becomes ↑ domain-specific, regarding the content of a specific field of work and technology and its organisation, the subjective theories of the workers, collective ↑ vocational identities and so on, then proximity in content is also called for. 5.1.3.3
Proximity in Domain-Specific Research
Expertise regarding content is the main justification for methods in ↑ VET research that look for
more proximity to the object. The field of VET research is not only structured according to general cultural rules. Skilled work, as well as (mediated by this skilled work) behaviour patterns and subjective theories of members of communities of practice is shaped, too, by technology – working appliances and objects of work. These contents of skilled work, and thus their context, the way they are embedded in differently organised work processes and organisations, are unavoidable in domain-specific research. The field of VET research is structured by the interrelation of work, technology and education, the organisation of work processes not being arbitrary but ruled by profit interests and embedded in historically developed organisations of work such as for example ↑ occupational profiles. From this follows the idea, “... that education and qualification have not only to be adjusted to overall concepts, but have to be related to expert domains (like e. g. occupations” (R AUNER 2004b, 81).
Here, converting factual content of skilled work into the form of learning and communication is only possible when a description of work organisation or subjective theories is enough. Even then, understanding the statements of employees about their work requires some expert knowledge (this is why GARFINKEL (1986), too, asked the researcher to acquire the necessary knowledge). This has consequences for the research process. As much as the description of participants’ ↑ practical knowledge forms the centre of research, proximity to the contents and objects of work is required. This then implies not only observation of actions as in the ↑ studies of work. As work historically constitutes itself via occupations, one of the tasks of VET research being translating work processes into curricula (e. g. via learning areas), work processes must be described in their context. “The analysis of occupational work and the reference to skilled workers’ concrete work process knowledge is unavoidable” (FISCHER 2001a, 82).
If the specific way in which objects of VET research are structured calls for an intervening strategy, this strategy has to reflect the interrelation of education, work and technology that shapes the structure. Methods of VET research have to reflect on this relation (for examples, see → 5.1.6) for the whole research process from planning, to commu-
Research Methods
nicating the results. For ↑ interview methods, this means often changing them into a Fachgespräch. How much proximity in terms of contents and/or being a member of a ↑ community of practice – and thus, how much factual knowledge is required – is obviously an empirical question, depending on the respective research project. Neither is greater proximity ‘better’ here, nor is it generally required. Becker (2003, 60–61) writes on approaches to ↑ VET research on car mechanics: “An essential attribute of such a scientific approach is the proximity to the skilled worker, because the researcher’s acceptance depends on this. (...) Out of this view it is positive if the researcher himself is a skilled worker, having undergone the same socialisation”.
This over-generalised approach shows us that there are different requirements for different forms of ↑ distance/proximity with different reasons at different stages of the research process. Pragmatic reasons – access to the field, recognition by interview partners – differ from reasons regarding the process of gaining insight. For these pragmatic reasons, proximity in contents and ‘having the same socialisation’ are not essential at all. In contrast, for the productivity of interviews and Fachgespräche, proximity in contents is required. How much a similar socialisation of researcher and skilled worker is required, though, is again an empirical question. Proximity in terms of content is not naturally superior to more distanced approaches. It is necessary to reflect the different advantages (sometimes necessities) of these approaches and treat them in a way that fosters their respective strengths. The methodological arsenals of various social sciences and VET research provide examples. 5.1.3.4
Treating Proximity and Distance
What was said above made clear that proximity and distance in VET research are not two poles that imply mutually exclusive ↑ research approaches. Proximity and distance as moments of the research process are not only in the foreground regarding specific problems but in different phases of the research process, too. In a particular research context, the researcher will have to undergo a variety of decisions on methods corresponding more to proximity or distance. For example,
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researching ↑ work process knowledge for designing curricula may require at first a distanced view to see structures and patterns of knowledge sharing and learning and, in another step, analysing the content of this knowledge, calling for proximity. Further on, to design a curriculum out of this obviously again requires abstracting from this knowledge and ‘translating’ it into the area of pedagogy and didactics, e. g. deriving typical ↑ learning and working tasks. This means that one cannot solve the problems inherent in the different approaches by just opting for one polar extreme or by looking for a compromise. Rather, during the research process one has to reflect on these dimensions in order to treat their tensions productively. One – limited – possibility here is the researcher’s self-reflection, a means used typically if there are no other options. This method has already been used since the beginning of anthropology, the researcher e. g. using his diary to reflect on what he saw and what his role in a different culture was. Later on, anthropological theory produced valuable insights, e. g. in form of ethnopsychiatry to structure the process of self-reflection in a way to treat the tension of distance and proximity (DEVEREUX 1981). For VET research, different methods in ↑ qualitative research played a bigger role in generating communicative validity of results by reflecting once more with the participants of, for example a Fachgespräch, on the results. This may be done via new interviews, (structured) ↑ group discussions etc. (see e. g. FLICK 1995b, 102 f.). Furthermore, one may use a kind of supervision to resolve this tension during the research process. Rauner (1998b, 27) in analysing Fachgespräche, which involved researchers who were differently versed in factual matters, devised the idea of conducting Fachgespräche by two researchers with different degrees of professional proximity. Finally, primarily for bigger research and development programmes like the German Modellversuche, there is the possibility of using ↑ evaluation methods for dealing with this problem. Seen in this way, formative ↑ evaluation methods (→ 5.4.6) not only produce information on development, problems and possibilities of a project for the participants, but may present to researchers a tool to to
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reflect on results and observations e. g. derived from interviews (see DEITMER / HEINEMANN / MOON / STIEGLITZ 2004). These examples of possible mechanisms for reflecting ↑ distance and proximity clearly show that the choice of methods does not depend on a methodological ideal, but on the matter at hand. Accordingly, selecting how to develop the relation of distance and proximity depends on the respective research project. But to develop it is an unavoidable task for ↑ VET research. 5.1.3.5
Distance and Proximity in VET Research and Value Judgements
As is generally known, Max Weber’s (1988b, original 1922) position on the strictly separate description of facts and judgements that the researcher may derive from it is widely established. Here, the argument is not so much about the researcher’s known or unknown values may unconsciously negatively effect the results (a problem discussed in part two of this article), but of ↑ value judgements’ having a different epistemological significance than factual judgements. Normative notions that imply values thus do not lead to a clear, impartial description of the object of research. Critique of this position, e. g. Stammer 1965 or during the so called positivist dispute of 1961 (see ADORNO / DAHRENDORF / PILOT ET AL. 1981), accordingly tries to show that the very basic principles of social sciences contain values, i.e. comprising a normative yield that one cannot abstract from without irreparably damaging these sciences and change them to mere social technology. Adorno’s example (ibid. 139 f.) is the very notion of society that includes the idea that one should act as the socius of another. Irrespective of the question as to whether this argument holds true for the social sciences as a whole, there is a good reason to state such a relation for VET research. The fact that this field is structured around the basic concepts of work, technology and education means that research cannot abstract from these concepts and their interrelations. The very research of ↑ educational processes leads to valuing explicitly or implicitly the notions of education and occupation themselves (→ 2.4) as well as developments in work and technology, e. g. on whether some changes in work organisation lead
to a better or worse potential to learn, whether the employees get more or less leeway to further shape these processes etc. In this context, Sloane (1995, 34 f.) pleads for an attitude that restrains equally distanced ‘rational’ contemplation and interventionist hectoring in the sense of ‘missionary’ conduct of the researcher. This argument, though, refers to the researcher’s conduct and not on the question of deriving value judgements themselves. Here, it is crucial that value judgements in VET research are not driven from outside VET e. g. by the researcher’s idea of man, but lie in the object of research themselves. If in a concrete development project, the researcher opts for an approach for social ↑ shaping of work and technology or, in the sense of scientific management for an approach oriented towards accommodation to a prescribed work organisation (see RAUNER 2004b, 82), is an issue which implies not only a technical ↑ research question, but a decision based on the inherent values of VET research and VET itself.
5.1.4
Shaping-Oriented Research and Interdisciplinarity Gerald A. Heidegger
5.1.4.1
Definition
Shaping is a concept which usually is not associated with research but rather with practical doing or enacting. Above that, it revokes associations with artistic acts. One thinks about the “beautiful shape” e. g. of a classical statue. True, shaping meanwhile has become a rather common orientation for VET research as can be seen from the index of this handbook. However, shaping orientation has not been explicated clearly enough as an overarching methodological construct (cf. however HEIDEGGER 1991). Rather, how it is to be understood is usually defined in terms related to specific areas and themes. Things become different if VET research is embedded into the tradition of pedagogics as a “practical science”, according to the philosopher Schleiermacher (1983/1984) in the sense laid down by
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Schmied-Kowarzik (1974, 1, 9 ff.) As far as this means to perceive ↑ VET research (at least to a great degree) as a science which aims at improving practical endeavours from analysing them shaping orientation becomes a prevailing regulative principle. In the sense of the three “critiques” of Immanuel Kant the true, the good and the beautiful are intrinsically interwoven. VET research which strives for truth tries, at the same time, to further “good” VET practice by supporting adequate features and conditions. This practice shows – in a somehow idealistic diction – a “beautiful” shape in as much as it’s individual elements should be matched and act together as well as possible. (See for didactical realisations the significance of artistic exercises for VET according to BRATER 1984). For that it is necessary to be aware of the presuppositions of the shaping approach. Shaping is dialectically interconnected with enlightenment (→ 5.1.4.2). Because something new is to be created shaping is a concept which embodies in it the critical tradition of enlightenment (SK 1986). In this sense one can perceive “enlightenment as shaping” (LUTZ 1988, 22 f.) according to which concept the analysis of social sciences “becomes an obvious, productive and powerful partner of societal practice” (cf. also FRICKE 1997b). In this interpretation of (vocational) pedagogy one will draw on the expertise of social sciences in so far as it exposes different alternatives of the possible developments (→ 5.4.4). To bring out alternatives, for the orientations of acting (HEIDEGGER /JACOBS / MARTIN ET AL. 1991, 423) as well as for conditions of future actions, particularly through moulding scenarios (HEIDEGGER /JACOBS / MARTIN ET AL. 1991, 363, 546, → 3.1.4), is a decisive feature of shaping orientation as a methodological principle. For only if various options can be chosen there exists, in the first place, the possibility of shaping. In order to create a “good” shape, research orientated towards shaping needs ethical orientations. In the post-conventional meaning these arise from “communicative acting” (HABERMAS 1981) or, beyond that (KOHLBERG /ALTHOF 1995/1996), from assuring oneself of ethical principles (following K ANT 1791). The “beautiful” is represented in shaping oriented research through taking into account, from the beginning, not only arguments
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which can be rationally substantiated, but also the (emotional) wishes of the respective people concerned. (See “Technology as unity of the technically possible and the socially desirable” (R AUNER 1995a, 58; FISCHER 2001b.) From that it becomes obvious that shaping oriented research has to be carried through in an ↑ interdisciplinary manner. For a single disciplinary branch can not, by itself, represent all or most of the above mentioned aspects which shall be diffentiated in the following. Shaping oriented VET research accepts the task of supporting “Bildung” in all areas which are related to vocational education and training. This refers to strengthening the development of personality in VET processes and the evolution of personality during the whole work life. 5.1.4.2
Interdisciplinary Polarities of Shaping Orientation
↑ Interdisciplinarity is often suspected to be either used as a catchword or to reduce, in the respective investigations, the analytical rigour which arises from the specifities of the single disciplinary branches which, after all, have been differentiated with good reason during their historical development (KOCKA 1987; ROPOHL 2001; cf. however WIETEK 2003). In order to prevent this reduction nowadays “Transdiciplinarity” is proposed as a methodological postulate (THOMPSON K LEIN 2001). According to that the core of the respective scientific discipline should be preserved, but from there collaboration with other branches should be enacted which, however, is usually only vaguely defined (K ÄBISCH / MAASS / SCHMIDT 2001; cf. however MORAN 2002). Particularly in the case of ↑ interdisciplinarity understood as “multidisciplinarity” one often finds that research is carried though in the usual disciplinary boundaries while the outcomes are placed side by side more in external juxtaposition. Certainly, an important change between various perspectives can be achieved in this way. However, in their shaping endeavours the actors have to find out themselves in which manner the different perspectives should be integrated (BRUUN 2000). In order to deal with this dilemma in a sensible way already Schleiermacher (SCHMIED-KOWARZIK 1974, 29 f.) has proposed a specific foundation for
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the “practical science”. It is based on the supposition of “polarities which mutually intersect” where each one of them means specific opposite poles of the “knowledge space” to be considered by a science interpreted accordingly (cf. for the following HEIDEGGER 1987). In that way the individual perspectives can be interconnected internally and their relations can be described more exactly. But also such a “polar dialectic” view leaves the challenge to the actors to decide, in the end, themselves about the objectives and methods of their shaping endeavours. But shaping oriented research with this foundation can them support in finding their way about the diversity of statements which are said to be “scientifically proven” but are also often still at variance. At the same time the actors are not subject to “expertocracy” (Schelsky), the ruling of the experts. On the contrary, they must have freedom of choice which means that they can, with their various perspectives, participate in collective decisions (RAUNER 1988a, 36). The four most important polarities shall be, in the following, differentiated and briefly outlined. One should, however, keep in mind that, in the manner proposed by Schleiermacher, they cross one another and that they are thus intimately interconnected.
Acting and Thinking Pedagogical acting obviously should be, on the macro level (educational systems), the meso level (educational schemes and institutions) and on the micro level (learning and teaching), guided by thinking. This is represented, in it’s systematic form, through the scientific (vocational) education research in the above mentioned meaning of enlightenment of “facts” presented by the various social sciences and the ↑ humanities. However from those one can not draw clear instructions for acting. For that an unequivocal ↑ theory of action (WANDEL 1976) would be necessary which, however, should be understood as “praxeology” (DERBOLAV 1975) which only can provide orientations for acting or maybe “heuristcs for acting” (WALGENBACH 1979). For here rules the “double contingency of the social” (LUHMANN / SCHORR 1979, 121 f.). Nevertheless a regulative principle is indispensible which is, in the different fields of ↑ VET research, just the principle “shaping”, with it’s con-
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notations of the “good” and the “beautiful”, desirable. It can be perceived in “polar dialectical” opposition to the principle “critique” which is related to the concept of truth in the social sciences and in the humanities. The two together represent an ethical regulation of acting and thinking. The difference between acting and thinking, understood however more in an integrative manner, became prominent when “competency to act” was explicitly formulated as a main aim of education. Important for the German discourse about “Bildung” proved to be the seminal work of Robinsohn (1972), pointing out the opposition of the ability to “master life situations” versus the capability to “interpret the world”. Also significant for this discourse was the work of Roth (1976) who demanded to foster the competency to act which however should be regulated through the capability of critical thinking, embodied in “ Mündigkeit” which means self-reflecting autonomy. This formula which contains implicitly the dialectics of shaping and critique proved to become influentical for ↑ vocational pedagogy up till now. For the pole acting can be seen as connected with the “tacit dimension” of knowledge (POLANYI 1985b) or rather “↑ tacit knowing” (cf. NEUWEG 2001; → 5.1.5) as well as with know-how which can lead, mainly via experiences from acting, to expertise (DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1987; cf. FISCHER 2000; ERAUT 2000a). Thus this pole gets it’s own independent basis in relation to “know that” and “know why” with their foundation in scientific knowledge.
Individual – Society “Bildung” in the emphatic sense of the German idealistic tradition (Humboldt) is foremost an individual concept meaning “internal” “emancipation” from external coercion which can not be justified (BLANKERTZ 1982b; 1985). However, it should at the same time – in an equally emphatic formulation – aim at societal liberation so that Heydorn (1979) states an “opposition or contradiction between “Bildung” and power” (HEYDORN 1972; KONEFFKE 1986). But vocational pedagogy, under the present societal conditions, is compelled in any case to cope with young people’s future work situations which are not determined by their own will. Therefore it has to lower these idealistic demands with-
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out, however, to abandon them altogether. Shaping orientation then means to support providing work situations where the people concerned can participate in decisions whenever possible. This demand is made explicit in several chapters of this handbook. But in the end it is overall important for all areas related to practice and ↑ participation is a decisive criterion for acknowledging in how far the methodological postulate of shaping orientation is taken as significant. At the same time one should always keep in mind that participation is limited by power relations in society (LANGE 1988) and in working conditions (SCHUDY 1999) – which is what the sociology of power (BAETHGE / BAETHGE-K INSKY 1995, 144; cf. BRAVERMAN 1974) is deliberating. The opposition within the interaction of the individual and society is here therefore represented as the opposition of participation and securing power. The latter, however, is in modern societies not possible without a certain degree of integration of the people impaired in their societal status.
Rationality – Wishes Since the renaissance period science has been more and more connected with rationality. In this process the social sciences and the ↑ Humanities have taken the area of emotions as one of their subjects too. For pedagogy particularly the theory of socialisation (HURRELMANN 1995) is significant, and the “connection of social structure and personality” (ibido) brings the ↑ interdisciplinary view to the fore. The individual aspect of development of the personality has been described by Roth (1976) in a “realistic” perspective and was called “self competency” or personal competency (PRANDINI 2001, 186, 277) which is connected with personal attitudes and values. In ↑ vocational pedagogy the humanistic psychology (ROGERS 1942) became influential, and particularly the “pyramid” of human needs according to Maslow (1981) was used to analyse the structure of motivation. For “holistic” VET (OTT 1995, 29, 59) “affective-ethical” learning is accentuated. For investigations about vocational/occupational socialisation (HEINZ 1995; LEMPERT 1998) coping with emotions has become important within the framework of analyses of constituting personal identity (cf. CIOMPI 1999). The principle of shaping orientation
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reaches beyond that because it is also asked how it may be possible to do justice to the emotional wishes of the people. As it was said before shaping orientation means to give individual and collective wishes the same value as rationality (DERBOLAV 1978). The dialectics between the two poles is represented by the demand that these wishes and desires should be subject to critical thinking. But also the aims and methods, which appear to be rationally substantiated should be called into question in how far they are adequate to the emotional needs.
Structure – Processes of Decision In the scientific tradition the social sciences and the humanities have the task to discover objective regularities (the structure) of the societal and individual evolution, including their origins and driving forces as well as tendencies for future developments. This is particularly the case for the discourse about the development of qualifications (BAETHGE / BAETHGE-K INSKY 1995, 143 ff.) as well as for the contentious proposition of a technologically and economically determined “logic of development” which has been disputed since 1986 by Rauner and many others. But it applies of course also to theories of socialisation and even personalisation (PIAGET 1976). Most areas of ↑ VET research are governed to a high degree by this paradigma, too. Shaping as methodological orientation confronts that with the principle of human freedom. (1987) had, in the year 1943, provoked a shock in the philosophy by formulating this principle in the rather extreme notion of existentialism. Shaping orientation has to resort to this concept, even in a rather moderated fashion. For shaping has, already as a concept in itself, to presuppose the possibility of free choice between alternatives. The dialectics of processes of unrestricted decisions and the structural determination of development means, however, that the choice between alternatives is confined to those which appear to be feasible within this framework of determination. The other way around it becomes thus obvious that these factors of determination are, at least partly, produced through co-operation of acts of free decision. This again brings the political dimension of shaping to the fore (OEHLKE 2001a).
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5.1.4.3
Historical Origins
In the areas relevant for ↑ VET research the concept of shaping has been, in Germany, formulated explicitly at first in the 70’s in connection with the striving for making (industrial) work more humane (“Humanisierung der Arbeit”). Before, within the efforts of the working-class movement to carry through political education for the labourers, the trade unions aimed more at critical enlightment of the proletariat. Materials for informing these endeavours like the booklets relating to work relations (“Themenkreis Betrieb”, cf. BROCK / HINDRICHS / HOFFMANN ET AL. 1969) were mostly inspired by the book “Sociological imagination and learning from case studies” (“Soziologische Phantasie und exemplarisches Lernen”, NEGT 1968) which, however, contains already significant aspects of shaping orientation. For imagination is required in order to be able to outline alternatives to the existing circumstances in society and in companies. At the same time (“sociological”) understanding of the driving societal forces is necessary which are frequently not noticed within the concrete realities of a company and which mainly manifest themselves as power relations. Learning from case studies should help not to be content with abstract analyses but to devise alternatives. The German “constitutional law for work relations” (“Betriebsverfassungsgesetz”), in force from the year 1972 up to now, demands that the working conditions should be shaped according to the proven knowledge drawn from the work sciences. That strengthened the respective research (PÖHLER 1979) which was supported, since 1974, by the action programme “Research for making working life more humane” (“Forschung zur Humanisierung des Arbeitslebens”, cf. OEHLKE 2001a, 81). The conventional approach of research which stresses the distinction between researcher and ↑ research object was supplemented by the approach of action research. This participatory research included the question of the qualifications (or competences) necessary to develop for participating in decisions (FRICKE / FRICKE / SCHÖNWÄLDER / STIEGLER 1981) in order to foster the shaping opportunities of the employees (FRICKE / PETER / PÖHLER 1982). In the expert opinion “Work and technology as a task
of political shaping” (“Arbeit und Technik als politische Gestaltungsaufgabe”) the authors (FRICKE / K RAHN / PETER 1985) stressed the political dimension and emphasised that work content and organisational features are closely connected with the state of the technology applied. Rosenbrock (1984) formulated in a booklet published by the German metal workers union: “Development of technology: shaping can be done”. He showed from case studies that there have often been ramifications within the development of technology. Therefore it is possible to influence it in order to make working life more humane and to foster the social shaping of technology. According to those ideas the “Research and development programme work and technology” was designed in 1989, and later a framework for action research called “Innovative shaping of work – future of work” was implemented (OEHLKE 2001a). During the 1980’s especially Rauner (1986; 1988a) introduced shaping orientation as a methodological postulate into VET research (see also HEIDEGGER 1978). That presented a new idea of what (vocational) “Bildung” should be about by aiming precisely at “enabling people to take part in shaping work and technology”. Shaping orientation as an ↑ interdisciplinary ↑ research approach has since become relevant in various areas of VET research like ↑ VET planning, ↑ vocational didactics, the sciences of vocational areas, but beyond that also for shaping one’s own occupational biography (HENDRICH 2002, 92 ff.; cf. Tippelt 1995). This research approach was from the beginning also embedded in international studies (RAUNER / RASMUSSEN / CORBETT 1988; see MACK ENZIE / WAJCMAN 1985) and incorporates into itself the existence of different “industrial cultures” which present specific conditions for shaping (COOLEY 1988, DEITMER / RUTH 2001). 5.1.4.4
Areas of Shaping Oriented VET Research
In the following three areas shall be outlined where shaping orientation is explicitly of particular relevance (→ 3.8; see also FISCHER / HEIDEGGER / PETERSEN ET AL. 2001).
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Shaping of Humane Work Shaping of work content is closely connected with that of work organisation since the latter determines, to a large degree, the distribution of tasks amongst a work team (MARTIN 1995a, 147). (See for the “Interaction of shaping and organisation of work” from the point of view of the work sciences → 3.5.2.). The development of these relations under the conditions of capitalism is, in the research of industrial sociology, mainly viewed in the perspective of “rationalisation” – making production more efficient (“Rationalisierung” – cf. BAETHGE / BAETHGE-K INSKY 1995). Traditionally, and nowadays again more strongly, these investigations analyse more the consequences of technological innovations rather than shaping them. For the strategies of making work more effective have usually been conceived as being completely determined by economic – technological rationality. Because of the connection between work organisation, work content and the qualification requirements – even if the latter are not completely determined by the former (LUTZ 1979) – this research is very important for VET although it is not (yet) shaping oriented. The relevance is, however, restricted mainly to about one third of the jobs and apprenticeships, namely those which are situated in the sector of the economy that is related to the global markets. In addition, this research is mostly aiming at the area of the production of tangible goods. In the beginning of the 1980’s it became more obvious that even under the conditions of capitalism different modes of fostering the ↑ efficiency of work can co-exist and compete with each other. On the one hand one was (LUTZ 1988) – and still is – afraid that, supported by increased computing power and improved software (e. g. for experts’ systems), the computer-based “Neo-Taylorism” will be maintained or re-introduced. On the other hand a strong trend towards “↑ efficiency-heightening centred on personal competences” (BAETHGE / BAETHGE-K INSKY 1995, 149 ff.) observed: in the area of industrial production the “new modes of production” (K ERN / SCHUMANN 1984), in the area of business processes the “↑ systemic rationalisation” (BAETHGE / OBERBECK 1986). Here aspects like market relations, customer orientation and flexibility are of importance. Thus the possibility of shaping
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the way of using the technology and the work organisation becomes explicitly visible – as a permanent task. Here processes of negotiation – within the enterprises and on the societal level – become important. Contrary to current trends “postmaterialistic” interests (INGLEHART 1989) of the employees gain relevance. They aim at demanding ↑ work tasks, development of competences and communicative co-operation of autonomous persons. (MOLDASCHL / VOSS 2002) however view the above mentioned changes of “rationalisation strategies in a critical perspective as nothing more than replacing the “code power”) by the “code market”. For making the optimistic vision of shaping becoming reality the necessary competences have to be fostered. That should lead to putting the individual into the centre of VET to a degree not known before.
Social (or Socially Acceptable) Shaping of Technology This is relevant, within the framework of ↑ VET research, particularly for the relation of the use of technology and the shaping of work organisation and work content. The decisive changeover happened at the beginning of the 1980’s when the respective discourse turned from consequences to shaping (FISCHER 2001b; 46 ff.). Whilst before one had assumed that economic and technological determinism means to look only for consequences it was now emphasised that shaping not only is the way of using technology is possible, but even beyond that the way of designing and developing it (RAUNER 1986). Historical investigations (KUBY 1980; NOBLE 1979) had shown that already formerly the “progress” of technology was only partly determined by “techno-logical” inevitability, even in view of the primacy of the economic forces. Particularly the influence of cultural factors was discovered, amongst them the “symbolism” connected with technical artefacts (GERDS 1988). Researching into the ↑ shaping of work and technology soon expanded beyond the limits of the single work place. Rauner (1986, 137 ff.) has developed a matrix of the “fields of shaping technology” where the “domains of technology and it’s applications” intersect with the “social areas of shaping technology”. The latter include work place, individual life-
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world, sciences and ↑ humanities, political groups, social partners, state agencies etc. In each of these social areas the individual views things in a specific perspective where these perspectives can also be different for the individual actor and the respective social group (SCHACHTNER 1997). Thus it becomes necessary to induce overarching processes of arranging compromises. For enabling people to take part in these processes technological education as part of technical VET and training should care for explicitly fostering willingness and ability. A little earlier the relatively new discourse about ecology and environment protection (ULLRICH 1977) had gained influence. Even if it generally has lost some of it’s prominence the debates about genetic engineering in agriculture and, more general, bio-technology to be used for medical purposes are still very contentious. Volmerg and SenghaasKnobloch (1992, 30 ff.) propose to induce a participative dialogue of non-professional people, supported by expertise. This should offer “opportunities to develop an attitude of common responsibility for the consequences of technological developments” (SENGHAAS-K NOBLOCH 2001, 75). For that the rather new research area regarding the “ethics of technology” becomes increasingly relevant (ZIMMERLI 1998; HASTEDT 1991; DECKER 2001).
Shaping Oriented VET When it comes to VET the research concerning the humane shaping of work and the above mentioned social shaping of technology as mentioned above, contributes to exploring the opportunities to influence the conditions of future occupational work. Shaping orientation as a menthodological principle becomes the focus of vocational pedagogics as an area of ↑ VET research. For that Rauner (1988b) had, as already mentioned, proposed to implement “enabling people to take part in shaping work and technology as guiding principle for VET”. At the same time, the idea of “action orientation” for VET teaching and learning had become, in Germany, the most prominent approach for vocational pedagogics, even if often only as a postulate. This was based on Roth’s (1976) proposal to install “competency for acting “As the new formulation of the general aim of “Bildung” (or education) of a person who at the same time had gained self-reflect-
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ing autonomy through critical thinking. The latter, however, was not adequately represented even in the modern concept of “complete action” (LAURERNST 1984) which includes the ability to independently plan and carry through a work task and check the results. Thus action orientation can also be used, in the extreme case, as an effective method for the “adaptation approach” in VET. This means that people are trained to adapt their competences, or rather skills, to the tasks without influencing the features of the latter (see also PÄTZOLD / WALZIK 2002). According to section 2 (→ 5.1.4.2) “shaping” represents the appropriate “regulative principle” for acting. Therefore action orientation as a pedagogical method should be transformed into shaping orientation as a didactical postulate for teaching and learning in VET (“Shaping competency”: HEIDEGGER 1996). Here the concept of didactics is to be understood in the sense of a mutual interaction of didactics and methods (JANK / MEYER 2002) and thus has always to include the definition and reflection of the educational aims (see HEIDACK 2001) of VET. These aims can transcend those of the enterprises, even in view of the de facto prevalence of their demands. For the whole educational system must be relatively autonomous, according to Bourdieu and Passeron (1971), if it is to fulfil it’s overall tasks even in a capitalist society (see also LUTZ 1979; ARNOLD / LIPSMEIER 1995, 20–22). According to this premise VET must reach beyond the special qualification for “occupational fitness” and must include occupational self-reflecting autonomy, in the sense of Roth’s triad of personal and social competences as well as those related to the technical tasks of a specific occupation. To explore the possibilities how to improve that is the task of VET research in the area “Didactics of VET” (→ 3.6). Here, as mentioned, shaping orientation means to transcend enlightenment in teaching and learning and to discover, with imagination, new solutions and even to test them, if possible. (See for vocational colleges HEIDEGGER /ADOLPH / LASKE 1997; ADOLPH 2001; KMK 1991b). For that it is the task of VET research to connect the didactics of VET with other fields of shaping practices, as mentioned above and described in chapters of this handbook like “Occupational work and
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development of competences” (→ 3.5), “Planning and developing VET” (→ 3.4) and “Development of job profiles” (→ 3.1). Shaping orientation represents a decisive guiding principle also for the research of the “occupational/↑ vocational sciences” regarding special ↑ occupational fields (→ 3.2) because it tackles the problem of defining and mastering ↑ occupational tasks within the framework of the organisational and ↑ human resources development of companies.
5.1.5
The Tacit and Implicit as a Subject of VET Research Georg Hans Neuweg
The concept of ↑ tacit (or ↑ implicit) knowledge denotes that knowledge which manifests itself in behaviour in a wider sense, that is, in the processes of perception, judgement, anticipation, thought, decision-making or action, and which is not, not completely or not adequately explicable (verbalisable, objectifiable, formalisable, technicisable) by the subject nor, under some circumstances, by the analytical observer. The concept is not exhausted by the notion of automatism, but also – and especially – includes flexible ways of acting. Neither is it identical with knowing-how or procedural knowledge because people, beyond an ‘expert eye’ and various abilities and skills, also demonstrate knowledge of what is or will be the case – a knowing-that, therefore, concerning the structural characteristics of their surrounding world, without necessarily being able to put into words the contents of the schemata or mental models attributed to them. It is not by chance that M. Polanyi as a rule uses the term ‘tacit knowing’ instead of ‘tacit knowledge’. From that it becomes clear that he is interested not in mental structures or knowledge as some sort of substance but rather in knowing as a process. The view is directed towards perceptual, decision-making, and action dispositions and the corresponding forms of ↑ performance (knowing); only from here does the enquiry return to the relationship between knowledge in the proper sense and practical or vocational knowing.
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The concept of ‘↑ inert knowledge’ (GRUBER / RENKL 2000) also owes its existence to the difference between verbalisable knowledge and knowing-how, a concept which refers to (at least potentially) activity-oriented explicit knowledge, which is not, or not adequately, reflected in corresponding dispositions to judge or to act. While at least in German-speaking countries the concept of inert knowledge remains bound to the cognitivistic paradigm and so to the idea of an integration of explicit knowledge and knowing-how, the debate on the ‘implicit’ is to a greater extent devoted to the categorical difference between explicit knowledge and knowing-how, the internal structure of ↑ experiential knowledge and the limits of learning to act by means of instruction and schooling. It is for this reason – so far much more strongly in the Englishspeaking countries (see for example IMEL 2003) – that TVET research, long familiar with the theory/ practice problem, is interested in it. Reception and diffusion of the concept of tacit knowledge are hampered by the extraordinary disciplinary breadth of the academic discourse. The relevant research contexts are unified less by a homogenous paradigmatic starting point or even ↑ research methodology than by common approaches to inquiry and modes of response. Important areas of inquiry here are, above all, philosophy and epistemology (for example POLANYI 1964; 1966; 1969), ordinary language philosophy (RYLE 1949; K EMMERLING 1975; WITTGENSTEIN 1953; SCHNEIDER 1993), cognitive science and AI (for example FODOR 1981; SEARLE 1983; SUCHMAN 1987; DREYFUS 1972; DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1986), theoretical psychology (NISBETT / WILSON 1977), experimental psychology (for example R EBER 1989; 1993; BERRY 1997; NEUWEG 2000b; for criticism see: HAIDER 2000), sociology of science (for example FLECK 1935; KUHN 1970), sociology of knowledge (for example COLLINS /KUSCH 1998; COLLINS 2001), sociology of culture (for example BOURDIEU 1990; 1992), industrial sociology and sociology of work (for example BÖHLE / SCHULZE 1997), industrial psychology (VOLPERT 1994; 2003; HACKER 1998), research on expertise (for example SCHÖN 1983; 1987; BENNER 1984; WAHL 1991; BROMME 1992; 1996; BÜSSING / HERBIG 2003a; → 3.4.2), pedagogy of technical and vocational
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education and training (for example ERAUT 1994; 2000; FISCHER 2000; NEUWEG 2001) and business economics, particularly intensively, along with organisation theory (for example ORTMANN 2003) and decision theory (for example FRANCK 1992), in the area of ↑ knowledge management (for example NONAKA / TAKEUCHI 1995; BAUMARD 1999; for criticisms see NEUWEG 2007). For TVET research a specific view emerges in this discourse on the theory/practice problem which can be termed the ↑ tacit knowing view (see NEUWEG 2001; 2004b; 2005; 2006). Its core assumptions are: – (vocational practical) knowing-how to a considerable extent cannot – or cannot only – be understood as mere application of knowledge; – particularly in the case of persons with vocational experience, intuitive moments play a central role in perception and action; – actors are unable – or only insufficiently – to verbalise the ‘knowledge basis’ of their actions; – intelligent practice is codifiable only to a limited extent, even for the external observer; and consequently – central ↑ performance conditions are acquired – and have to be acquired – not through verbal instruction but through experience and example, through exemplary action, as in the master-apprentice relationship, and in ↑ communities of practice. Correspondingly, interest in the implicit is concentrated primarily on the aspects of the intuitive, the non-verbalisable, the non-formalisable and/or the experience-dependent. 5.1.5.1
The Intuitive Aspect
The assumption that beyond reportable knowledge there are other generative principles of intelligent practice represents a significant theoretical challenge for the common way of thinking about human action. It contrasts with the widespread tendency to interpret intuitive forms of action as mere automatisms and routines which are characterised by an inflexibility and a far-reaching unconsciousness in their execution. And it also contrasts with the tendency to characterise skilled work and in general specifically human forms of action as reflective, being planned in advance, or being the result of the application of knowledge (for crit-
icism of the understanding of acting as a double act of thinking and doing, see RYLE 1949; NEUWEG 2000a). The difficulties which experienced and in no way automatically-acting experts have in reporting mental precursor- or accompanying processes and structures of their actions suggest that both the concept of knowledge application and that of routine may not apply to significant forms of skilled action, above all that of the ‘true master’ (VOLPERT 1994, 121). Attempts at the phenomenological reconstruction of expert and experience-led action have so far resulted in a range of concepts, although they share a family resemblance: for example, ↑ intuitive-improvisatory (VOLPERT 1994; 2003), intuitive (DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1986), artistic (BRATER 1984), subjectivising (BÖHLE / MILKAU 1988; BÖHLE / SCHULZE 1997) or ↑ situated action (SUCHMAN 1987). Related ideas are expressed by the concepts of habitus (BOURDIEU 1992), knowing-inaction (SCHÖN 1983; 1987) or tacit knowing (Polanyi). Concepts of this kind model forms of activity control with an intuitive character and, in comparison with mere automatisms, at the same time with greater flexibility, in respect of which the actor does not act entirely unconsciously but rather directs his concentration towards the situation or task, not his own cognitions. Such action is directed less by plans than by the sensible entering into the situative and constantly changing circumstances. Under certain conditions, particularly of a subtle fit between level of competence and level of challenge and clear, continuous feedback on the success of one’s own action, this mode of action can combine with a specific quality of experience termed ‘flow’ (CSIKSZENTMIHALYI 1982). As a condition of the appearance of such forms of activity control on the side of the person, what stands out above all is the level of experience or the level of competence-challenge-fit, in respect of which with increasing experience planned action gives way more and more to an intuitive Gestalt apprehension and a relatively spontaneous undertaking of action (cf. on this the five-stage skillacquisition model of DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1986). A ‘dropping out’ (VOLPERT 1994; 2003) from the intuitive mode becomes probable when the natural interplay between situation and action is disturbed
Research Methods
by unusual difficulties. The previously quasi-reflective action then becomes in a sense reflective, although there must be no recourse to decontextualised knowledge. Rather the expert thinks by acting (cf. on this Schön’s concepts of reflection-inaction and on-the-spot-experiment) or situatedly about his acting and the knowledge incorporated in it (cf. the concept of ‘deliberative rationality’ in DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1986, 36 ff., 165 ff., which finds expression in the critical consideration of one’s own ↑ intuitions). Concerning the object, apart from the extent of the relevant pressure to act or the existence of opportunities for ‘stop-and-think’ which are a precondition of planning, the degree of environmental dynamics and their unpredictability is the essential condition; the more the environment develops a life of its own and the less these changes are predictable, the more the intelligence of action passes from the planning to the activity level. The findings of experimental psychology foster the suspicion, in addition, that intuitive modes of problemsolving arise above all under conditions of high complexity and under these conditions are possibly more successful too (cf. NEUWEG 2000b and the recommendations for further reading there). 5.1.5.2
The Non-Verbalisable Aspect
In terms of ↑ research methodology the concept of ↑ tacit knowing gives reasons for far-reaching doubts about the possibility of explicating the knowledge-basis of expert action by means of interview procedures (→ 5.2.5). It is first of all to be concluded from the obviously fractured relationship between expertise in ↑ verbalisation and in action that ↑ performance itself is ultimately the sole correct indicator of knowing-how and therefore must also be the decisive starting point for competence diagnostic measures (NEUWEG 2002a; → 5.2.6). Insofar as experienced experts ‘can know more than they can tell’ (cf. POLANYI 1966, 4) interrogation procedures aimed at the knowledge which is assumed to lie behind knowing-how are in danger not merely of missing their target, but they can even distort it if test subjects yield to the legitimation pressure arising from the interview situation and then ‘tell more than they can know’ (cf. NISBETT / WILSON 1977). As a function of the
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competence for rationalisation of the relevant test subjects one comes to a systematic overestimation of the degree of consciousness of activity control and particularly of the degree of ↑ abstraction of the knowledge involved. The discussion concerning the reliability of verbal data (cf. particularly ERICSSON / SIMON 1980) has rightly led to the basic rule, ‘avoid everything which induces the test subjects to infer mental processes and structures instead of merely recalling them’. Failure to observe this basic rule is all the more important the less activity control on the part of experts can be understood as the working out of plans and the application of knowledge. For example, Dreyfus/ Dreyfus’s (1986) stage model of expertise development postulates in the train of extended experience a transition from rule-led to intuitive action which is to be understood not as the becoming unconscious of originally conscious rules, but rather as a qualitative process of enrichment. Interrogation procedures would in this case directly obscure the nature of expertise because they require the expert to regress to a knowledge of rules which he has already left behind (cf. also DREYFUS 1982). Similarly, Suchman (1987) understands plans articulated ex post as rationalisations of an in fact ↑ situated action whose outstanding characteristic – the intuitive-creative involvement in the special features of the situation and their partly unforeseeable development dynamic – gets lost in these articulations. One can counter the difficulty of test subjects confusing what really directs their actions and how they explain their actions after the fact by getting them to verbalise their mental processes simultaneously with their actions. Such procedures are, on the one hand, confronted by the objection that the call to introspection changes its object or in the extreme case makes it disappear, because it changes the cognitive modus operandi. On the other hand, however, drops in performance caused by reflection or introspection may provide important clues as to what is implicit in the unaffected normal case in perception and action (see, for example BAUMEISTER 1984; MASTERS 1992; WILSON / SCHOOLER 1991; SCHOOLER / OHLSSON / BROOKS 1993). In the circumstances described it is natural to define, by means of psychological research, those
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processes of information processing and those mental structures concerning which the subjects can give no information and to reconstruct the corresponding behaviour by means of generative rules which are validated not – as, for example, in the ‘Subjective Theories’ (Subjektive Theorien – GROEBEN / WAHL / SCHLEE 1988) ↑ research programme – communicatively but rather in terms of behavioural prognoses and in the ideal case by means of computer simulations. Fodor (1981, 75) is among the most prominent representatives of this position: if X is something an organism knows how to do but is unable to explain how to do, and if S is some sequence of operations, the specification of which would constitute an answer to the question ‘How do you X?’, and if an optimal simulation of the behavior of the organism X is by running through the sequence of operations specified by S, then the organism tacitly knows the answer to the question ‘How do you X?’, and S is a formulation of the organism’s tacit knowledge.
Consequently, the theoretical challenge consists of shedding light from the third person perspective on the internal structures behind the competence of the first person and not – as, for example, in Ryle (RYLE 1949) – remaining at the level of mere attributions of dispositions. There would be significant practical returns from such a ↑ research strategy in the creation of possible foundations for the technicisation and computerisation of human competences, for example, in the form of ↑ expert systems. From a TVET perspective, however, what is interesting is not primarily how one can theoretically (or also practically, in the form of technical artefacts) simulate certain forms of knowing-how, but rather how one can teach them. It can be objected, first, that not every descriptive rule which appropriately predicts behaviour also has to be a generative rule for learners which supports the acquisition of the corresponding competence. For example, the ability to maintain one’s balance on a bicycle can be described entirely in terms of physical rules without these rules being useful in the acquisition of this ability. Second, the reconstruction of implicit knowing as ‘unconscious’ but in principle nevertheless propositionally representable knowledge can strongly influence modes of didactic thought. The idea of describing the ef-
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fect of experience as ‘knowledge’ suggests, namely, understanding didactically supported learning as the process of knowledge transmission and the development of knowing-how as the gradual becoming-unconscious of originally explicit knowledge as ‘proceduralisation’ (for example in ANDERSON 1987 or H ACKER 1998). Alongside the manifold forms of ↑ implicit learning, those ways of learning, conversely, with respect to which structures of explicit knowing arise in the wake of reflection on previously accumulated implicit knowing, then fall out of view. From a philosophy of science standpoint too the constructs in terms of which the observer describes, predicts and, possibly, simulates human behaviour should not be attributed to the subject as ‘unconscious knowing’ (cf. NEUWEG 2001, 90 ff.; for criticisms GADENNE 2000). The thesis that a causal ‘tacit knowledge’ generates behaviour is confronted by the objection that it does not explain behaviour but rather doubles it through the introduction of theoretical artefacts. The assertion that a person behaves in this way or another and unconsciously knows about the rules with which the observer describes and predicts this behaviour would be unfalsifiable and ultimately give expression to a category error as described by Ryle (RYLE 1949). 5.1.5.3
The Unformalisable Aspect
The discussion of the implicit becomes radicalised when it is understood not merely as the intuitive and non-verbalisable in the first-person perspective but also as what is non-formalisable and non-technicisable for the third person. This interpretation of the concept, which is highly significant in the context of the AI debate, is also full of consequences from a didactic standpoint. While, that is, with respect to knowledge which is nonverbalisable merely for the first person, but externally analysable, it can meaningfully be asked and empirically examined in what way it is suitably acquired, a knowledge which in principle cannot be described by means of rules can by definition be acquired only implicitly, because ‘[a]n art which cannot be specified in detail cannot be transmitted by prescription, since no prescription for it exists’ (POLANYI 1964, 53).
Research Methods
In the substantiation of the non-formalisability thesis patterns of argumentation concerning the subject, external demands, and knowledge are as a rule interconnected. Concerning the subject, alongside references to the sensual-bodily foundations of human perception and competences – for example, the proverbial ‘flair’ – special features of ↑ experiential knowledge are postulated which render description in terms of rules impossible. It is argued, for example, that this knowledge can be understood as a library of case types, which enables the expert to recognise a given situation and the call to action contained in it spontaneously and without analytical examination of the configuration of features as typical (DREYFUS 1972; DREYFUS 1982; DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1986). On the basis of its Gestalt character and the subtlety with which the contextual factors enter into the interpretation of the situation it is impossible to describe these experience-based classes of similar situations by means of isolatable elements and combinatory rules. In patterns of argument related to external demands non-formalisability is justified by means of the specific character of the action-demands to be mastered. So, for example, Schön (1983) with reference to complexity, uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value conflict puts forward five features of fields of practice which make it impossible to understand professional action appropriately as the application of knowledge. Collins/ Kusch (1998) relate their thesis about the non-substitutability of experience and socialisation by instruction (irreplaceability thesis) particularly to so-called ‘polymorphic actions’ whose competent execution assumes an understanding of the relevant context which can be acquired only through membership of a ↑ community of practice and which as a result can neither be simulated mechanically nor taught through the imparting of knowledge of rules. As regards knowledge, patterns of argument in the tradition of Aristotelian phronesis (ARISTOTLE 2000), Kantian judgement (K ANT 1787; 1791) or Wittgensteinian rule following refer to the inevitable gaps between the abstractness of rules and the concreteness of the individual situation and to the impossibility deriving from the problem of infinite regress of directing the process of situation-appro-
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priate and creative rule interpretation in turn by means of rules (DREYFUS 1972; ORTMANN 2003). Common to these lines of argument, as a rule, is the conviction that expert perception, thinking and acting prove to be situated, related to special cases and context-sensitive, so that their flexibility and underlying situative understanding cannot be exhaustively modelled in terms of rules (cf. NEUWEG 2002b). The fact that the expert answers the question ‘By what in general does one know this or that situation and what in general must be done in it?’, by saying ‘it depends’, marks in this perspective the central difference between him and a mere novice ‘working-to-rule’. This insight gives rise, among other things, to the further question: ‘to what extent does the task often addressed in organisational ↑ knowledge management of explicating ↑ implicit knowledge under some circumstances unintentionally argue in favour of a deflexibilisation and bureaucratisation of organisations?’ 5.1.5.4
The Experience-Dependence Aspect
Understanding of the limitations of attempts to shorten learning processes through verbal instruction has accompanied vocational training theory since its beginnings. According to Kerschensteiner (1907) one must, for example, be able to do cabinet-making and not merely know about it; one does not become a joiner by virtue of being able to repeat parrot-fashion everything that one learned during one’s apprenticeship. What primarily directs action is not book- and memory-based knowledge but rather a slowly developing experiential knowledge which develops alongside work as it were as a by-product and can be substituted by words only in a limited way. The increasing awareness of the phenomenon of experiential knowledge in general (cf. BÖHLE 003), and the concept of implicit knowing in particular is helping such insights to undergo a renaissance. Didactic interest is shifting to a considerable extent from learning in school-like situations to learning in the operational field or in operational-field-like ↑ learning environments and above all to a learning by means of socialisation processes in expert cultures; from learning through describing to learning through familiarity; from learning with depersonalised media of knowledge retention to a learn-
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ing in face-to-face contact between experts and novices; and from learning by means of communication of ↑ abstractions to a learning by means of complex, realistic setting of tasks and paradigmatic cases. Knowledge of the limits of the teachability of ↑ tacit knowing which Polanyi (1964) not by chance characterised as personal knowledge admonishes us on the one hand to a fundamental didactic modesty: ‘in the last resort we must rely on discovering for ourselves the right feel of a skilful feat. We alone can catch the knack of it; no teacher can do this for us’ (POLANYI 1969, 126). On the other hand, from the tac-
it knowing view – depending on the specific theoretical frame of reference – much information results concerning the meaning, mechanisms and organisational options of situated, implicit, informal and/or incidental learning (cf. for example NEUWEG 2000b; 2001, 245 ff., 367 ff.). The insight into the inevitable role of one’s own action experiences in the building up of competences supports, for example, the idea of ↑ learning in the workplace and also favours a fundamentally new attitude to the ↑ experiential knowledge of older workers. Knowledge of the importance of personal contact between bearers and recipients of implicit knowing is revitalising interest in model learning in on-thejob training by working alongside a master craftsman (cf. GAMBLE 2001), and in this context it becomes clear that such learning ultimately does not rest on blind imitation but rather on a sympathetic understanding (Polanyi passim; ORTMANN 2003, 146 ff.; VOLPERT 2003). Beyond that, familiar didactic principles are becoming newly accented and legitimated by means of tacit knowing. Alongside the co-presence of objects and language (NEUWEG 2001, 319 ff., 384 ff.), for example, the importance of example and context variation in the interest of a contextualised teaching of ↑ abstractions and for the purpose of building ‘flexible patterns’ (VOLPERT 1994), but also the importance of more repetitive forms of practice (ALLEN 2000; BOLLNOW 1991), are emphatically being recalled. Although a central challenge presented by the tacit knowing view crops up regularly in answers to the question of what it really means to didactically support an appropriate interplay between entering into and reflection on experience, the discussion at the same time strengthens the growing interest in
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informal forms of learning (cf. for example COF2000; DOHMEN 2001) and suggests a stronger decoupling of the question of the acknowledgement of competences from the ways in which they came into being. For example, experimental psychological research on ↑ implicit learning makes it clear that surprisingly complex stimulus structures can be developed even without didactic preparation and without conscious rule detection (REBER 1993). Information on the so far undervalued potential of ↑ informal learning also results from the insight that communities of practitioners are united by style of thought and paradigms, as well as by practicing rules and reporting back infringements of the rules, without these orientational foundations having to be codified. Knowledge of this kind ultimately cannot be transmitted institutionally or at school; socialisation into such knowledge assumes, rather, ↑ participation in the relevant praxes and forms of life (cf. for example COLLINS / KUSCH 1998; FLECK 1935; KUHN 1970; POLANYI 1964; LAVE / WENGER 1991). Nevertheless, it should be kept in mind that a ↑ theory of action, knowledge, and learning that is adequate to the object and suitable for TVET research must take into account both the deliberative and the intuitive moments of vocational-practical knowing-how and vocation-related learning, both the explicit and the implicit and, not least, not only competence but also the educational dimension. In light of such a requirement it must be remembered that – it is always also a question of defining that explicit knowledge which does not have to be ‘situatedly’, ‘implicitly’, ‘informally’ or even ‘incidentally’ developed and, in order to save time, is not to be so developed, because the tacit knowing view barely thematises the role of factual knowledge as an unavoidable foundation of knowing-how in many domains and the imparting of codified knowledge generally remains an excellent means of intergenerational and interpersonal knowledge transfer; – reflection, conceptual penetration and mental grasping of principles and rules are sometimes unavoidable in the decontextualising and flexibilising of knowing-how; – the conditions of fluent and self-assured action are frequently at the same time the conditions of FIELD
Research Methods
errors, and implicit knowing to that extent also conceals the risk of a ‘tacit blindness’ (NEUWEG 2001, 344 ff.) which is to be reflexively corrected; – vocational knowledge is by no means exhausted by know-how but in many cases necessarily includes a know-why which may be acquired only in traditional school or college instruction; – studies on implicit knowing constantly aim at the dimension of practical knowing-how but hardly ever operate with the concept of education and culture and so run the risk of losing sight of those stocks of explicit knowledge which someone must possess if they would like to make free and at the same time responsible decisions as a mature person in an increasingly complex world. From that point of view it is appropriate to recollect that Kerschensteiner did not see his task as merely extracting the valuable core of what one today calls ‘the tacit’. He was also of the opinion that there is ‘no worthwhile creation … without a certain measure of knowledge, that today can no longer be exclusively acquired on the path of personal experience’ (1907, 48), for which reason ↑ experiential knowledge must be married to book knowledge’ (1907, 51). Regarded in this way research into the ‘implicit’ in the coming years not only must create the foundation for an appropriate ‘marriage guidance’, but will also have to ask to what extent the interest in ↑ informal learning possibly argues in support of a de-institutionalisation of learning which will certainly relieve the national training/education budget, but which can scarcely any longer count as education in the full sense of the word.
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5.1.6
On the Implementation of Basic Methods in Vocational Training Research: (Observation, Experimentation, Interviewing, Content Analysis) Rainer Bremer
A prominent theoretician once stated, “anything goes!” concerning the relationship between methodology and empirical research (FEYERABEND 1976). This statement was levelled at the authority inherent in the methodology of ↑ scientific theory, its prerequisites and principles. It served the purpose of unsettling two of their postulates. On the one hand, it promised to generate empirical research results deductively, through principles elevated to research laws by their faithful application. Coming from the other direction, too, than methodically organised critique of submitted results within the scientific community, these rules were meant to watch over and evaluate the validity of research results (POPPER, K. 1969; ALBERT 1969), by examining them for conformity with the methodological rules deemed true and valid. This method of examination, in particular, makes the mediation of the methods programmatic that slip between scientific cognition and its scientific theme like a filter. Feyerabend protested against this, stating that by means of the initially methodologically constructed research instruments and designed methods, this is inevitably coupled with the conceivably greatest ↑ distance to the cognition of research issues, which are to be worked upon using these methods in the future. This means that the optical properties of the filter are fixed without anyone involved having any knowledge about the light in which the subject matter of the findings will appear. This gives rise to the possibility, in principle, of light not being allowed to fall onto the issue being studied. Methodologically speaking, empirical research of this nature does not correspond to a theoretical basis in its subject matter, moreover producing it as a methodological artefact (Institut für Sozialforschung 1972). This is what Feyerabend reflects upon when he rejects the forced,
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compulsive character of methodology which it acquires by way of already determining the appropriateness of methods, which neither the researcher nor the research topic have yet touched upon. His critique makes an option for a new cognition of ↑ scientific theory valid, something that medical science matter-of-factly concedes with the maxim “he/she who heals successfully is right”. Medical scientists do this, trusting in scientific rationalism, which they believe will prevail over any form of obscurantism. Methodological rigour embodies the risk of erring, while at the same time also excluding the risk of cognition (ref. the “Falsification” concept POPPER, K. 1969 and ALBERT 1969). At the same time, the development of methods per se requires a certain openness, in order to prevent its detachment from its field of application or the ↑ research field in an authoritarian pose (ref. contributions by MITTELSTRASS 1979). Notwithstanding this, modifications, experimental further development or adaptation of methods introduced elsewhere, such as clinical experiments in research on vocational training, can result not only in the risk of failure in the ↑ research question pursued and of producing misleading results, but also of producing fully-fledged disadvantages in terms of research economics. Anyone who first needs to develop methods in a field fundamentally limited by scarce resources, rather than making use of existing methods, is faced with an expenditure that can only be justified by proven, better quality results, in comparison to the results of standard methods. This leads to the question of what method ought to be used to obtain such proof. In the likelihood of first having to develop methods for this as well, the dimensions of any research would invariably be transgressed, with the research relegated to the state of a mere experiment. Researchers must therefore acquire a certain feeling of openness in the development and application of methods as a flanking measure for their own plans relatively quickly, with an eye towards safeguarding their work through standardised methods and the contemplation of deviations from these, if the ↑ research question or issue can otherwise only be dealt with insufficiently. In the case of ↑ research designs guided by hypotheses, it is quite probable that transgressions against
Handbook of TVET Research
insufficient standard methods can still be controlled to be in accord with the research intention, as this can be accommodated by the extension and adaptation of hypotheses into the design (ref. fundamentally to SCHNELL / HILL / ESSER 1992 and RITSERT 1996). Feyerabend’s wholesome pragmatism, moreover implies a healthy, productive doubt about the extent of the general acceptance of standard methods, as well as certain attitudes regarding the reproducibility and validity of findings. It can be proven, that “↑ objectivity” in the sense of reproducibility and validity is significant both in terms of research logic and in terms of practical research, insofar as it is functional. This applies in particular to market research and public opinion polling, as it is not the development of opinions as a rule, but rather their content and distribution over the total population that is of interest. Scientifically relevant interest simply consists in predictability. The analysis of “the development of opinions” using the instruments and methods of market research and opinion polling has a similar purpose of determining and assigning interest in the formation and influencing of opinions to a ↑ research method, which does not itself exercise any influence on the research topic (ref. to the controversy about “action research”, WOHLRAPP 1979). Research of this nature should after all, not influence the manifest opinions of so-called consumers and voters through interviewing, but rather describe them in their latency, as a condition that must remain divorced from the method of discursive rationale, so that it remains open to continued manipulation. The interconnection between cognitive interest (ref. the origin of the term, HABERMAS 1968) and the objective validity of knowledge has always challenged scientific reflection with respect to epistemological reflection. Banal relativism can lurk behind the question “what is objectively true?” just as much as exalted scepticism (ref. HORKHEIMER 1938). Pedagogics has always taken up “offers of theory” (OELKERS / TENORTH 1987) and attempted to reproduce model paradigms, methods and styles based on their own questions. This article is to a small degree, also pervaded by that theme. There are however, enormous restrictions in the appraisal of offers of such theories, irrespective of how in-
Research Methods
fluential the theories have become, or whether they are regarded as being so. Very few aspects are even suited for consideration in terms of the question of the “implementation of fundamental methods in research on vocational training”; because of ones own standards. A lack of appropriateness even exists where ostensibly scientific or epistemological questions are being dealt with. ↑ Constructivism (MATURANA 1993 and a treatise by Fischer 1993) for instance, may have significance for educational theory or technical didactics; it may moreover describe the learning of others, but it cannot possibly pose its relativistic basic question to its own repertoire of methods. It is forced, in this regard, to “fall back on unfamiliar explanation models” (MEINEFELD 1995, 129). This is equally true for socalled “↑ Contextualism” (ref. WILLASCHEK 2003), which places perception and cognition in principle within the context proviso. Here too, the skeptical core concept sabotages all findings that might eventuate because of its operatively manoeuvred methods, however that might be possible and in whatever manner this might eventuate. Scepticism towards findings (which is in principle productive), whether the findings reflect the context of their development, explodes into a methodical agnosticism that seeks to deny the comprehension of the context. For scientific endeavours committed to the principle of critique, the context dependence of empirically saturated cognition would be just the requirement whose attainability contextualism categorically seeks to exclude (ref. BOGUMIL / IMMERFALL 1985). Epistemological tendencies or ↑ scientific theories, which deny this requirement, have nothing to offer in the question regarding the “implementation of ↑ basic methods in research on vocational training”. As soon as the social science-informed cognition interest is directed towards the contents of what people think in their occupations and how they act, insofar as this thinking and acting constitutes their vocational capacity, what is traditionally termed “↑ objectivity as avoidance of the preconscious and projected” becomes important. At the latest since Feyerabend, it can no longer be reduced methodologically to reproducibility and validity. Rather than the description and distribution of opinions, attitudes and points of view, as in vot-
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er and consumer research, an examination of the development of vocational competency would perforce have to take a different path of investigation, one that not only states factors, but also interprets them. This is necessary, as it is not by any means clear from the beginning what necessary competences should be present in a specific occupation and what competences do not have to be. Without the method of “observation”, “interviews” would hardly lead to insights worth speaking of. Obviously problematical in this context too, is who should primarily be interviewed. Should it rather be someone who requires the competence and defines the need, or a person who disposes over those competences already? It appears as though the “development” of the answer through confrontation of different target groups with reciprocal evaluations may be unavoidable, if we seek to increase the validity of the data. In research on vocational training, which is concerned with the establishment of requirements and their fulfilment in ↑ teaching and learning processes, the methodically-generated data and findings are backed up by contents to which the methods cannot remain indifferent. The fact that knowledge in social ↑ vocations is largely based on people, whereas that of an electro-technician or engineer is overwhelmingly based on technological-scientific phenomena, implies that the content of the structure of knowledge that needs to be acquired for an occupation is determined in its contents, by the domain in which it is developed in its social-historical context. In a description of perceived difficult tasks of a vocation, an educator’s account, in which, for example, it took him a considerable amount of time to master cases like that of a three-year-old boy urinating into the kindergarten’s sandbox, is on a completely different level of plausibility to the report of a maintenance technician involved in car model changes, who succeeded, after many years on the job in car-body construction, in securely coupling the complex control system of the welding robots with the technology of mains latching at the first go. In order to ascertain, whether both the educationalist and the industrial electronics technician utilized their professional work concepts to an equally high level, research concerning this question must be open to both scientific research logic
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and practical research. The contents and form of professional knowledge and skills is beyond methodically proceeding, everyday theoretical interpretation of the almighty social sciences. Freeing ourselves from this level of interpretation however, confronts us with another problem, that of the “paradox of experts”. 5.1.6.1
The Paradox of Experts
Methods considered fundamental in the social sciences and partially seen as ultimate instruments, cannot be taken over willy-nilly in research on vocational training, at least in those fields directly associated with trade schools, such as those dealing with work, ↑ work processes, qualifications, competences, as well as reciprocally, processes concerned with earnings and learning. Even the most important results of developing vocational skills and competences are not easily to access by ↑ research methods, because all fully built ↑ work process knowledge includes a hidden, invisible part of work process related competences which are not simply seeking to make these tasks visible. So the constellation between field and research associated with the topic of ↑ vocation produces a variable in turn, that has proven to be context dependent, or more precisely, is domain dependent (RAUNER 1998b; PAHL / RAUNER / SPÖTTL 2000). The proportion of declarable knowledge and the percentage of skills recognizable in work processes exist in every occupation, but are neither quantitatively identical nor qualitatively homogenous (RAUNER 2000a; 2002a). Expenditure can accordingly be high, for the ascertainment of the complementary portion respectively, pursuing learning processes over a longer time. The variable itself remains unquantifiable up to that point in time, where the research results are completely available, since the proportion of declared knowledge only becomes known through the counterpart that has been made explicit and vice versa. The general nature of this statement appears somewhat unsatisfactory, but needs to be accepted here, as it leads to an important problem of the implementation of fundamental ↑ research methods. The “paradox of experts” of research on vocational training is associated with these doubly determined variables as regards the contents. Due to the high
percentage of non-declarable or non-visible knowledge and skills, i.e. because of the binding of their contents to vocational domains (FISCHER 2000), that do not primarily require or define knowledge and skills per se, but rather their application as competence (POLANYI 1966; NEUWEG 1999), a particular role of research, one which is based on its methods and instruments and tolerates, sometimes even requires, some functional amateurism in regard to the research issue, is becoming precarious. It is not enough for vocational ↑ training research, to dispose over the most advanced, most elaborate methodical specialisation, as long as this is not accompanied by responsibilities for the domain. The instruments utilised will otherwise remain blunt and blunt instruments are not conducive to understanding what goes on in the domain. The situation could arise, where the “researcherlayperson” is confronted by a plethora of things that puzzle him, so that he is unable to ask questions about everything. He may perhaps ask the wrong questions by insisting on unimportant aspects and ignoring the important factors (RÖBEN 2001). Consequently he is helplessly at the mercy of what he sees and is informed about, by others, without being able to vindicate himself behind the ↑ objectivity of his findings (→ 5.1.3). Let us take the case of an expert for the domain (“layperson-researcher”). Most of the information such a person hears and sees will probably not only be obvious to him, but already known to him. Noone generally makes trivialities explicit, explains them or poses them for discussion, but experts of vocational domains often regard things as trivial that cause laypersons to be extremely amazed and pose a riddle to them. The interview and observation instruments used in such cases are no less blunt than the ones used by the “researcher-layperson”. This paradox can be solved however, using a combination of methods, even if the process is somewhat laborious (BREMER / RAUNER / RÖBEN 2001). The expert does not have the naivety of a “researcher-layperson”, who disposes over the ability to pose the right questions. Instead, he understands the answers that he receives from experts of a ↑ vocation. What matters then, is to combine the naïve competence of amateurish questioning with the expert’s specific competence of compre-
Research Methods
hension, so that the three types of vocational ability, namely, behaviour, acting and thinking, can be taken into account effectively, in the repertoire of research instruments. These three factors apply for the constellation of the “observing researcher” and the “research issue”. This means that the three factors apply for observations, even when the “layperson-researcher” already knows all the prerequisites that play a role in the currently analysed ↑ work process (BREMER / RAUNER / RÖBEN 2001) and what can be utilized by him for an explanation. That does not logically fall under the issue of observation, but rather the hypotheses, by means of which they are organised from a practical research perspective. The outcome of the three aforementioned levels enables a methodical differentiation of the phenomenological accessible observation level (ref. also GARFINKEL 1967b). The differentiation premise can be stated more or less as follows. The inner logic of the intertwining of non-trivial vocational knowledge and skills is triggered by vocational ↑ work tasks, which determine whether a person (a) uses routines that ensue automatically (“behaviour”), (b) if the person is conscious of rules in the sense of a plan, for handling tasks that he/she has to carry out (“acting”) or (c) whether the person has to make decisions (“think”), in the face of conflicting regulations. It is not possible to superficially differentiate the three levels from working processes. Evidence of the differences cannot merely be assumed. Numerous indications do, however, exist, as evidenced by the nature of the tasks and the rhythm of working on them, the average frequency of working on them and the relative novelty of a fault occurring for the person working on the tasks. In order to provide a generally valid example, that utilizes research logic in respect to the significance of the three levels: behaviour, acting and thinking, it is possible to fall back on the role of moral consciousness in everyday life. Behaviour that appears to conform to existing moral fabric, is probably constituted therein that someone has switched off all immoral alternatives of action out of habit. Only when someone is confronted by a situation which makes a violation of moral norms apparent, that a conscious act in the sense of taking heed of rules and regulations becomes possible. Ultimate-
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ly, if the correct norm is not immediately available, moral thinking as a reflection of the possibility of action becomes necessary, which in the principle sense, may be the morally preferable one. 5.1.6.2
On the Role of Research Design
The three levels are extremely important in their functional differentiation, from the perspective of the selection of methods in investigations of ↑ work processes and the relevant competences required for them, up to the question of work organisation, and education and training for the work situation. From a phenomenological perspective, the observations on all three levels are identical, irrespective of whether they are designated as “behaviour” or taking “action”. After all, “thinking can also be categorised as “taking action”, or “behaviour”. Terminologically one cannot get any further here. What is decisive is the functional differentiation between working out ↑ vocational tasks according to routine, adherence to rules and norms or conscious decisions. The difficulty does not only lie in the necessity of adequately differentiating between the three categories methodically. There are good grounds for believing that ↑ vocational competences differ from each other according to their degree of elaboration, even in the expression of the transitions i.e. when someone gives up his routine behaviour and begins to search for rules or alternatives to an ambiguous case and what result he finally comes up with in his decision about a problem. We are potentially faced by developed competences on all levels, which are not however accessible by simple, mere observation. Only the selection of an adequate ↑ research method enables them to become apparent. Following that, they can be analyzed, irrespective of whether it is for the purpose of work organisation, a vocational curriculum or the evaluation of training methods for developing or furthering competence. In the following, a number of references about methodical access to the research topic aim to further underscore the significance of ↑ research designs, in which the ↑ research questions should at least be concretized from the outset, so that assumptions which might otherwise remain implicit in regard to the type (nature), extent and validity of the answers are made aware of.
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Hypotheses about the expected results should then be formulated using these assumptions and the more or less stabilized realism gained through research experience. A double formulation of hypotheses based on a spectrum of expectations can be exceptionally useful for the later compelling necessity of interpreting the results. This means that individual hypotheses are formulated both positively and negatively, which, if the expectations were well founded, will later be confirmed by the results in all empirical cases lying between them. 5.1.6.3
Observation
The value of this procedure is indisputable for the explorative part of the research if that is the intention. Where the aim is to investigate vocationally relevant courses of action or processes empirically, then an examination thereof should certainly be undertaken. This is particularly true when one considers that questions of work organisation or technological development can place their imprint on the issue being researched. Then above all, irregularities in the development have to be expected in the first findings already. Even though comprehensive research results cannot be obtained by mere observation, the researcher will nevertheless learn to evaluate the problems more precisely, the solution of which will decide the success of the research. As one can only observe what one can see, it is important that the ↑ observation method include an estimation of the proportion of non-visible factors, to ensure that complementary or compensatory methods suited for also understanding the nonvisible aspects of the research issue are taken into account. This can be done methodically, consecutively or exclusively. A consecutive procedure involves further checking the observation findings gained by observation methods, by means of other more indirect methods after the completion of the research investigation. The observation would then represent an initial step towards a comprehensive result. The exclusive procedure can be utilised when a part of the ↑ research question is deemed to have been answered by the method of observation. Stringent ↑ research designs will seek to strictly isolate both of the above, whereas a pragmatic approach will at the most, differentiate between the
consecutive and the exclusive procedures ex post. Positive in this is, that the method of observation is more productive than reliable and therefore ultimately maintains its explorative character, which as such, speaks against already completed findings. 5.1.6.4
Experimenting
It must be clear to the researcher, that experiments suspend the normal case, in which the research issue becomes one, without having been made into one through research. The aim of the research question cannot therefore be to establish the “actual state” of a process, course of events of an organisation or group of people. Where a leading research hypothesis however indicates a difference between the “target state” and the “actual state” then an experiment might very well supply an answer to the question. If the interference between the observer and the observed is merely taken into consideration in the appraisal of research results (ref. CICOUREL 1970), then we are confronted by all the methodological problems and reservations that were already associated with the “action research” of 25 years ago (MOSER 1977). A re-enactment of the “action research” debate that was carried out up to the loftiest heights of ↑ scientific theory (WOHLRAPP 1979), would essentially be futile. The reference must suffice here, that clever research design can utilize the inevitable “response” of the protagonists to the research and help identify things e. g. in the formulation of items respectively, by means of a methodically controlled course of action. This applies equally well to the Hawthorne effect. The references on page 3, concerning the factor of ↑ domain specifics in respect to ↑ research methods on vocational training, moreover “offensively” limits what is aspired to be the neutral thematic indifference of traditional research methods. Should the combination of “researcher-layperson” and “layperson-researcher” succeed in the investigation of vocational domains (BREMER / RAUNER / RÖBEN 2001), then the barrier between researcher and research issue must fall, as in a sense, it becomes the research issue itself, as it contributes to the production of research relevant findings about its domain. The experimental transformation of process parameters can accentuate, draw attention to and
Research Methods
make apparent, the rules and models effective in the normal situation, in the sense of differentiation between them. 5.1.6.5
Interviewing
In terms of research economics, results gained by means of verbal communication are the most efficient by far, as regards the application of methods and findings obtained. Given the proviso, that the contents of a question can be precisely measured and the answer is unequivocally aimed at the intent of the question, information, attitudes and opinions can be gained both by using contrastive as well as conflicting methods. The hermeneutical circle is largely suspended, which makes the interpretation of the data obtained by interview much easier (OEVERMANN 1983, on the fundamental question of empirically founded theory, ref. also to LAMNEK 1988 and K ELLE 1994). These prerequisites are unfortunately fulfilled far less frequently than interviews are conducted. Conclusive controls of whether the requirements have been met or not, are not possible, as such tests can only be carried out by means of justifiable expenditure anyway, using standardized comprehensive interviews with usual means such as preliminary tests. Adherence to a few basic principles helps in securing and respectively, improving the interview results: Contents that can be objectified play a large role in domains, such as for instance, the distribution of elements of knowledge. Where the aim is to ascertain these by interview, the initial consideration must be, to what degree the interviewees actually dispose over this knowledge. This should be followed by an assessment employing the formulation of a hypothesis, as to what the degree of deficiency is, whether merely the names of things are familiar to the interviewees for instance, or whether they already dispose over conceptions that are further supported by notions, imagination and concepts. Where the interviewee already disposes over conceptions, or it is presumed to be the case, further verification is required as to the degree that these notions and concepts are a reproduction of the generally accessible knowledge associated with the domain, or in how far they are elaborations of proprietary knowledge which de-
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veloped parallel to the more or less official knowledge and became relevant for action. Different ↑ interview methods in conformity with the above-named model of levels of behaviour, action and thinking (→ 5.1.6.1) are available, which could do justice to the degree of elaboration of the linguistic representation of vocational domains. An interview model with the goal of verbalising the ↑ work process respectively, the process of action, would be very well suited for differentiation between the proportion of routine and that of the knowledge of rules in the transition from behaviour to action. The knowledge of rules and norms ascertained by interview, leads relatively directly to an estimation of the degree of elaboration, which is assumed that the interviewee has. It initially remains undecided here in principle, whether the interviewee’s knowledge is the special knowledge of an individual, or reproducible collective knowledge. As evident as the domain and rules for mastering it may already be here at this ↑ performance level, the potential for competent vocational action has not yet been definitively ascertained, whereas the interview schema “question-answer” has in principle, been exhausted. Verification of competence situated above the performance sphere can only be achieved with great difficulty, by means of interviews. Interviewing moreover, needs to be complemented by a provocative measure that as in this case, challenges the verbal manifestation of competence. So-called dilemma questions based on the exhaustibility of rules of vocational action are exceptionally well suited for this. Cases construed in this manner force the individual to make decisions (“think”), whereby not the decision per se becomes interesting, but rather, its justification. The reason being, that in both technology and economics, where sufficiently complex starting conditions exist, which must be construed by the dilemma, there is usually more than just one possibility, with all possibilities having their advantages and disadvantages. That is the dilemma of the matter. The substantiation for a specific solution (course of “action”) provides information about the breadth and depth of already acquired ↑ vocational competence by means of this verbally accessible level of reflection.
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5.1.6.6
Content Analysis
difficult than the deduction from latent contents by
The important thing in an analysis is to gain all the information that the material allows one to deduce. The content analysis is in this respect suited methodically, both for the exploration of a domain on the basis of semantically or symbolically current material, as well as the evaluation of findings of specific quality i.e. of the specific ↑ objectification of the manifest character of its contents. The more indefinite these conclusions are, the more suitable they are for hypotheses that can be tested with other methods of the domain (latent contents). More
means of further methodical arrangements, is testing for overlooked contents, since one cannot develop hypotheses for contents that one is not aware of! In practical research, it is probably advisable to overcome such impasses by scrutinizing the domain knowledge of a number of people respectively, making efforts to obtain several different vocational standards.
5.2.0 Research Methods: Interview and Observation Methods – Introduction Winfried Hacker There is not “one single” ↑ research method for the manifold aims and contents (for example competence; cf. Haasler, this section) of scientific research in Vocational Education and Training. Normally several methods are combined. However, a non-reflected combination of several methods in terms of an arbitrary mix of methods would be not efficient. A concept-driven combination and sequence of the employed research methods is inevitable. ↑ Observation methods and ↑ interview methods are the most applied components of this conceptdriven combination of research methods. Their ↑ efficiency will depend on their well thought-out integration into a broader scope of activity-related research methods (see below “Four level-approach”). The concept-driven combination of research methods should consider at least the following rules: (1) Situated and causal approach: The selection of the methods should consider the top-down determination of the job requirements to be trained. The individual task requirements are determined by the hierarchy of organisational, technological and group/team requirements. Thus, it would be impossible to describe the isolated requirements of a task to be accomplished. Organisational charac-
teristics – for example ↑ participation in job design – often influence the requirements of an individual task (ARGOTE / MCEVILY/ REAGANS 2003; GREENO / MMAP 1998). (2) Hypothetic-deductive approach: Research in Technical and Vocational Education and Training must narrow its research topic in a step-by-step way. This is implemented by an approach which generates and checks increasingly precise hypotheses for the sequences of research steps. (3) Systemic approach: Often – depending on the relevant questions of research – observations and interviews are neither the starting point nor the end of the sequence of necessary research methods, but components of a “hypothetic-deductive four-level approach” of activity-centred research (Fig. 1; for detail see HACKER 1995). The main reason is that observations and interviews (including questionnaires) at first need lots of information on – for example – what should be observed by means of what criteria or which questions are to be asked, and why, in order to identify the curriculum-relevant expert know-how or the level of skills already acquired by a novice. However often observations or interviews (following a quasi-experimental or even only a post factodesign) are not sufficient in order to identify what
Research Methods
the essential knowledge to be taught is. In this case more invasive research following a strict ↑ experimental design becomes inevitable. Therefore observation and interview methods require completion by the analysis of documents as well as interventions with an experimental design (“experiments”). Thus, they are components of a system of research steps. Both, “observation” as well as “interview” are summarising labels for a couple of more specific methods. Some of them are outlined in the following contributions. Some of these specific methods must be applied repeatedly, as the feed-back loop arrows in Figure 1 illustrate. Observation-based methods are as manifold as the components of the competence of the employees. There is not the one observation method. In Vocational Education and Training there are two main research topics to which observation methods can be applied. These are – Condition-centred analyses of the tasks together with their organisational and technological conditions of task accomplishment, which aim at the mental requirements (competence) to be taught (task analyses). Here, a combination with document analyses and interviews is usually necessary.
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This issue is dealt with in the contribution of Röben (this section). The methods for task analyses are to be distinguished from the conceptually broader sociologically-based “↑ studies of work” approach discussed in this section by Bergmann. – Subject-centred analyses of the procedures/actions of employees (e. g. novices, experts) accomplishing the tasks, in order to identify the competences of experts or the relevant deficits of novices or learners (see the contribution of Haasler, this section) (action analysis). The ↑ efficiency of any observation – whether structured or participative (“action research”) – heavily depends on the preparation of the observation. Most important is a well-defined system of dimensions or categories which must guide an observation. This is necessary also if tools (for example lists of criteria that should be recorded more or less automatically) are to be prepared. Interview-based methods are also as manifold as the intended purposes of questioning. Dyadic (e. g. interviewer – interviewee, expert-trainee) and group-based interviews, oral or written questions and answers, and a couple of different formats of questions and answers (e. g. open versus
Fig. 1: Hypothetic-Deductive Four-level Approach of Activity-Centred Research Concerning (Mental) Requirements
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multiple choice) are possible. Again the ↑ efficiency of an interview technique depends heavily on its compatibility with the ↑ research question and on the type of the knowledge (explicit vs. implicit, procedural vs. declarative, episodic vs. semantic; see Hacker, this section or for more detail HACKER 2005) an interviewer is interested in. Therefore the selection of the suitable interview technique depends on the information from preceding research steps and on the (hopefully theoretically based) hypotheses on the subjects of research. Types of interview techniques and of workshops with groups of experts and interviewers are dealt with in the contributions of Becker, Hacker, Niethammer and Spöttl (this section). Both types of ↑ research methods, observation and interview, can be assisted by recording tools, especially by videotaping, or by schemes for the classification of observed activities or of the answers. The contribution of Rauner (this section) outlines the application of a recording technique even as a tool for training and educational purposes. As is well known, the ↑ efficiency of all research methods and techniques completely depends on the way they are integrated into the total research process. This is dealt with in terms of the types of ↑ research design (CAMPBELL / STANLEY 1963). Consequently, the ↑ efficiency of observation and interview techniques does not exist per se, but depends on the research design. This issue of ↑ research design holds true not only for the research by intervention in terms of experiments (cf. next section → 5.3.1). Depending on the hypotheses, observation and interview may need a design with comparable groups of subjects in terms of a “control group” (without the intervention) and one or more “experimental groups” (with a varied intervention), too. If, for example, specific competence of experts should be compared with those of novices in order to identify necessary items of a training curriculum, observations (work studies) and accompanying interviews are to be integrated into a quasi-experimental control (novices)-experimental (experts) group design. The expert group here may be considered as an experimental group which had earlier already obtained the “intervention” to become an expert. In ↑ field research this type of quasi-experimental
design looking for an already existing “intervention” for the reason of a comparison is an useful strategy (cf. HACKER 1995). Other research questions applying observations and interviews even may require a pre-test/ post-test control-experimental group design (cf. HACKER / SKELL 1993). This holds true, for instance, if the researcher is interested in the differing ↑ efficiency of a training method applied to novices versus to experienced employees. Finally the presentation of interview and of ↑ observation methods in separate contributions of this section should not produce the misleading impression that these methods are alternative ways of researching. On the contrary, the most effective procedure is just the “observation interview” as is usually found, e. g. in Occupational Psychology. During the observation, the work study, “situated” questions are asked concerning the ongoing work activity and the covert action-regulating mental processes and representations (e. g. reasoning processes or mental models. Cf. HACKER 1995, chapter 7.5).
5.2.1
Technical Interview Manuela Niethammer
5.2.1.1
Definition and Classification
The interview is a conversation situation which is consciously and specifically arranged by its participants. The questioning of or the communication with the subject is used systematically and in a controlled way as a constitutive moment of the cognitive process (see ATTESLANDER /KOPP 1987; RAUNER 2001b). The term is derived from the Anglo-American and generally became accepted in the German language area in the 20th century. Its ethymological origin is the word “entrevue”, which means “arranged meeting” (see LAMNEK 1989, 35). The interview was developed as a method of data collection in empirical social studies research and is widely used – within the quantitative as well as ↑ qualitative research paradigm (see HOPF 1995; Flick 1995b). In this context, Lamnek talks about the interview as “Königsweg” (ideal way) (LAM-
Research Methods NEK 1989, 35) whereas Flick distinguishes between the German-speaking research area, in which the interview is dominant, and the American research area, in which participant observation is more prominent (FLICK 1995b, 94). The advantages of the interview compared to participant observation (see Fig. 1) resulted in the style being modified and adapted for different fields of application, which go beyond questions related to social studies. Many ↑ interview methods, which can mostly be distinguished with regard to the subject focused, have been differentiated (see FLICK 1995b, 146). Moreover, different forms of interviews are distinguished depending on how the interview is performed methodologically (depending on degrees of freedom of interviewer and interviewee).
Fig. 1: Advantages of interviews compared to observation according to Lamnek (1989, 35)
The Relation of the Technical Interview to the Object The ↑ technical interview was developed as a ↑ vocational science method of data collection for analysing working processes as part of the vocational science research in qualifications (see DRESCHER / MÜLLER / PETERSEN 1995). The research interest is focussed on the content of work or ↑ work processes and factors determining these contents (technical, economical, ecological, social), whereby the data are collected by interviewing relevant representatives in the field of work (RAUNER 2001b, 249 f.). The work content can thereby either be objectively or subjectively reflected upon. In the first case, reflections are made on the work contents, which are objectively given at the time of the
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survey. The people concerned are predominantly asked as “experts” of a working domain to comment on profound connections within the field of work (technical interview) (see Fig. 5). In the case of the subject oriented work research, the employee is at the centre of interest as an expert acting in a vocational context. The work content is not important, but the expert’s subjective perspective and his or her knowledge in correlation with those contents (specialist interview) is. With this focus on the worker’s perceptions, the analysis of the expert’s knowledge becomes the object of the social sciences (see technical interview according to MEUSER / NAGEL 1991; FLICK 1995b). Technical and specialist interviews cannot always clearly be differentiated from one another as in the scope of technical interviews subjective opinions and perspectives of the interviewee are also conveyed. In both cases, however, it is not the subjective perspective of a layman on the technologically, economically, ecologically and socially determined work contents, which are to be dealt with, but the reflection of a competent expert. This means that the interviewee stands out by his or her formal or informal qualification. This focus on the expert does not exclude the option of interviewing representatives of different competence levels like apprentices, experienced specialists and engineers. It further implies the acceptance of the fact that there is not only one expert whose experience and knowledge is representative of all contexts playing a major role in the vocational reality. Certified specialists in these vocational fields of action define their ↑ vocational competence predominantly by their capability in technological, economical and ecological contexts. For this research focus for reflections on their work reality in a social context they step rather into the role of a layman. By focussing on the skilled participants in the discussion, the technical and specialist interview are distinguished from the “Problemzentrierten Interview” (problem oriented interview) (WITZEL 1985), which plays a major role in the research of the social sciences. In the problem orientated interview, subjective interpretations related to a socially or biographically relevant problem are analysed, whereas subjects are not mainly selected with regard to a special qualification which may
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Fig. 2: Defi nitions of Different Types of Interviews Depending on their Performance According to Mayring (1990)
be adaquate for reflecting or solving the problem. The fact that the vocationally oriented research on work uses a ↑ technical interview to ask subjects, who are part of a practicing communitity for a vocationally specific problem regarding the work reality, poses specific demands on the “content and theoretically based capability” (see HOPF 1995) of the interviewer. The content of the required competence results from the object on which the interview is based: in the chemical work field, the interviewer needs different knowledge of the subject matter than in an electrotechnical or health care work field. His capacity for ↑ abstraction is supposed to correspond to those content based requirements, which are characteristic of the work field. Moreover, the interviewer needs to be accepted by the practicing community as participant of the discussion. Interviewees would not tell a person who is not familiar with the subject matter anything about contents specific to their work field as they conclude that these contents will not be understood by that interviewer (see R AUNER 2001b). The ↑ performance of technical interviews – which are socially constructed for a targeted communication – always demands social knowledge of the subject matter as well.
Different Types of Interviews Depending on their Performance The differentiation of interviews is based on the discussion in the social sciences. Mayring distinguishes different types of interviews depending on their openness, their structure and their research paradigm (see Fig. 2 and 3). According to this terminology the technical interview corresponds to an open, half-standardised and unstructured method. A pre-structuring of these types of interviews is determined by focussing the interview on the work content. The halfstandardised approach will be further explained in the discussion on the conceptional approach of the technical interview. 5.2.1.2
Concept and Application of the Technical Interview
The classification of a method for collecting data requires reflection of the method as part of a complex research process. For differentiating the research process, the hypothesis based procedure for assessing a theory needs to be distinguished from a procedure which generates a hypothesis for developing a theory. Thus, the ↑ vocational science ↑ work analysis via technical interview needs to be integrated in the research paradigm. For this purpose, the qualitative and quantitative research par-
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Fig. 3: Distinction of the Qualitative and Quantitative Research Paradigm in the Social Studies (see Flick 1995b, 56 ff.)
adigms are compared according to Flick (1995b, 56 ff.). This comparison is used as a better illustration of the differences (see Fig. 3). The ↑ research approaches do not contradict one another but constitute approaches which complement one another and can be combined. In the reflection of the criteria mentioned above, it is difficult to classify the vocational science work analysis via technical interview by either paradigm, because it unites elements of both paradigms. The research process contains elements of the linear as well as circular research process: in advance of the survey, the objective aspects of the chosen sphere of the object are analysed, i.e. all relevant work contents are logically structured. The objectively logical relations raised indicate the hypotheses. They serve the researcher as terms of reference for developing an interview guideline in advance and a primary cognitive structuring of the data collected during the interview. However, there is no operationalisation of the hypotheses, because a reduction of the given complexity of the field of work in individual retrievable
items would result in a distorted representation of the field of work, which would not be transparent or comprehensible for the research subjects. They would not recognise their field of work in these reductions. This elementarisation would therefore neither be appropriate for the representation of the object nor the research subjects. The classification approaches, which were generated in advance, are not presented to the subjects. The researcher rather classifies what the subjects have to offer or reconstructs and cognitively compares them with the model designed beforehand. The coding, i.e. the ↑ abstraction of new categories, which have not been taken into consideration in advance, becomes necessary when the interviewee’s answers either go beyond the classification approach or negate it. The data collected has to be assessed regarding their technical correctness. The sections of the field of work investigated and the research subjects are selected regarding their relevance to the vocational education research. The peculiarity of this ↑ research field shows that the research process, in which the data were col-
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lected via ↑ technical interview, is in between both paradigms. This is why the discussion and classification is important to avoid a premature and onesided classification. The process of the ↑ vocational science work research via technical interview is subdivided into individual sections as illustrated in the following diagram. The steps of the action depend on and are related to one another.
The Process of a Technical Interview (1) Analysis of the problem, i.e. – Articulation of the ↑ research questions which give access to the particular section of the field of work and – Analysis and structuring of the objective aspects from the researcher’s perspective (objectively logical structuring of the object of analysis which is equivalent to the formation of a hypothesis). Ideal reference points for the analysis of occupational or work related contents are given by the reflection of concrete tasks. The ordering, which results from the process of solving the task, is, however, constituted by subjective and objective factors, which are to be assigned to certain levels of the system superordinate to the tasks (see NIETHAMMER 2003). Accordingly, the superordinate levels of the system as e. g. the all-embracing legislation or the organisational concepts of companies are to be included in the ↑ vocational science work analyses. Every level opens a path to a specific perspective on the work contents, which help to discover different facts of the matter. Consequently, specific structuring models are necessary for every level: concepts of work organisation can be structured or illustrated via Personnel-ProcessMatrix and processes of complex instructions via process chains. For the analysis of the content in the context of concrete tasks two perspectives have to be guaranteed: the perspective with the reference to the tasks and the work system. Contents with reference to the tasks can be illustrated by process models, which allow the illustration of the logical structure of dealing with the task. The representation of the contents with reference to the work system requires, in addition to others, structure models (see Fig: 4 as exemplifying illustration), which help to
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make the objects of work like physical operations or chemical reactions and the means of work of a work procedure transparent. In a technical interview, not the whole part of the work reality, which is opened by the orientation towards the task, is of interest to the researcher, but also aspects concerning the apparatus. Accordingly, the analysis of the problem can be limited in advance. The results of the problem analysis represent the hypotheses which are the basis for the researcher to construct an interview guideline.
Fig. 4: System of Categorisation as a Basis of the Development of Structure Models of Process Items of Physical Operations
(2) Guideline Construction (on the Basis of the Problem Analysis) The guideline illustrated (Figure 5) is an example of a ↑ technical interview applied to work analyses of laboratory work and makes clear that the structure of the guideline depends on the constituting factors of occupational work. (3) ↑ Performance of Technical Interviews (Data Collection and Processing) The first interviews, where appropriate, can consciously be applied as a testing of the guideline and training of the interviewer. Experience during the performance of the technical interview and the application of the interview guideline is used to optimise the guideline. The guideline is not a rigid scheme which is processed in a linear way.
Research Methods
Fig. 5: Guideline of a Technical Interview for Work Analyses in Laboratory Work (excerpt)
The interviewer only forms questions and demands, which are supposed to stimulate the subjects to analyse their own work with regard to the different perspectives. During the interview, the questions are spontaneously formed with regard to the language level of the subject. The subjects give their opinion openly, i.e. without any guideline. The survey is carried out via tape recordings and note takings. The note takings (where appropriate)
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have the advantage, in the case of the technical interview, that structuring illustrations can be made in the shape of a process or structure model (see MAYRING 1990, 62). This way the data collection can be combined with the data processing. The process or structure models which show the facts and correlations mentioned by the subject illustrate exactly these correlations and are generated simultaneously to the data collection. A literal transcription, i.e. the full comprehension of the text, is not necessarily required of a technical interview, because the objective contents are focussed. With the help of the problem analysis, which has been established in advance, the interviewer can assess which of the objective aspects can be named and explained by the subject and to which level of ↑ abstraction reflections are based. By cognitively comparing the collected data with the hypotheses the seemingly “open spots” can be registered. By inquiry about these “open spots”, the interviewer can find out if the interviewee has not mentioned these aspects by chance or forgot about them or if they are not relevant to the topic concerned from his perspective (see LAMNEK 1989, 78). Rauner distinguishes four different types of questions depending on the purpose: – The paraphrasing inquiry (the interviewer reflects the answer to initiate a content based reinforcement), – The technically accentuated inquiry (the interviewer poses a consolidating question based on a subject matter mentioned in the answer), – The social context accentuated inquiry (the interviewer poses a consolidating question based on the organisational, social and qualifying context of work), – The inquiry to verbalise emotionally experienced contents (the interviewer reflects emotionally experienced contents implicitly or explicitly mentioned in the answer (in the context of the occupational work) by verbalising them or asking the subject to verbalise them) according to Rauner (2001b, 254). Rauner (2001b) referred in a ↑ comparative study to the influence of the researchers’ technical qualification on the process of the interviews. The way inquiries are phrased is not only a response to the answers, but is also dependent on the technical
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background of the interviewer. This problem can be solved to a certain degree by the previously performed problem analysis, because the objectively logical structuring of the work contents represent terms of orientation and reference for the classification and examination of the collected data. Therefore, particular attention has to be paid to the preparation of the ↑ technical interview. For the ↑ performance of technical interviews characteristic situational conditions have to be secured for qualitative interviews. Lamneck summarises the necessary conditions: – The interviewee is to be informed about the sense, purpose and object of the interviews without provoking a predetermination of the content of the conversation. – Absolute confidentiality and anonymity are to be secured. – The language level and competence of the interviewee are decisive: scientific terminology is to be avoided. The interviewer adapts to the general language level of the subjects. – Although the interview is supposed to take place in a situation similar to a working day, the interviewer has always to consider that the situation is nevertheless particular and relatively uncommon, because the asymmetry between the participants of the interview is principally not cancelled out. (The interviewer tries to compensate for this asymmetry.) – The interviewer is reserved but interested and creates a non-judgemental situation. – The design of the interview process with regard to the content is predominantly influenced by the interviewee due to the methodological principles; his or her systems of relevance structure the object and the process. (see LAMNEK 1989, 103) (4) Evaluation of the Data The structure and process models, in which the work contents are represented, are either developed by the interviewees and the interviewers together in the course of the technical interview or after the technical interview by the interviewer. Aspects which were contributed by the subject and not recorded in advance during the problem analysis are inputs for modifying or extending the hypotheses and theories of the work content.
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The results are once again evaluated with the subject after the interview (after a pause of a few days) and, where appropriate, corrected. The pause can be used by the interviewer for the structuring data processing which helps to bring up further questions. For the subject the interruption is a chance to find a ↑ distance to the particular situation of the interview and to reflect or assess his or her statements in the context of his or her own concrete work. 5.2.1.3
Range and Critique of the Method
The technical interview is applied to more theorybased ↑ occupational research. The data is predominantly utilised in the scope of designing education: in the macro perspective, the analysis of the occupational development or the development of regulating instruments and, in the micro perspective, the design of occupationally or task related arrangements of the learning and teaching processes in the vocational and further training are based on the data. The evaluation is determined by the reference to the content within the work domain. The technical focus requires theoretical knowledge of the subject matter of the corresponding work domain to be investigated. With regard to the data processing, models have to be developed (process and structure models), which allow a concise illustration of the results and their application in the context of educational design. With the help of the ↑ technical interview, work contents, which the interviewee is aware of and which can be described by him or her, are registered. Due to the communication situation there are particular conditions which partly allow the interviewee to discover correlations and to develop broader cognitive structures (see MAYRING 1990, 47).
Research Methods
5.2.2
Action-Oriented Specialised Interviews Matthias Becker
5.2.2.1
Action-Oriented Specialised Interviews in Vocational Education Research
The term “specialised interview” is rather unknown in vocational ↑ educational research, although it is of central importance for ↑ research methods. Above all in social sciences, the form of the interview is widespread as a research method. Interviews are considered as one form of interview and are defined as either – Written or – Oral forms of interviews as well as – Standardised and – Open variants. Both written and oral surveys can be open or standardised. The best known written and standardised form of a survey is the questionnaire with fixed and predefined scales of answers. The oral and rather open forms of surveys, on the other hand, are called interviews. Specialised interviews are used in vocational educational research for the documentation of expert knowledge and are therefore often called “↑ expert interviews” (cf. DEEKE 1995) or – due to their form of dialogue – as “↑ expert conversations” (cf. RAUNER 1998b). This essay understands specialised interviews as a special kind of expert interview, which differs from forms of surveys in other ↑ research traditions by the determination of the area of objects and the interest for a deeper insight. What makes specialised interviews exceptional is the fact that the focus of the conversations is on the meaning of the contents for which the person to be interviewed is the „expert of the trade”. In vocational education and research, specialised interviews are therefore aimed at “collecting highly detailed information on the work contents important for (skilled) work as well as the respective qualification requirements and competence” (DRESCHER 1996, 9) .
This is achieved by a systematic and explorative conduct of the interview.
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↑ Action oriented ↑ specialized interviews are conducted on sites where the expert is not only able to reveal his or her knowledge but where this knowledge and its impact become explicitly evident: at the workplace, during the ↑ work process. In the context of pedagogical research Meuser and Nagel state that expert interviews altogether are about “the assessment of practice saturated expert knowledge, of the know-how of those who create the rules and routines according to which a social system reproduces itself …” (MEUSER / NAGEL 1997, 481). As
for a vocational educational research whose findings are focused on the contents of occupational work, the subject of the research method can be adequately described. However, it is not the reproduction of the social system that is important but the “characteristics of knowledge and skills oriented to the work reality which are reflected by the skilled worker by his or her actions, gestures and statements with regard to the object of work” (BECKER 2003, 48). They
form the focal point for the action-oriented specialised interviews. As a result, vocational educational research gains a deeper insight into the work processes and the necessary occupational competence. These interviews can be used especially for the shaping and the description of the contents of work oriented curricula. 5.2.2.2 History and Origin of ActionOriented Specialized Interviews The principles of action-oriented specialised interviews as a method of vocational educational research developed from the tradition of the work and occupation analysis in the 1950s. Riedel developed a semi-structured procedure for ↑ work analysis, which was used for the assessment of “core ↑ performances” and “fringe performances” of a certain kind of work. First of all he carried through surveys with the aid of a questionnaire and noticed that “a close cooperation between analyst and expert is the only possible way to obtain a precise definition of the occupational work requirements” (R IEDEL 1957, 21, Italics in the original version). The written
interview, therefore, was not enough to assess the character of occupational work. In order to delve deeper into the solution of the ↑ research methodological problem, “carefully structured conversations between the researcher and experts” (ibid.,
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22) were conducted. Therefore Riedel developed a scheme of questions which should help to guide the “conversation from secondary to primary issues” (ibid, 21). The scheme of questions was composed of four chapters for an analysis: – Delimitation of the task, – Characterisation of work, – Detailed exterior process, – Interior prerequisites (cf. ibid., 23 ff.). Riedel emphasized the importance of the interaction between researcher and the person to be interviewed by stressing that “apart from the observation of the work to be studied, a useful analysis also requires a continuous conversation between the analyst and the expert” (ibid 24). The realization of such a conver-
sation, which is no every-day chat and does not focus on the social context but on the objective work requirements, entails a lot of prerequisites. Such a conversation can only be successful as soon as – There is a guideline for questions adapted to and according to the objective of the survey (for Riedel this is the scheme of questions); – The researcher is able to conduct the conversation in a way that the contents of skilled work can be accessed in the necessary depth; – A number of framework conditions are adhered to in order to safeguard that the ↑ work tasks characterizing an occupation can be assessed validly and representatively in terms of contents. The first prerequisite for an action-oriented ↑ specialized interview characterizes this as a semistructured method. With the aid of guiding questions, this structurization ensures that the conversation contributes to the answering of the survey questions in a target-oriented way. The second prerequisite underlines the role of the researcher, who must have knowledge about the work and actions of the person to be interviewed in order to be able to “get satisfactory results from the surveys” (MOLLE 1965, 30 f.). The third prerequisite highlights the influence of the ↑ work processes in whose context the real requirements of competences have to be accessed. The latter prerequisite is often neglected as soon as interviews are carried out in another environment than the work place, which may sometimes be hard to access. This leads to a considerable weakening of the significance of specialized interviews and quite often to an inadmissible displacement of the objective area. Example:
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instead of the real skilled work, the work is only reflected as a model (e. g. by simulation) during the conversation. The principles of action-oriented specialised interviews have often been applied within the framework of research projects and ↑ pilot projects and have been adapted to the requirements of the respective ↑ research question and further developed. Nevertheless, they have so far only rarely been discussed as a systematic method of ↑ vocational educational sciences (cf. BECKER 2003, 39; RAUNER 2001b). Instead they were repeatedly (and by mistake) said to originate from social sciences or work sciences research. As for action- oriented specialised interviews some principles are valid which are also important for other ↑ research traditions and have partly been taken from them. In focussed interviews of social research (cf. HOPF 2000, 353 ff.), the guidelines for conversations plays an important role. The interviews are situated – as, e. g. in the ↑ studies of work – and thus require a “reflective ↑ context orientation of a generation of sense and an index of everyday statements and actions (BERGMANN, J. 2000, 127). The object of research is, however, completely different and the research aim is another one: a deeper insight with regard to the competence necessary for an occupation. Based on this research interest, ↑ action oriented specialized interviews were used to assess the required competence for the maintenance of electronical devices in networked production units (DRESCHER 1996), for the formulation of shaping requirements for occupational work with the introduction of technology in the chemical industry (NIETHAMMER 1995a, as knowledge analysis in a situative conversation, 82 ff.) and for a number of research projects in the car repair service sector (cf. among others BECKER 2003; SCHREIER 2001a; BECKER / HITZ / RAUNER / SPÖTTL 2002). 5.2.2.3 The “Context” as a Defining Element Specialised interviews are assigned a context, i.e. a coherence of situations and objects by their environment, the particular way of ↑ conducting a conversation, by the relationship structure between the person to be interviewed and the interviewer and above all by the addressed contents. Interviews are context related as soon as
Research Methods
– The environment corresponds to the “natural” environment of the person to be interviewed, – The way of conducting the conversation corresponds to the communication structures of the “↑ community of practice” of the person to be interviewed, – The relationship structure between the person to be interviewed and the interviewer is both on an equal footing and also marked by acceptance, curiosity and respect with regard to the expertise of the person to be interviewed, – The addressed contents can be discussed and analysed by both sides in terms of their structure of signification. If these characteristics do not apply, the interview is de-contextualised. ↑ Action oriented specialised interviews aim at a strong orientation to the context in order to get valid verbal data with respect to the contents. The workplace and the working environment gives sense to skilled work. The tools and methods to be applied there, the objects of work (customer, work order, technology, technical documentation and phenomena), the organisation and the objectively and subjectively perceived requirements for skilled work and technology generate the natural environment for the interview. Interviews of skilled workers and other experts of their trade with the help of communication structures which correspond to the scientific language or the communication routines of other domains inevitably lead to common places and reduce the interview to an everyday conversation. Thus a confectioner and a tool maker or a social scientist and a specialist information technician can talk to each other on everyday topics. However, they will not be able to lead conversations of specialised depth with regard to the domains of the others. This is of course also true if the researcher is “methodically trained”. Rauner (2001b) took a closer look at this by analysing the conduct of conversations by researchers. He evaluated conversation processes and identified four different variants of inquiries: (1) The paraphrasing inquiry: the interviewer repeats in his or her own words what has been stated by the person to be interviewed. This serves to keep the conversation going.
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(2) The specialised accentuated inquiry: the interviewer comments special issues in the answers in order to get a deeper insight into the coherences. (3) The inquiry accentuating the social context: the person to be interviewed is encouraged to keep on telling and explaining. (4) The inquiry to verbalise emotional experience contents, highlighting emotional experience contents (cf. ibid, 253 f.). The result of the study revealed that interviewers who are competent in the subject to be surveyed more often make use of the specialized inquiry. This results in a continuous deepening of the answers. Interviewers without special background or semi-professional interviewers (in terms of the specialised ↑ professionalisation of the person to be interviewed) rather rely on paraphrasing inquiries and on those emphasising the social context. This is due to the fact that the interviewer cannot keep track with the meaning of the answers while the person to be interviewed feels that he or she is not entirely understood and therefore only states lessprofound facts and subjects. The conversations necessarily remain “on the surface of any contents dimension of ↑ work processes” (ibid, 255). Hacker also observed these phenomena. As for methods for a knowledge ↑ diagnosis (↑ knowledge diagnosis) he basically assumes that “action knowledge is linked to a situation/context” (HACKER 1996, 13). Therefore the methods must make use of this dependence on contexts. With the help of numerous work scientific studies he proves that context related interviews yield more information than de-contextualised surveys. However, if the professionally competent interviewer belongs to the same ↑ practice community as the person to be interviewed, issues which are deemed self-evident are not addressed although they would be relevant for vocational educational topics. This is why Rauner suggests a supervision arrangement for certain ↑ research questions. This research team should be composed of vocational educationalists and “professional outsiders” in order to ensure a better control of the research process (cf. RAUNER 1998b, 26 f.). The structure of the relationship between interviewer and the person to be interviewed is crucial. Conversations with specialised depth can only be
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conducted if the person to be interviewed accepts the interviewer. The conditions for such conversation are improving with the degree of adequacy the researcher shows for the working environment of the skilled worker. This also includes the use of the special language spoken within the ↑ practice community (BECKER 2003, 60). If the interviewer acts in a way that could be deemed arrogant by the person to be interviewed, conversations become less deeper (ibid, 64). In his surveys, Spöttl has repeatedly noticed this fact and underlines the necessity of restraining the researcher’s own specialized competency during the interview (SPÖTTL 2000b, 215). The respect for the person to be interviewed and his or her occupational knowledge is a necessary prerequisite for the creation of an atmosphere of confidence and results in a higher willingness to make statements during the conversation. The specialized competency of a researcher should therefore be used to establish an atmosphere of confidence in a first phase. The researcher should be curious. His or her special know-how should be added successively for a deeper access to the facts. This process can also change into a common problem solving or experimenting phase (cf. MORITZ 1996). Hacker states similar arguments and assumes that the interviewed experts can also acquire knowledge through the research process if there are situations of dialogue as well as work and problem oriented situations which are (re)constructed by expertise for the survey (HACKER 1996, 19). 5.2.2.4 Concept and Application Conceptual hints can be deducted for the application of ↑ action oriented ↑ specialized interviews above all with the aid of findings on the context related abilities of experts of skilled work. An important hint is undoubtedly that they can only be carried through by closely combining the monitoring of the actions during the ↑ work process. Specialised interviews conducted outside the working environment and the work processes cannot discuss situative action. In such a de-contextualised environment only explicit knowledge characteristics can be discussed. ↑ Practical knowledge which is crucial for the mastership can only be adequately made the object of interviews if the work reality is perceived and involved in the con-
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versation from the perspective of the skilled worker. Therefore the observation of work is an important starting point for a conversation. Furthermore the realisation of action oriented specialised interviews requires a lot of time. According to experiences made by the author, at least three to four hours are necessary to analyse important work processes and coherences. About eight hours are required to assess the competency requirements for an occupational work task and several days are necessary to adequately access skill and knowledge characteristics for the coping of occupational problems. Practical research hints for conducting action-oriented specialised interviews: – The starting point is the question or the hypothesis for the survey leading to the ↑ central question for an interview guideline. – Action-oriented specialised interviews are normally used as one out of several methods within the framework of ↑ work process studies (cf. BECKER 2004, 170). They have to be conceived based on a ↑ research design. – Interviews are normally carried out within the framework of case studies and have to be coordinated with further methods (work observance, task analyses, accompanying an order processing, visits to companies). – Prior to the interviews the researcher should get acquainted with the working environment through a visit to the respective company. After this the researcher and the person(s) to be interviewed should get to know each other and discuss the purpose of the interview. – The interview takes place during the coping with ↑ work tasks. One after the other the central questions set down in the interview guideline are discussed – always in connection with the current ↑ work tasks. The person to be interviewed is motivated to think aloud (cf. DUNCKER 1966). During the ↑ performance of work actions, unclear and misunderstood facts are clarified via inquiries. This leads to an objectivation of subjective observances and interpretations (a procedure of context oriented ↑ objectification, cf. BECKER 2003, 62). Examples for the formulation of ↑ central questions can be taken from “BIBB-Dienstleistungsstudie” ( SPÖTTL / HECKER / HOLM / WINDELBAND 2003, 210 ff.).
Research Methods
– Variants of the interviews can develop by accompanying a work order involving several persons and several experts (group interviews). The latter variant is especially recommended for the analysis of more complex occupational problems. – Recording all interviews is recommended. The interviewer has to make sure that apart from the approval of the person to be interviewed there is a relaxed conversation atmosphere (cf. HERMANNS 2000). The transcript of entire interviews should be the exception as a target oriented evaluation with the help of an interview guideline is much more efficient. The evaluation should be done immediately after the interview in order to safeguard the “presence” of the conversations and the related work actions. This is especially true if the person to be interviewed has refused a recording and the interviewer has to set up a protocol from memory.
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quate wherever deeper insights into the knowledge incorporated in ↑ work processes are required. As for a superficial assessment of occupational ↑ work tasks, e. g. ranges of work tasks which are characteristic for a company, a sector or an occupation, other methods – such as a data base aided ↑ work analysis are more effective and significant because they allow to quantify statements on the importance of work tasks. On the other hand actionoriented specialised interviews are crucial for the survey of action guiding knowledge and occupational competence which are used and further developed within the framework of the coping with these tasks.
5.2.3
5.2.2.5 Criticism Open interviews are generally subject to criticism as they are qualitative methods and differ widely from the classical ↑ quality criteria of the empirical ↑ research methods (↑ objectivity, validity, reliability, utility). The operationalisation necessary for the determination of such criteria has so far not been successfully achieved and does partly not make sense. Nevertheless the safeguarding of action-oriented specialised interviews is necessary and can be achieved. A careful imbedding into the ↑ research design is recommended by taking into consideration and revising the findings from and by ↑ sector analyses, case studies and expertskilled-worker workshops (Expert-Skilled WorkerWorkshops, → 5.2.4). This ↑ triangulation contributes to the validation of the results by its complementarity. In addition the shaping of the method itself (by a context oriented objectivation, see above) helps to reach a validation of the contents. Nevertheless the development of quality criteria for action-oriented specialised interviews remains an important task for the future. Another aspect of action-oriented interviews is the adequacy of operating expense. Great demands are made on the specialised competency and the methodological knowledge of the researcher. Therefore action-oriented specialised interviews are ade-
Task Analysis in Vocational Science Peter Röben
5.2.3.1
Explanation of Terms
An analysis of vocational work for the purpose of developing occupational curricula (see RÖBEN 2004b) must be based on the actual work process (→ 3.6), see BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002) and also has to take its embeddeness within the organisation (company) and society into consideration. An analysis of the work process brings to light the empirically accessible aspects of an individual’s work (see ROGALSKI 2004). In order to grasp the significance of these aspects, however, they must be reflected upon against the background of the entire work process, i.e. against the background of the dynamic and static work organisation (organisational procedures and structure of the company) and societal influences on work (regulations, laws, standards, etc.). ↑ Work analysis must therefore distinguish between the conditions for ↑ performance of the work (context characteristics) and work content (content characteristics) (see HACKER 1995, 23; NORROS / NUUTINEN 2002, 29). In the following the focus is on the tasks as the structure of vocational work in which the aspects of the simple ↑ work process are placed in the context of modern vocational work. This means that
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the relationship between objective conditions of work and subjective forms and content of work is examined. “A task exists when a subject notionally anticipates the achievement of a goal under given conditions and is aware of the necessity of achieving this goal. Thus one examines the individual activity in the task from the viewpoint of its beginning and anticipates the goal in its unfolded form. In this sense tasks are unfolded goals…” (SEIDEL 1976, 54, cited according to FISCHER 1995b, 126).
The realisation of the necessity of achieving the goal presumes that the subject is aware of the inadequacy of the given state. Unfolding the goals means that the way to reaching the final state striven for is mentally outlined using the means available. These two aspects of the task, awareness of the inadequacy of the given state and mental anticipation of the use of the means available, make it a suitable structural element for grasping vocational work in a form that is less subjected to the constant technical and organisational processes of change than the tools employed and working environments. This means that an empirical analysis of vocational work concentrates on those structures in the empirical reality of work that are less affected by the so-called half-life of knowledge: in contrast to the rapid change of the technical elements of the work system, the goals to be achieved through the technical means as utility values are not subjected to such swift change. 5.2.3.2 On the Genesis of Task Analysis ↑ Task analysis in German ↑ vocational science developed in the wake of ↑ training research whose results are intended to be beneficial for the development of occupations and job outlines. In the 1960s the development of job outlines solely by means of consulting experts was criticized (see PFEUFFER 1972, 6) and methods were developed and detailed for empirical ↑ studies of work (K IRCHNER / ROHMERT 1973; FERNER 1973; MOLLE 1965; FERNER / GÄRTNER /K RISCHOK / STOLZE 1979; PORNSCHLEGEL 1967). These work analyses based on vocational ↑ training research and conducted in the 1960s and 1970s were in part task analyses oriented to job analyses (see FERNER 1973; LÖNS 1975; PFEUFFER 1975) which viewed an occupation as a set of characteristics that were clearly differentiated from
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each other. These characteristics comprised skills and know-how clearly allocated to these skills (see the example of measuring work in → 3.4.1). This type of ↑ work analysis was stimulated by the psychological work analysis method PAQ (Position Analysis Questionnaire), which is based on the following prerequisites: “(1) There is a fixed correspondence between the task and work behaviour so that the same occupational demand always triggers the same behaviour. (2) Human labour is broken down into basic units or work elements that can be comprehended and analyzed through expert judgment” (FISCHBACH / NULLMEIER 1983, 63 f.).
Fischbach and Nullmeier (1983) show what mistakes this type of work analysis can lead to using the example of the item of “use of keyboards”: this encompasses piano players, secretaries as well as CAD programmers. However, the observed activity of operating a keyboard cannot be separated from the task that the observed person carries out. The behaviourist ideal of measurability through natural science and a concept of behaviour based on this lead the observer away from the (in a behaviourist sense non-measurable) intellectual connection between the (measurable) individual operations and lead him to unimportant aspects of work execution, such as the (measurable) use of the keyboard for such different purposes as programming, writing dictation or playing music. From the point of view of ↑ task analysis in ↑ vocational science the context important for learning is destroyed by this topological or set-theoretical approach (see, for example, RIEDEL 1962, 19, who compares work analysis in the sense of job analysis to work analysis oriented to industrial education). Molle notes that “when observing a working person […], it [is] especially important – this was frequently overlooked in workplace analyses – that the researcher also recognizes what thinking work (considering, deciding, evaluating, connecting thoughts, etc.) the worker has to perform” (MOLLE 1965, 43).
The studies conducted on the knowledge of skilled workers (e. g. PFEUFFER 1972) regard this knowledge as items that may exist or may not exist: such as knowledge of types of cables and lines, of circuit diagrams, interconnection diagrams, etc. (PFEUFFER 1972, Annex).
Research Methods
The idea of isolated imparting of abilities and skills relevant to the work found its expression in such things as teaching workshops remote from work in which, for example, metalwork was reduced to isolated skills, such as filing, turning, planning, milling, measuring, marking, etc., according to the “Basic course in metalwork” model. In the 1970s this behaviourist approach already underwent criticism on the part of industrial psychology, based on the action regulation theory. According to this theory, putting together pianists, secretaries and CAD programmers must be criticised because these three activities are equated in terms of an operation (of the representational level of performing an action: in this case operating a keyboard), as a result of which the higher levels of the action regulation are ignored. The concept of task contains two meanings that both play a major role for work analysis. In Seidel’s statement quoted at the beginning the subjective side is emphasized: a task can therefore be viewed as a responsibility (→ 3.4.2). The other meaning of task comprises the objective side: a task as a work order. The company or social division of labour manifests itself in the form of tasks that are assigned to the holder of a certain job as a work order, as an instruction or are specified in the job description (for an analysis of skilled work on the basis of work orders and tasks, see HÄGELE 2001). 5.2.3.3 Formulation and Methods of Task Analysis in the Context of Different Research Traditions In industrial psychology the job assigned by the company organisation to the individual, who interprets or takes it on “as a task”, is “the central category of a psychological job analysis” (HACKER 1986a, 61). Because of its objective and subjective side, the job assignment represents a significant interface between the technical and organisational requirements of the company, on the one hand, and the abilities and qualifications of the people, on the other hand (see DUNCKEL / VOLPERT 1997). In the MTO concept (an important socio-technical shaping approach in industrial science, see ULICH 2001, 83 ff.) one even starts out from the primacy of the job assignment that is attached to it because of its
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linking of the social and technical subsystem (ibid, 190 f.). The transition from the work order to the task means that the skilled worker makes a demand coming from the outside his own and has transformed it into a goal of his ↑ work process. Hacker states that tasks are subjectively interpreted or “redefined” by the performer (HACKER 1986a, 61 ff.). Viewed in this way, work contexts go into the definition of ↑ occupational tasks and this definition thus becomes a culmination point for learning processes in the medium of work. In terms of its structure the concept of a task resembles the concept of a problem and to differentiate between the two concepts, a task will be referred to here when at least the initial state, the expected result and work steps (also designated as methods) are known to the performer. In contrast to this, a characteristic of a problem is that the methods for its solution are not known initially. Of course, problems are part of the everyday work carried out by a skilled worker. Problems are phenomena that may and, as a rule, do occur during the ↑ performance of a task, but they themselves are usually not part of the task. The methods of industrial psychology ↑ task analysis applied to examine the structure and sequence of tasks (e. g. heterarchic task analysis, contrastive task analysis in the office and administration sector, regulation obstacles in the working world, task inventory, methods for determining regulation requirements in work; all in DUNCKEL 1999) are based on the action regulation theory. On the basis of scientific experience with the shaping of tasks that go back to the beginning of the last century (see, for example, the definition of task in HELLPACH 1922), the normative construct of a complete task was developed in industrial psychology as the ideal of a task (HELLPACH 1922, 27; RICE 1958; EMERY 1959; TOMASZEWSKI 1981; HACKER 1986a; VOLPERT 1987c; for criticism see FISCHER 1995b, 125 ff.). Ulich summarises the characteristics of a complete task as follows: “(1) Independently setting goals that can be embedded in higher-ranking goals, (2) independent preparation of actions in the sense of assuming planning functions,
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(3) selection of the means, including the necessary interactions for appropriate achievement of goals, (4) execution functions with workflow feedback for necessary correction of actions, (5) monitoring with feedback on results and the opportunity of checking the results of one’s own actions for accordance with the set goals” (ULICH 2001, 201).
5.2.3.4 Problems and Development Perspectives In this definition of tasks ↑ vocational science research is faced with the problem that the concept not only encompasses occupational tasks, but also tasks that can be allocated to the area of worker training, among others. Furthermore, this concept of task proves to be inadequate for a curricular access to work, as is demanded by the learning field concept, for example, in that it does not provide a criterion for a meaningful selection of occupational tasks that matches the curricular specifications. Therefore, it is necessary to further develop the concept of task for ↑ curriculum development. In the GAB ↑ pilot project (see BREMER 2004b) a new method of task analysis (based on ↑ expert/ skilled worker workshops, → 5.2.4) was developed and tested for this reason. This method is based on the normative stipulation that work in an occupation can be characterized by an ensemble of 15 to 20 tasks (see BREMER / RAUNER / RÖBEN 2001; RAUNER 2004c). This demand not only means that the scope and hierarchy of the regulation requirements for performing the task are specified, but also that criteria are provided for the selection of content (a detailed description of the method can be found in K LEINER / RAUNER / REINHOLD / RÖBEN 2002; for the curriculum concept on which the analysis is based see RAUNER 1999a). In addition to the outer structure, the concept of the characteristic ↑ occupational task to be developed here entails content-related requirements, requirements that usually can be met only if vocational training has taken place. The concept of task to be established in ↑ vocational science goes beyond the industrial psychology concept in that the occupational task is closely linked to the construct of occupation and is based on curricular work.
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5.2.3.5 Method of Task Analysis The requirements of ↑ curriculum development for the so-called core occupations leads to requirements placed on the empirical study, e. g. in the selection of skilled workers who adequately represent the occupational task fields belonging to every core occupation and supply the content for the tasks in so-called ↑ expert/skilled worker workshops (→ 5.2.4). A participative method of ↑ task analysis is employed in these workshops. Starting from the personal experiences of the participants, first of all individual occupational biographies are ascertained. For each stage of vocational development regarded as important by the participants the most important tasks are collected and assessed in terms of their significance for the participants’ own personal development. Through this step the concept of task as a description of one’s work is introduced into the workshop. In the further course of the workshop the current tasks of the participants are initially recorded in the form of individual lists (in the parlance of the expert/skilled worker workshops: examples of occupational tasks). In group work the participants draw up representative lists, which contain typical tasks for this occupation and their context, from these individual lists. In the plenum of the workshop the results of the group work are presented and discussed. The aim is to work up a list of characteristic occupational tasks that correctly describes the skilled work of the participants represented in the plenum (K LEINER / RAUNER / REINHOLD / RÖBEN 2002, 31 ff.). This method of task analysis utilizes the ↑ work process knowledge of the skilled work without explicating it since the work process knowledge of the participants goes into the lists of tasks drawn up by them as action knowledge. By regarding certain tasks and company contexts as significant and others as not significant, they apply a knowledge from the company context of their work that is not easily accessible to the moderator of the workshop. Directing group work with the help of group work and plenum discussion requires from the workshop moderator that he or she get the participants to explicate, justify and complete their individual views
Research Methods
so the workshop can function as a tool for empirical data collection. The ↑ empirical knowledge of the participants is also made use of in evaluating the tasks found in terms of their degree of requirement for novices, skilled workers and occupational experts. After all, most participants are familiar with the requirements connected with the tasks from their own experience as well as from the observation of novices in their area of work. This knowledge develops into rules in the ↑ community of practice of the respective area of work that are based on the assignment of tasks to new employees. This knowledge of rules on the part of the participants is utilized in task analysis in vocational science to obtain an evaluation of the tasks found for the development path from beginner to expert (K LEINER / RAUNER / REINHOLD / RÖBEN 2002, 36). Company expert skilled workers are familiarized with the learning areas 1 to 4 ((1) orientation and overview knowledge, (2) context knowledge, (3) detailed and functional knowledge, (4) experience-based, subject-related in-depth knowledge) to the extent that they are able allocate the tasks found by them to these areas. This method has a certain similarity to the psychological methods of the structure handsorting technique. The intention is not to train the participants to become didactic experts during the workshop, but the grid of learning areas serves to provide the participants with a structure enabling them to put the tasks found in a sequence. The result of the sequence achieved in the workshop is underpinned by another method. The participants receive a questionnaire with a matrix that contains a row of statements in the first column, such as “↑ Performance of the task is often bound up with high time and cost pressure”. These statements are designed such that each of them can be allocated to one of the four learning areas. The other columns of the matrix contain the numbers of the tasks found in the workshop as captions and the remaining cells of the matrix have to be filled out by the participants (see K LEINER / RAUNER / REINHOLD / RÖBEN 2002, 66 ff., the detailed approach is documented here). Each characteristic ↑ occupational task is thus linked to each statement by a + (applies), – (does not apply) or a 0
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(clear allocation not possible) and the tasks can be arranged along the structure defined by the learning areas in this way. The ↑ task analysis conducted in the workshop must be complemented by further steps (→ 5.2.4; K LEINER / RAUNER / REINHOLD / RÖBEN 2002, 74 ff.) and is extended in the course of ↑ curriculum development to include the process of constructing learning and ↑ work tasks on the basis of the characteristic occupational tasks collected in the workshop. Both processes, that of curriculum construction as well as task analysis, must be seen in connection with each other and are based on the concept of competence development through the shaping of vocational training processes according to development logic (see RAUNER 1999a; BREMER / RAUNER / RÖBEN 2001). 5.2.3.6 Selected Empirical Research Results The results gained through the ↑ expert/skilled worker workshops in the GAB project are documented in Rauner/ Schön/ Gerlach and Reinhold 2001 (industrial electronics technicians); Rauner/ Haasler
2001
(toolmakers);
Rauner/
Kleiner and Meyer 2001 (industrial mechanics); Rauner/ Bremer 2001. Up to now task analysis has been used to develop vocational training curricula and design learning fields, though current applications can also be found in European research and further training in Germany. The subject-independent and decontextualized form of representation achieved in the workshops was extended to include a process of recontextualisation (occupational task experience) with which teachers and trainers can identify the characteristic occupational tasks in a company department.
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5.2.4
Expert Skilled Worker Workshops Georg Spöttl
5.2.4.1
Expert Skilled Worker Workshops – Delimitation of the Term
There is consensus in ↑ vocational educational science that – the identification of the knowledge and skills of skilled workers and – the investigation of qualification development in relevant ↑ research fields must be accelerated in order to close the research gap which has been existent for many years (cf. FENGER 1968, 335). Expert Skilled Worker Workshops (ESWW) as an empirically oriented research instrument may considerably contribute to closing this gap. The comprehensive objective of ESWW is to contribute to the vocational educational scientific discussion of the dimensions of vocational education and training, work and technology and to improve the range of ↑ qualification research with convincing links to vocational education and training. Other ↑ research approaches such as the comprehensively established qualitative social-scientific research, do not pursue an objective as it would be required for vocational education and training (see BÜCHTER 1999, 12 ff.) in order to identify the knowledge and skills anchored in practical work tasks. “If we succeed in gaining access to this kind of knowledge, the respective findings will have a revolutionary impact on curriculum research and development” (SPÖTTL 2000b, 207).
A crucial fact for gaining this access is the skilled worker – the human being – in the ↑ work process and the challenges he/she is facing. This implies a discussion of all work relevant contents necessary for a ↑ profession and which have to be kept in mind during competency development considerations. As early as the 1980s, Bob Norton had already underlined the notion that it made sense to involve skilled workers in the further development of “their” jobs: “expert workers can describe and define their job/occupation more accurately than an-
yone else” (NORTON 1997, 1 f.). This statement was based on diverse experiences with the application of a set of instruments developed and optimised by Norton: “↑ Developing a Curriculum” (DACUM) (SAMUELSON / LIMING / WARMBROD 1987; NORTON 1997). The roots of the DACUM procedure date back to 1964 when it was first applied in Canada (cf. COLLIN 1999, 16). Within the context of European vocational education and studies in the automotive sector (RAUNER / SPÖTTL 1995b) carried through in the early 1990s the question arose as to how knowledge and skills of skilled workers may be accessed and how the characteristic coherences within an occupation could be made the object of the shaping of curricula (RAUNER / SPÖTTL 1995a). These challenges resulted in a differentiated vocational ↑ educational research concept which was starting to apply ↑ expert skilled worker workshops as a methodical instrument in order to find out “which work tasks can only be coped and efficiently mastered after a professional experience of many years and which work tasks could already be dealt with by beginners. Eventually all work tasks have to be assessed which provide an answer to the question why something is exactly the way it is” (SPÖTTL 2000b, 214; cf. R AUNER 1997).
The recently published dissertation of Kleiner further develops the ESWW towards methodical instruments for the vocational educational scientific ↑ qualification research (K LEINER 2004). 5.2.4.2 Genesis of the Method within the Context of Vocational Educational Scientific Research The experts joined together in ESWW excel “because their occupational career, their professional competency and their current work tasks give them an experience and knowledge background which is well suitable for the identification of current and future oriented work coherences” (BREMER / R AUNER / RÖBEN 2001, 218).
Experiences made so far with ESWW prove that the above mentioned objectives can be attained. ESWW have already played an important role at an early stage of the still young vocational educational research. The very first surveys into the European ↑ occupational profile of a “car mechatronic” carried through in 1994 already showed that interviewing car mechatronics with the help of a ques-
Research Methods
tionnaire or an interview resulted in very questionable findings (cf. RAUNER / SPÖTTL 1995a). Due to the insights gained from anonymous surveys the participating researchers (among them the author) concluded that the target groups at best gave only some hints on qualification deficits and special challenges when they were given questionnaires with both open and closed questions. A number of explications can be given. On the one hand it is the systemic technology, above all the ↑ diagnosis technology, which can no longer be accessed at shop-floor level. This is why a description of problems becomes more difficult. “This modern technology is a systemic technology. It requires working with terms describing the systems, terms which have to be dealt with mentally, i.e. with a comprehensive theory, not only with formulas or even perceptions” (GRONWALD 1993a).
It is obvious that the challenges immanent in this technology cannot be thoroughly determined with the help of questionnaires or standardized interviews as the contents are too complex. Another problem may be the fact that the construction of questionnaires and key questions in this phase of surveys were still more closely oriented towards procedures of the qualitative social sciences. Thus the details of development and the challenges for work and technology could not be adequately assessed. The ↑ decoding of the knowledge and skills incorporated in professional work was not possible at all. The numerous variants of qualitative interviews were not crowned with success either (cf. HOPF 2000, 350 f.) as the work contents dealt with by the skilled workers are too specific to be assessed by instruments and methods aimed at general system structures or ↑ socio-technological systems. According to ↑ ethnography (cf. LÜDERS 2003, 384 ff.) it was obvious that they needed to take into account the participating observation in the sense of a flexible ↑ research strategy (ibidem 393). This required adapting to the respective situative situations. “This also implies that the researcher must be able to adapt his/her methodical proceedings and to maintain the balance of a cognitive interest and situative requirements” (LÜDERS 2003).
Becker and Isermann (1997, 18 f.) and Becker (2003) question this very approach. They presume that concrete work contents and their complexity
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can only be accessed as soon as the researchers are familiar with the concrete work contents and the tools of work, i.e. if they are able to break down a domain such as skilled work (e. g. in the automotive sector, the recycling sector, chip removal etc.). ↑ Ethnography on the other hand postulates that: “the research practice is highly influenced by the social environment and the situations, characterized by the participating subjects, their ways and conditions of life (…)” (LÜDERS 2003, 393).
This rather proves the need for a “double role” of the researchers: on the one hand they are supposed to delve into the existing milieu, i.e. to break down a domain, whereas on the other hand they must not loose track of the interests of the participating subjects. This highly acceptable reality of research practice and the insight that established social and work scientific assessment and interview procedures can scarcely completely tap: – the acting mechanisms internalised by skilled workers, – the knowledge and skills internalised by skilled workers as well as – the experience knowledge acquired by skilled workers, which all led to the development of new ↑ research methods. These were supposed to open up skilled work and ↑ domain specific knowledge and skills which are characteristic for a certain ↑ profession. Furthermore it was necessary to determine the work-process-oriented training contents for ↑ curriculum development for skilled workers (cf. SPÖTTL 2000b; RAUNER /K LEINER 2004, 123). One of the most promising methods are the so-called “action-oriented ↑ expert interviews” (→ 5.2.2) and the ↑ expert skilled worker workshops. The first are above all applied for a direct work observation and the reflection of work situations. The latter are applied in order to promote the readiness of the skilled workers to provide information on factual challenges and the required acting knowledge, the knowledge and skills. The objective is to understand the acting of an expert, more precisely the objective “if-then-correlations” (if I do this, exactly that and that happens because …)” as well as subjective assumptions. The insight that modern occupations require a fine structure of skilled worker acting, the knowledge
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Tab. 1: Core Work Processes of a Car Mechatronic (R AUNER /SPÖTTL 1995b).
of concrete ↑ work processes and contents in the respective relevant context and the objective “↑ tacit” knowledge of skilled workers on the shop-floor level resulted in the development of the ESWW method. 5.2.4.3 The “Context” of Expert Skilled Workers Workshops The work coherences characteristic for a certain occupation which are at the same time suitable for the development of occupational competency are identified and formulated with the help of ESWW (cf. DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1987; BENNER 1997). Another step is their curricular structurization as the basis for competence development. The formulation of the ↑ work tasks and their sensible coherence calls for an analysis of the objective facts, of the context constituting a certain occupation, i.e. the variety of: – The objects of vocational skilled work, – The tools, methods and forms of organisation, – The requirements for skilled work and technology
which have to be precisely determined. This can be realized via the identification and formalization of work tasks which are important for competency development. Two procedures have emerged. The procedure practised by the group of researchers Bremer, Rauner and Röben (2001) and Rauner and Kleiner (2004) only concentrates on the workshop itself and focus on ↑ group discussions as an identification procedure (K LEINER 2004, 84 ff.). Based on the occupational career of the participants (occupational biography) those tasks are identified that were and still are important for each skilled worker. Subsequently, characteristic work tasks are worked out in group and plenary sessions, they are then structured and condensed into ↑ occupational profiles. Havighurst (1972) calls these tasks ↑ development tasks. Another procedure, represented by Spöttl (2000b) and Becker and Spöttl (BECKER / SPÖTTL 2001a) aims at the identification of work tasks via ↑ work process studies at the shop-floor level. The identification of “paradigmatic work tasks” – named paradigmatic cases by Benner (BENNER 1997, 31) – which unify practical and theoretical knowledge based
Research Methods
on experience can thus be better safeguarded by this procedure compared to the first approach as the researchers are firmly involved in the “practical life” of their target groups. In an ↑ ESWW the identified ↑ work tasks are evaluated, clustered and structured in order to form the basis for the ↑ occupational profile and for ↑ curriculum development. In this case ESWW are very suitable methodological instruments for the precise and accurate formulation and the curricular structurization of the work tasks. The chance of ESWW lies in the fact that expert skilled workers are able to assess the identified ↑ work processes. They can specify the developed work tasks in terms of “important work tasks” (paradigmatic work tasks) and they can structurized them for competency development. Occupational work tasks are important as soon as they – Are characteristic for the respective occupation, i.e. point to reasonable work coherences rather than to abstract tasks, skills or actions; – Encourage learning in order to challenge occupational competence development by concentrating on the comprehensive work process as a core of learning encouragement; – Enable a systematisation of occupational learning in terms of development of occupational acting competence; – Are designed in a way that they also contain future occupational developments (cf. RAUNER / K LEINER 2004, 118 f.). ESWW eventually help to decode the knowledge and skills incorporated in skilled and occupational work and can thus be referred to as an important part of a ↑ domain specific ↑ qualification research. This is underpinned by an exact description of current skilled work in the form of occupational work tasks which are embedded in corporate business and work processes. Their assignment to learning fields structured into levels of competence development from the novice to the expert represents at the same time the basis for curriculum development (cf. K LEINER 2004, 89). Contrary to work psychology and work science, individual tasks or ↑ performances are not analysed and transferred to a curriculum but are tasks in terms of a complete action.
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5.2.4.4
Concepts and Implementation of the Method
The more comprehensive procedure based on work processes will be discussed in detail below. A one-day expert skilled worker workshop should involve around 7 to 9 expert skilled workers. They should – Represent an occupation which is to be further developed in a skilled and biographical way; – Be able to critically and perspectively describe, evaluate and systematize their current (occupational) skilled work and to develop new ideas for occupations; – Reflect their own initial and further occupational training in the context of the change of work tasks. The majority of the experts should still be actively involved in the respective skilled work, i.e. they should still be productively active. Another smaller part of the group should come from the indirect domain and should work as master craftsmen, trainer or technician. At least one of the researchers organizing the workshop must have a relevant vocational educational scientific formation and an adequate occupational biography. Just one out of the two prerequisites is not enough. Without a vocational educational scientific formation there is no access to issues of vocational education resulting in the fact that important vocational educational scientific coherences cannot be perceived. In case of a lack of a clear-cut vocational biography the researcher cannot entirely understand the language and the contents of the skilled work(ers). The second researcher should at least have one of the required qualifications, at best both of them, and should at the same time be an experienced facilitator. The course of the workshop should be stimulated by the inspiration and impulses of both the researchers and the workshop participants. Preset “theoretical” specifications should not be provided. Pre-structured papers or lectures of different configurations as an introduction should also be avoided. It is important that the researchers provoke the conversations, the statements, the explanations with the aid of context-oriented questions and by questions formulated in the language of the skilled workers. The researchers should not be in the focus of the conversations. The experts
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are the ones who are to talk and to explain whereas the researchers give impulses, summarize, ask back. The structuring of the content and the ↑ work tasks is the predominant ↑ performance by the experts. They are the only ones who can construct a development logical ranking as they well remember how they have learned – and are still learning – their trade. The researchers must flawlessly provide the instruments, the materials for documentation, the changing of the sequences, additions and specifications. Only if the researchers and the experts act at the same level and speak the same language, the results of the experts will turn out in a way that the corporate work coherences, work contents and work tasks are realistically mirrored. 5.2.4.5 Course of an ESWW (cf. Spöttl 2000b, 216) – Explanation of the aim of the workshop and of the working methods. – Presentation of the researchers and the workshop participants (very suitable are methods to promote communication). – Identification, selection and formulation of occupational work tasks which were previously identified with the aid of ↑ work process studies. Important: work tasks must represent work coherences and must be relevant for a specific occupation (a variety of methods is recommended). – Precise formulation and structurization of the work tasks as well as their grouping according to development logical principles. – Evaluation of the work tasks with respect to a specific occupation. As a result, all characteristic work coherences and their qualificational requirements for a specific ↑ occupational profile should be identified. A preliminary differentiation of the work tasks according to their special relevance is recommended. This can, however, also be done during one of the subsequent work phases. One of the most important prerequisites for a successful workshop is an atmosphere marked by confidence and creativity, thus encouraging all participating expert skilled workers to contribute their entire experience and competency to the analysis process. This is why a successful facilitation of the workshop is crucial. It should not only provide a
Handbook of TVET Research
positive atmosphere but should also make skilful use of the various facilitation methods for safeguarding the documentation of the results. The further course of the ↑ ESWW should focus on the evaluation, weighting and final grouping of the work tasks. In order to be able to evaluate and group the existing work tasks they will be presented on a list and the following questions should be answered: – How does the respective task occur in everyday life? – How difficult is it to perform these tasks in a qualified and effective way? According to the result of the evaluation the work tasks are comparatively precisely assigned to four groups and are internally sorted. The structurization corresponds to four levels (cf. SPÖTTL 1995, 70 f.): – Orientation and overview knowledge. – Coherent knowledge. – Detailed and functional knowledge. – Specialized skilled deepened knowledge. The evaluation of the degree of difficulty and the subjective appreciation of the experts is used to arrange the work tasks into a training-logical ranking and to assign them to the four levels. In case of tasks with an outreach into several fields of work tasks the experts must decide on their assignment according to training logical considerations in order to define their quantity and their quality for a vocational educational plan. 5.2.4.6
Scope and Criticism
Work tasks should be clustered, structured and evaluated according to the criteria set by the modern occupations and with the aid of ↑ ESWW. Thus the results clearly differ from ↑ DACUM which is based on the American job understanding and assigns little or no importance at all to a structurization of work tasks. Nevertheless it has to be stated that the theories of vocational work tasks which have been developed so far as a basis for development logical curriculum are only rudimentarily available. The concepts and definitions, which can be accessed so far still have to be considerably differentiated. Above all bridges must be built towards ↑ didactical concepts in order to safeguard a work oriented vocational education by didacti-
Research Methods
cal theories and the corresponding educational objectives.
5.2.5
Knowledge Diagnosis Winfried Hacker
5.2.5.1
Knowledge, Data, Information
There are different points of view about how to define and subdivide knowledge. This is mainly due to the differing approaches of several disciplines and the various levels of consideration, i.e. of organisations, teams and individuals (RYLE 1969). Further, knowledge is simultaneously a resource of ↑ performance, an action-regulating mental representation and a result of intentional or casual activities, which generate knowledge (TUOMI 1999). From the point of view of Cognitive Psychology, knowledge is the result of the uptake, processing and storage of information in the memories of individuals. It regulates activity and is developed in activity. Data and information on the other hand exist outside human memory. Data are fixed facts which are not integrated in meaningful relationships. Information will develop if connections between data are identified, meaning is attributed and, thus, uncertainty is reduced. Information becomes knowledge by selection for it and its combination and evaluation in human memory (DAVENPORT / PRUSAK 1998); for the circular relationship of data, information and knowledge cf. (CLASES 2003). 5.2.5.2 Kinds of Knowledge There are differing proposals concerning the subdivision of knowledge, too, which are mainly presented separately one from another depending on the intentions of the relevant classification. Knowledge inter alia is classified following its various contents, its mental consciousness or its dissemination: Concerning knowledge content the distinction of knowledge about states versus about changes (KLIX 1988) is widespread, similar to that of declarative knowledge about facts vs. procedural knowledge
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about processes (ANDERSON 1995a) or “knowing what” vs. “knowing how”. Concerning the consciousness of knowledge and, thus, the possibility of its ↑ verbalisation and consequently of elicitation by interviews or questionnaires, explicit knowledge which may be verbalised by applying concepts or symbols is distinguished from ↑ implicit knowledge which is effective in actions but maybe not (or no longer) put into words. Again this distinction is presented in several versions. Occasionally implicit knowledge is dealt with in terms of experience, ↑ tacit knowledge or competence (BÖHLE / ROSE 1992; BÜSSING / HERBIG 2003b; ERAUT 2000a). It is important to realise that these versions do not exclude or contradict one another; there are various relationships. Implicit knowledge may develop implicitly from the outset or may be generated by routinisation of former explicit knowledge (proceduralisation; mental automation; development of ↑ skills). In the reverse case the explication of implicit knowledge is a difficult issue of knowledge elicitation (cf. following sections). Concerning the explicit knowledge about facts and procedures this knowledge may additionally be knowledge about one’s own knowledge, the metaknowledge, or knowledge about the knowledge of other persons, the transactional knowledge (WEGNER 1986). Concerning the implicit knowledge of facts and procedures the existence of meta- knowledge is not discussed in literature so far. Declarative explicit meta-knowledge, for example, may be knowledge of the reliability of the sources of information/knowledge used in one’s own activity. Procedural explicit meta-knowledge for example may be knowledge on the degree of one’s own command of a skill. As to knowledge dissemination, for example, private vs. societal or public knowledge is mentioned. Finally knowledge occasionally is classified following its type of existence. It may exist as a statement on contents of own memory or can exist tacitly in the mode of action-regulation. Here similarities with the mentioned distinction between explicit and implicit knowledge are given.
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5.2.5.3 Diagnosis of Knowledge, Especially of Action-Regulating Knowledge The manifold conceptions of knowledge determine manifold interpretations of what “↑ diagnosis of knowledge” means. Generally diagnosis means the identification of the characteristics of an entity and, thus, describes processes of cognition. Consequently, ↑ knowledge diagnosis is conceptualised here as the methodology and method of the identification and processing of the task-related knowledge of ↑ performance experts in order to communicate it to novices or employees with suboptimal performance. For these training purposes action-regulating knowledge enabling effective performance is of interest. This knowledge shows some distinctive features. It includes several of the above mentioned kinds of knowledge, it shows specific combinations of these kinds of knowledge, and it may not be isolated from other mental prerequisites of actions (for detail see HACKER 1992; 1996; 2005): Not all knowledge regulates actions. The knowledge that actually regulates action should be distinguished from knowledge that only accompanies actions, and from knowledge which subsequently is applied to justify already completed actions. In action-regulating knowledge, first procedural knowledge about strategies is combined with declarative knowledge about states. Secondly this action-regulating knowledge is combined with goals. Psychologically a goal is the combination of the anticipation of the future result of an action with the intention to accomplish this result by one’s own effort. Moreover, this knowledge is organised in patterns of goals, conditions of goal accomplishment and the necessary measures (GCMpatterns). These GCM-patterns are a refinement of the If-Then-patterns or production rule systems discussed in Cognitive Psychology: if a person pursues a goal and if she realises that the conditions of goal accomplishment are given, she is supposed to activate and implement suitable measures of goal accomplishment. Therefore at least knowledge is inevitable on the characteristics of the goal, the conditions of its accomplishment and on suitable methods and means. This knowledge at least must be reproduced from memory, or searched for in memory, or is to be generated in order to fill up
the gaps in the necessary action-regulating knowledge. Furthermore for successful work in complex systems knowledge about the causes of an existing situation which should be changed is necessary, as is knowledge about the rules governing the technological processes that are to be changed, about the useful or necessary means, tools or partners, as well as of the consequences and side-effects of the intended actions. Some parts of this action-regulating knowledge may be thought only partially, or not at all verbally, by teachers, instructors or teaching aids. These parts, at least, must be acquired in a guided execution of those actions, which should be mastered by the trainees. These parts of knowledge are often labelled experience or ↑ implicit knowledge. Executing the actions to be trained decisively contributes to the implicit knowledge. Finally, pieces of action regulating knowledge may become objective matters, for example if the information is fixed in instructions, documents or manuals, but moreover also if it becomes reified in organisational structures and procedures or in tools. In the reverse case the fixed information can be retransformed into action-regulating knowledge in human memory. 5.2.5.4
Methodology of the Diagnosis of Action-Regulating Knowledge
The above-mentioned topics explain why the diagnosis or elicitation of action-regulating knowledge may not be reduced to simple question-based methods, i.e. interviews and questionnaires, but needs a pattern of different approaches and methods (TERGAN 1988). This pattern comprises analyses of documents and of results of work, work-study techniques, field experiments and, of course, the various techniques of questioning (HACKER / ROTHE / WANDKE 1995; K LUWE 1988). This pattern of methods is not an arbitrary mix of several methods, but a methodologically-determined strategy and combination of methods aiming at the several facets of action-regulating knowledge. Knowledge diagnosis is not only a reproduction of verbalized knowledge ready for use in action, nor is it only the transformation of implicit knowledge on procedures into conscious explicit knowledge. Knowledge diagnosis moreover is a process of reconstruction – if
Research Methods
necessary cooperative reconstruction – which creates action regulating knowledge by accomplishing the relevant tasks and solving the given problems in an explicit way which may be fixed in verbal statements. That way knowledge ↑ diagnosis becomes a learning process even of the experts, as well. Consequently, following this approach, the reproach that ↑ knowledge diagnosis might mean an expropriation of knowledge would be absurd. 5.2.5.5 Methods of Knowledge Diagnosis. An Overview Table 1 summarises methods of knowledge diagnosis. Normally they are combined in their application.
Tab. 1: Classification of the main methods of knowledge diagnosis
Which of these methods are applied depends on the tasks: Action-regulating knowledge of milking needs another combination of diagnostic methods than that of solving problems of a differential calculus.
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The great variety of available methods needs to be classified. As some of the methods are complex, an overlapping classification is inevitable. At first, activity-centred vs. subject-centred approaches may be distinguished. The subject-centred ones can be subdivided into dyadic (e. g. interviewer – employee) or group approaches. Further, with respect to the extent of modifications of the knowledge through an invasive elicitation procedure itself, one may classify the subject-centred approaches according to this extent of modifications due to the elicitation procedure. The sequence of the approaches in Table 1 offers a recommendation of the sequence of their application in case of the utilisation of several approaches: For an efficient application of the subject-centred approaches it is necessary in advance to know, which kinds of personal prerequisites – e. g. knowledge, experience, reasoning or personality traits – are the main sources of a high-level ↑ performance. This presupposed information is gained by activity-centred approaches, especially by the psychological analysis of task requirements following a step-by-step and multilevel approach (HACKER 1995). Within the subject-centred approaches the dyadic ones offer useful foundations for efficient group approaches. Finally within both, the dyadic as well as the groupbased subject-centred approaches, one should proceed from those which will modify the knowledge less, the non-invasive approaches, to the invasive ones. Following this methodology the diagnosis will falsify or verify hypotheses, but only few constraints are put on the experts by the type of questions used or tasks to be addressed. Later on, based on already-elicited knowledge, more invasive or restrictive procedures may be applied. A sequence of methods as outlined here offers several advantages. These are the following ones: – This sequence of the step-by-step generating and testing of hypotheses installs possibilities of validation of the elicited knowledge already during the process of its elicitation. – The successive application of different methods identifies the possibility of closing the procedure, if a further method will not identify new pieces
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of knowledge or other prerequisites of high-level ↑ performance. – A set of several methods takes into account the multi-modal nature of the prerequisites of highlevel performance. – The integration of group-based methods may improve the motivation to contribute to a knowledge elicitation process, if an equity of exchange is guaranteed for the group members and, thus, learning becomes effective. The following passages will only discuss interview-based methods in a strict sense. For other methods, i.e. the techniques of classification and completion of a presented ↑ body of knowledge by the dialoge-consensus methods (SCHEELE / GROEBEN 1988), the repertory-grid-technique (SCHEER / CATINA 1993), or the story-telling technique the original sources should be consulted. Work study techniques are discussed in 5.2.8 as well as from the psychological point of view in Hacker (1996) or Harvey (1991). For group techniques with relevance for knowledge elicitation see West (1996) or Wetzstein/Jahn/ Hacker (2003). Unlike the thinking aloud method, interviews require a concept-driven approach and, thus, at least a rough idea of the desired knowledge. Therefore, interviews are often interventions, too. An intervention may assist or impair the identification of action-regulating knowledge. Table 2 summaries some kinds of interviews. The elicitation of action-regulating knowledge needs a successive combination of different interview techniques in order to identify the several types of knowledge, e. g. implicit and explicit knowledge. Some chances of an explication of ↑ implicit knowledge may be offered by the distribution of the cognitive processes of a working task between persons, for example in a tutorial dialogue between trainer and trainee, which causes an externalisation, i.e., a conceptualisation. The interviewer here has the role of the trainee.
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Tab. 2: Kinds of interview techniques for knowledge ↑ diagnosis
Interviews aiming at specific tasks or cases are more profitable than interviews without the relationship to a specific “situated” case. This holds especially for interviews in terms of walk through, read through or teach through techniques. The interviews should start with a non-standardised interview technique. The first reason is the higher acceptance of the procedure if the interviewee may at first describe her/his perception of the work situation. Further it is necessary at first to identify the knowledge of the experts without the modifications and selections imposed by the concepts of the interviewer onto this knowledge. The non-standardised parts of the interviews should neither impose a scientific approach nor the naïve theories of the interviewer on the interviewees (ERICSON / SIMON 1993). In this non-invasive interview the experts should describe what they do and why, in which sequence, and what they have to remember, consider, know, and to be able to do for this reason. The description of what a person actually is doing when accomplishing a task may hint on the person’s ↑ tacit knowledge. “Tacit knowledge… is the knowledge that you need to succeed in an endeavour, that is not formally thoughtout and that often is not even verbalized. It is knowledge
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typically acquired on the job or in the situation where it is actually used” (STERNBERG 1995, 321. See also BERLINER 1994; SCHÖN 1983).
In addition to and after the “free”, not standardised interview techniques the concept driven, standardised and pre-structured interview techniques are useful. There, a multi-level procedure should be applied in knowledge ↑ diagnosis. In the first step the interviewee is asked to decompose her/his task into subtasks. These subtasks are the units of analysis in the next steps which inquire about the necessary knowledge, experience and skills. The assumptions about the characteristics of the supposed knowledge, guiding this type of interview, will influence the result of the diagnosis. Therefore these assumptions should restrict themselves to general characteristics of the mental regulation of work. The question-answering technique with interrogative questions (who, what, why etc.) aiming at the generic semantic relationships (causal, final, conditional relations etc.), that must be filled up with the specific knowledge for any successful action, follows these general assumptions. It turned out to be helpful to ask the interviewees before the interviews for a self-analysis of their activities and even to offer them some tools, e. g. suitable check-lists, for this purpose. It depends on the type of working process being analysed as to whether the interviews may accompany the ↑ work process or are added at the end of them. Not all tasks can be interrupted for an interview. A type of interview, which is of special interest in ↑ knowledge diagnosis, is the systematic mental (“virtual”) “work through” of the relevant tasks and technological systems. This method contributes decisively to the identification of the performance-determining parts of the tasks, the necessary sequence of the operations, and the action-regulating experience. Several versions of the technique are applied: (a) Systematic mental walk-through without any external assistance. (b) Systematic read-through. The expert and the interviewer – in the role of a trainee –read the instructions or manual of the relevant tasks and their tools together. These texts are interpreted by the expert based on her/his experience.
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(c) Systematic situated teach-through. Again the expert instructs the interviewer, but here instruction takes place at the workplace with its materials and tools. He simulates a training procedure, however the tasks actually are not accomplished. Thus, the expert may use the memory-assisting context of the workplace and the possibilities of a virtual demonstration. As there are no limitations by the actual task accomplishment, he/she is able to answer even complex questions of the trainee/interviewer without the load of dual tasking. The walk through-procedures are suitable for knowledge diagnosis in groups too. The externalisation of implicit or tacit knowledge into verbal behaviour (“↑ verbalisation”) needs an iterative analytical procedure with feed-back loops (CHI / GLASER / FARR 1988; SCHÖN 1983). The investigator presents the employee with the categorised data of the observations at the task (job analyses) for a common read through. He/she asks for explanations of the registered activity, and offers alternative formulations concerning hypothetical tacit knowledge in order to find out corrections, modifications and completions. A well-known advantage of questionnaires is the possibility to interview many interviewees simultaneously with low costs. The prerequisites of this advantage are a sufficient ↑ rate of return and the existence of a high number of experts on a job, working in comparable conditions. Further – as was mentioned for all kinds of standardised interviews techniques – the more sophisticated the intended questions on the ↑ knowledge base, the more fundamental information is necessary in advance in order to develop a system of questions which are actually useful. 5.2.5.6
Further Requirements of Research
The problem how to identify and organise the action-regulation knowledge of ↑ performance experts for reasons of education of future experts has only partly been solved so far. First of all it should be analysed more seriously as to which specific pieces of knowledge and experience and which skills, attitudes and other kinds of performance prerequisites (e. g. reasoning; capacity of working memory; “competences”) will determine excellent ↑ performance in a given task or
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job. The waffle on “the” “hard” and “soft” skills is not helpful. A further problem concerns the useful combination of methods and the sequence of the application of the several methods of knowledge ↑ diagnosis. There are hints of a different ↑ ↑ effectiveness of the methods and their sequence of application for different kinds of knowledge (e. g. knowledge of conditions, causes, procedures or tools) (HACKER /JILGE 1993; HACKER 1996). More generally, the fundamental methodological approach of ↑ knowledge diagnosis should be dealt with. Simplifying the question is, whether knowledge diagnosis means to skim off or even to “expropriate” the knowledge and experience of employees – in order to automate processes by means of ↑ artificial intelligence or to train low-cost employees – or intends a process of joint learning with an equity of exchange of personal experience. A further unsolved problem is whether knowledge diagnosis restricts the elicitation of the knowledge already applied in existing jobs. Beyond this, knowledge diagnosis might try to identify that knowledge which will be necessary in the future for new tasks which until now just did not exist. Last not least the optimal, ↑ user-friendly modes of the presentation of the different kinds of elicited knowledge need some more investigation, especially concerning the computer-based presentation of procedural knowledge.
5.2.6
Assessing Vocational Competences Bernd Haasler and John Erpenbeck
5.2.6.1
Understanding Vocational Competences
This chapter explores competences in the context of vocational education research, i.e. it focuses on an individual’s skills and competences that are necessary to master ↑ work tasks in a proficient and independent way. Further, it explores how such skills and competences can be better assessed for practical and research purposes.
In order to be able to describe, assess or even measure ↑ vocational competences with scientific methods, it is first of all necessary to reach a common understanding of the nature of vocational competences and how they should be defined. While a literature review reveals that there exist abundant literature about the different forms and dimensions of competence, the term ‘vocational competence’ is not applied consistently. Rather it is defined, classified and used in various, sometimes divergent ways (cf. WEINERT 2001). These often divergent understandings and classifications make it particularly difficult to apply this concept in practical research. As most authors agree that a uniform definition, which determines a standardised method and understanding of ‘competence’, can neither be assumed nor expected, they tend to follow, for assessment purposes, their own approaches in defining and classifying competence in line with their respective ↑ research tradition. In summarising such attempts of classification, Erpenbeck and von Rosenstiel (2003a) define competences as ‘dispositions of self-organising actions’. With this understanding they draw a clear distinction between competences and qualifications. Whereas the concept of qualifications assumes the existence of a specific set of actual knowledge and capabilities – the qualification certifies that particular aims and objectives and these knowledge and capabilities in principle have been achieved – , competences essentially enable the individual to act under conditions of uncertainty in a creative and solution-oriented way. A more systematic analysis leads to the definition that competences are self-organised dispositions of complex adaptive systems, i.e. individuals in particular. In an evolutionary sense, it means that individuals are able to realise reflexive and creative problem solving in reflection of general complex and selectively decisive situations (paths). Thus, competences do not present general dispositions or abilities as a precondition to be able to act, but only reflect the self-organising, open, flexible and creative potential for action, which could in principle lead to a number of different outcomes. This means that those actions are open in terms of future directions and purposes (K APPELHOFF 2004).
Research Methods
Competences can help to structure an individual’s self-organising ability in terms of generalised meta-competences (BERGMANN / DAUB / MEURER 2006; ERPENBECK / SCHARNHORST / EBELING ET AL. 2006). They can further help to assess the basic forms of self-organising abilities in terms of an individual’s personality (personal competences), concrete objects and processes (technical/subject-specific and methodological competences) and others (social competences) by considering the intensity of the individual’s efforts and activities (self-realising competence). These categories can be understood as basic competences. With the observed tendency of authors tending to create endless lists of subcompetences, it is recommendable to categorise any possible kinds of sub-competences along these basic entities (HEYSE 2007) for not running the risk of an endless expansion of the terminology (like it was the case with the term ‘↑ key competences’ in the 1970s). The understanding that competences do not describe abilities, attitudes, behaviour or knowledge as such, but rather an individual’s self-organising potentials (cf. RÖBEN 2001; → 3.4.2) radically challenges cognitivist approaches. After most educationalists initially demonstrated a rather critical attitude towards emerging concepts of competence and the underlying constructivist ideas of self-organising theory, they gradually accepted the terminology and adopted it to serve their own purposes. For example, what formerly was designated as ‘reading and calculating abilities’ nowadays is termed ‘reading and calculating competences’. Suddenly, much of what formerly was termed ‘capabilities’, ‘knowledge’ or ‘qualification’ is now being referred to as ‘competence’. These trends are based on the idea that all kinds of ↑ performance dispositions can be subsumed under the concept of competence. Accordingly, competences are being defined as context-specific, cognitive performance dispositions, which are functional in terms of enabling the individual to respond to and act in a particular, very concrete work environment. Dispositions in this sense reflect particular work situations and environments and their context-specific requirements for learning and action. Consequently, such competences are supposed to be based on learning and experience, and thus can be shaped
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and modified through institutionalised education and training processes (K LIEME / LEUTNER 2006). Such a definition is not unproblematic. The first concern refers to the underlying notion that the term ‘competence’ can be applied to any kind of cognitive achievement. The second concern addresses the rather narrow concept of domains, i.e. that the achievement and demonstration of competences are confined to a particular domain. The decisive characteristic of basic competences, on the contrary, is precisely their transferability between different domains. For example, a sales person is able to apply his/her social competence (such as communicative abilities) to other areas such as teaching. Against the aspect of transferability, it is not surprising that cognitivists oppose the selforganising constructivist concept of competence. Thus, they conclude that the cognitivist understanding of competence is fundamentally different from the competence concept as it is structured and defined in vocational education and ↑ training research, and widely discussed along the dimensions of basic competences in terms of technical, methodological, social and personal competences (K LIEME /AVENARIUS / BLUM / DÖBRICH / GRUBER ET AL. 2003, 22). 5.2.6.2
Methods to Assess Vocational Competences
There exists a variety of ↑ research methods and tools to assess ↑ vocational competences and competence development. The “Handbuch Kompetenzmessung” (Handbook of ↑ Competence Assessment) 2003a alone presents 44 internationally applied methods of competence assessment and evaluation, most of which are commonly used in the context of ↑ human resources development, staff recruitment and performance assessment. The majority of these tools are offered and marketed by commercial providers (cf. SCHULER 2000). In addition, abundant on-line tools for the ↑ assessment of competences also exist (RIDDER / BRUNS / BRÜNN 2004). Instruments of competence assessment of work psychology and vocational education research differentiate their understanding of competences, on the one hand, along the concept of ‘comprehensive work actions’ (“Konzept der vollständigen Arbeits-
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handlung”) (HACKER 1992; 1996; 2005; VOLPERT 1987a; 2005) and, on the other hand, by distinguishing between technical, methodological, social and personal competence (ROTH 1971; REETZ 1999). Thereby it is not clear whether those different dimensions of competence can be assessed independently or only in their totality. This problem is further discussed in a major publication dealing with the assessment of ↑ key competences (RYCHEN / SALGANIK 2001), while comprehensive empirical investigations have been conduced by Maag Merki (2004). The Instrument for Competence Assessment (ICA) developed by Swedish work psychologists aims at assessing competences that are in the first place based on work experience (LANTZ / FRIEDRICH 2003). For assessing ↑ vocational competences, however, the ICA must be considered restrictive, because the approach measures abilities largely independently of the actual ↑ work processes (K ERN / SCHUMANN 1970). So far, ICA has not been adapted to account for an occupation- or a domain-oriented perspective. Also Bergmann’s concept of competence estimation across sectors or occupational domains (BERGMANN, B. 2003) has not been differentiated along occupational domains or specialisations. Based on Hacker (2005) and Ulich (1998), Bergmann’s assessment tool postulates that workers as ‘experts’ of their respective domain are able to judge upon their ↑ work tasks, objectives and outcomes. Her hypothesis is that the nature of the work task highly influences the proficiency and vocational competence development of the worker. This idea closely relates to the concept of learning in qualifying work processes, which is widely discussed in vocational education research (R AUNER 2004b). This latter ↑ research tradition further introduces the following types of work-based knowledge: – Practical or ↑ implicit knowledge (BENNER 1995; HAASLER 2004) – ↑ Work process knowledge (BOREHAM / SAMURÇAY/ FISCHER 2002) – Action-oriented and reflective knowledge (HACKER 1996) Despite in depth analyses of these knowledge concepts it has not been possible to develop a powerful assessment tool based on an elaborated concept
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of vocational competences and competence development. This may be because it is misleading to assume that ↑ competence assessment necessarily needs to be restricted to some form of testing. While it can be expected that the above mentioned tools will gain a predictably minor impact in companies and in actual work practice – above all because they are too laborious and time-consuming – it is likely that other forms of qualitative methods (such as competence portfolios), biographic methods (competence biographies), simulation methods or work samples will gain much greater influence. In our view, combining qualitative and quantitative assessment tools (i.e. hybrid methods) would be the most promising approach in future. The above examples illustrate that adapting the different methods of competence assessment to the requirements of theory and practice of vocational education and training remains a task to be tackled, both in terms of the theoretical foundation as well as the empirical evidence. A diagnostic tool that can also assess the environment in which vocational competences develop has to consider, above all, the quality of vocational learning both in ↑ vocational schools and in the company. Apart from some exceptions, such quality-oriented forms of competence assessment have not yet been developed. For VET practice, this means that decisions of ↑ curriculum development have so far hardly been based on empirical evidence. Assessment tools developed by related scientific disciplines or traditions, such as work science or ↑ ergonomics, typically do not relate to concerns and issues of vocational education and ↑ training research, or do not reveal their implicit assumptions of learning outcomes for the benefit of VET. Thus, they are largely inappropriate for guiding empirical investigations of vocational learning, which – in Germany at least – typically takes place in the dynamics between vocational schools and the practical work experience in the company. If competences are an indirect ascription of observed actions, attitudes or abilities of individuals, identifying the appropriate methodological tools to observe, describe and assess competences remains an unresolved challenge. Erpenbeck and von Rosenstiel emphasise that the direct assessment of competences is insofar difficult as we are dealing
Research Methods
with ‘inner assets’, which cannot be observed directly and which are meaningless without a theoretically founded framework of interpretation (2003a). Under the assumption that the empirical evidence of competences is revealed in some kind of expertise or ↑ performance (“Performanz”) (RÖBEN 2001, 44), competences can only indirectly be assessed by means of analysing context-specific and task-related work actions. Thereby it is important it point out that competences are not just personality traits. While the latter (such as introversion or extraversion) remain relatively stable even under changing living conditions) competences are rather flexible and are likely to be transformed as individuals experience different work environments and performance requirements. Empirically, the above underlying assumptions have wide-reaching implications as they imply that ↑ vocational competences can only be assessed under consideration of a workers’ every day work practice and environment. How workers deal with their every day ↑ work tasks, thus, either has to be observed at their workplace, or – alternatively or complementary to it – in an environment that simulates this work practice in an experimental setting. The objective of either alternative would be to confront individuals with realistic work tasks in such a way that the outcomes of the tasks give evidence of their vocational proficiency and knowledge. Such a work task-oriented approach makes it possible to assess vocational competences that are closely linked to the actual work demands. Another advantage is that the outcomes could easily be applied to VET practice and support the design of vocational training concepts and programmes. The shortfall of most ↑ interdisciplinary approaches, which aim to assess vocational competences and competence development, is that they largely ignore this route of considering and analysing work-related actions. The following sections introduce some few selected approaches, which from their design and conceptualisation refer to central issues related to vocational education research. Notably, most instruments aiming at assessing competences cannot be considered measurement tools in a narrow sense, because they tend to evaluate and assess competences rather than measuring them in a standardised way.
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In vocational education research, assessing vocational competences empirically is yet to be based on elaborated methods. Systems of certification, expert research and knowledge psychology for long have relied on identifying and analysing explicit technical knowledge and know-how while largely ignoring ↑ work process-related knowledge. The latter only recently has been identified and acknowledged as a key dimension of vocational learning and work performance (cf. FISCHER 2000; → 3.6.4). Current methods that assess the outcomes of vocational education and training are based on abstract work samples and multiple-choice tests, both of which are largely inappropriate to give accurate information about the level of vocational competence achieved. Rather have those tests and the way they are being implemented lead to the manifestation of a subject-oriented learning structure instead of reflecting the complex demands of the actual work practice. In order to assess vocational competences that enable the individual to master everyday work tasks, scientific methods and assessment tools, which consider and create close linkage to the actual work demands and work and business processes, should be prioritised. Further plays the respective ↑ community of practice – colleagues, co-workers and supervisors in particular – a key role in evaluating and judging upon an employee’s vocational proficiency. 5.2.6.3 Kasseler-Competence-Classification The competence classification instrument developed at the University of Kassel, Germany (“Kasseler-Kompetenz-Raster”, KKR) by Ekkehart Frieling and colleagues has been implemented widely and in various practical work environments (FRIELING / K AUFFELD / GROTE 2000). The KKR method aims at assessing employees’ vocational, actionoriented competence (“berufliche Handlungskompetenz”) challenging them to master optimisation tasks. The approach consists of video-recording ↑ group discussions, which involve five to seven employees. These employees typically cooperate within or across several company departments and are required to solve a characteristic optimisation task together. The discussions and other forms of verbal communication among the participants are
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being transcribed verbatim and evaluated against 50 categories (“Sinneinheiten”) that the KKR classification system comprises. The criteria for classification reflect the distinction between technical/ subject-specific competence (“Fachkompetenz”), methodological competence (“Methodenkompetenz”), social competence (“Sozialkompetenz”) and self competence (“Selbstkompetenz”). Simultaneously are the participants asked to fill out a questionnaire concerning the flexibility of the company and the employees, the self-assessment of their own ↑ vocational competences, personal characteristics, team working and the company’s potentials for innovation. Furthermore form the participants’ behaviour and attitudes part of the competence analysis. Those are assumed to be revealed in the participants’ verbal expressions in the ↑ group discussions that take place as the employees try to solve the optimisation task (K AUFFELD / GROTE / FRIELING 2003). The limits of the KKR method are various. First, the results obtained from the group discussions cannot be generalised. Second, the method typically concentrates on optimisation tasks, which do not really encourage employees’ creativity and cooperation among each other for finding a solution for a complex task. More routine vocational competences that are expressed in everyday individual problem-solving abilities cannot be assessed sufficiently with this method. Third, restricting the analysis of vocational competences to the verbal expressions that the participants make during the group discussion (the results from the questionnaires and video-taping are rather used to assess and consider contextual variables) highly limits the scope of assessment since it is unclear and greatly questionable whether and to what extent communication skills allow for making conclusions about an individuals’ technical skills and problem solving abilities. Finally, the strong point of the method of considering several layers of analysis (the individual, the group and the organisation) may turn out to be problematic when wanting to draw conclusions for each layer independently.
5.2.6.4
Work Samples and Situated Questions
Schaper’s (2003; 2005) method of work samples and situated questioning to assess workplace-related competences (“Arbeitsproben und situative Fragen zur Messung arbeitsplatzbezogener Kompetenzen”) aims at measuring vocational competences and competence development by relating it to an individual’s work-related behaviour and knowledge. So far the method has been applied in the context of skilling industrial workers, who are undergoing a dual apprenticeship programme. Thereby have learning experiences been integrated into the company’s work and business processes of manufacturing. The main objective of this approach is to assess learning effects and changes of an individual’s competence profile in relation to varying ↑ learning environments. This should be achieved by applying workplace-related work samples and situated questioning. Workplace-related samples are understood as “standardised tasks that facilitate the observation and identification of work attitudes” (SCHAPER 2003, 187) as they reflect authentic ↑ work tasks and problems. These are authentic in that they allow for judging upon an individual’s work ↑ performance and outcomes under realistic working conditions. Situated questioning complements the work samples. By means of focused questions the participants are required to explain the different work steps they decide to follow in order to solve a (hypothetically posed) problem or task. The work samples are targeted to assess three competence dimensions, namely technical, methodological and social competences. The nature of the work samples are further based on task analyses undertaken by instructors and trainers. Implementing the two components, work samples and situated questions, takes about 90 minutes during which an instructor writes down his or her observations and the statements made by the participants into a pre-defined classification scheme. One instructor thereby analyses and observes exactly one participant. Combining work samples with situated questioning is based on the idea that work-related tasks alone do not sufficiently assess the ability to cooperate effectively in a team or to solve problems
Research Methods
under conditions of conflicting interests. The limits of this method, however, are twofold. First, as is the case with the KKR method, the obtained results are difficult to generalise and can only to a limited extent be transferred to other occupational contexts. Second, the classification of tasks and how task ↑ performance is being evaluated according to the different competence dimensions is not unambiguous. Although work samples of routine tasks can be considered a commonly applied assessment tool at interim and final examinations of the German dual vocational training scheme, it has been critically argued that ↑ vocational competences can only appropriately be assessed and validated by means of situated tasks, as opposed to deriving conclusions on the basis of routine tasks and standardised work samples. 5.2.6.5 Evaluation Tasks The following presents an approach, which confronts individuals with work-related tasks typical of their respected area of work or ↑ domain-specific challenges. In a secondary analysis of several empirical investigations of expertise research, Rothe and Schindler supported a methodological approach that confronts individuals with tasks as closely as possible related to the actual ↑ work processes and work demands. These tasks are designed in a way so that they can be considered prototypical of the domain-specific challenges. Thus, therefore their solution characteristics can be abstracted and applied to similar tasks within the same domain (ROTHE / SCHINDLER 1996, 41). Based on the concept of ↑ development tasks (HAVIGHURST 1972), Gruschka (1985) developed domain-specific ↑ evaluation tasks, which were initially used in the area of vocational education as an instrument for evaluating in-school training of prospective teachers. An attempt to formulate such tasks for the area of industrial/technical vocational training has been presented by a German working group led by Rainer Bremer (BREMER 2004a; BREMER / HAASLER 2004; 2006). In principle, vocational evaluation tasks present the subjects with a problem of a type that they have never before tackled (these tasks are expressly not an input-output measurement in the form of monitoring the ability to learn). The way in which the
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participants solve (or fail to solve) these problems demonstrates and reveals their work practice-oriented problem solving strategies. The formulation of the task should avoid any kind of help or guidance: from a professional point of view a concise and matter-of-fact formulation of the task must disclose a clear order, which implies and determines the route towards a solution by way of performance requirements, but without favouring one particular solution. Thus, the formulation and nature of the task is open enough to encourage self-organising action and demonstration of an individual’s actual competence. The identification and formulation of domain-specific evaluation tasks (which essentially represent core tasks of an occupation) require an intensive knowledge of the requirements of skilled work and the practical expertise of those who perform the daily ↑ work tasks typical of the particular ↑ occupational field. In order to be able to interpret the participants’ various solutions in an adequate manner, it is also necessary to have a sound knowledge of the conditions under which vocational skills and competences are acquired (e. g. curricula, work environment, organisational forms of training). Extensive empirical investigations of research into vocational training have led to the supposition that successful skilled workers internalise three distinctive strategies, which enable them to apply new work experiences to enhance and update their ↑ professionalism (BREMER 2004a, 112 ff.). Typically, they have adopted (i) a vocational ↑ learning strategy (closely related to their personal competences); (ii) a particular working strategy (closely related with their technical-methodological and self-realising competence); and (iii) a strategy for professional cooperation (closely linked with the development of their social competences, communicative competences in particular). These strategies are embodied in and ‘interconnected’ with the concrete work outcomes, methods, procedures and organisational forms of skilled work. The data collected by means of implementing evaluation tasks – in the form of the various problem-solving solutions that the subjects present – are interpreted with the help of development
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hermeneutics and then structured and categorised according to the three strategies mentioned above. The way in which a vocational ↑ evaluation task is tackled and the inherent problem resolved not only gives insight into trainees’ competence development and the ↑ ↑ effectiveness of their vocational training, it also provides valuable information on the occupational understanding and self-awareness that the trainees develop in the course of their apprenticeship.
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The main result of the investigation shall be explained below by taking two different types of solution generated by the subject groups as an example (cf. HAASLER / BALDAUF-BERGMANN 2003). While the trainees who suggest producing the depressions on the blank dice by following manual production processes (see Fig. 1) prove that after a training period of 12 months they still have no concept of the ↑ work processes the toolmaker typically deals with, the second example illustrates a realistic professional solution.
Evaluation Task Method Exemplified for Initial Industrial/Technical Vocational Training A practical example shall help to illustrate the concept of evaluation task. A longitudinal empirical investigation covering a period of 3.5 years aimed at assessing the development of ↑ vocational competences of apprentices of a major German automobile company (BREMER / HAASLER 2006). This period was identical to follow the trainees over the duration of their training programme, during which they were confronted with four different evaluation tasks at different points in time. The first evaluation task for the toolmaker trainees was presented to them at the end of the first year of training. The task consisted of the following exercise: to incorporate into existing blank dice made from light metal (length of edge: 30 millimetre) the ‘number of spots’ found on a dice (to mark the correct number of depressions for each of the six sides). In addition, a production proposal should be put forward to one customer who requires a lot size of 1,000 units, as well as to another customer who wants 50,000 dice. In the run-up to the investigation, several experts of skilled work generally accepted this task as a standard problem arising in the domain of tool making; one which, on the one hand, can be tackled successfully by trainees and, on the other, still possesses challenging problem characteristics for an advanced worker or an expert. Given a time limit of four hours, the trainees were asked to penetrate the problem theoretically and demonstrate various solutions by means of descriptions and sketches. The task was carried out in the company’s training rooms; the aids the young people were allowed to use included textbooks, tables, calculators and drawing materials.
Fig. 1: Solution type of a manual unit production – ‘the craftsperson’
The first example illustrates a solution type that is conceptualised along manual work processes. The trainees suggest processing the item ‘directly’, the ‘indirect’ production of items using tools characteristic of the occupation is not present in the solutions offered. Here, the presented solution reflects the experiences the trainees have gained at the training workshop so far. They provide a workable model of how the depressions can be made. They fail, however, to understand that the toolmaker does not manufacture the final product, but that the nature of the occupation essentially consists of making the tools to produce parts. Thus, the trainees present a solution that does not correspond with the ↑ occupational profile, because the solution may only work if the task was to consist of producing one single dice, but not for mass production. The most obvious result is that the trainees fail to realise that essentially the tool making occupation is an ‘implementer of mass production’. This gross misunderstanding may be explained by
Research Methods
the nature of the vocational training during the first year. Basic training in all aspects of the metal engineering trade in the first year – which in the field under investigation is mainly organised in training workshops and laboratories and taking forms of general instead of ↑ domain-specific teaching – does not seem to contribute to an understanding of the domain-specific problem solving processes at the level of skilled work. The learning and working strategies of the training workshop (embodied here in the manual production of units) are for the most part transferred directly by the trainees to practice-based professional problems and challenges. This is revealed clearly in the young people’s obvious lack of general knowledge about the tool-making sector. Knowledge from context-free basic training in the area of metal engineering is applied and characterises the various solutions presented for this ↑ evaluation task, absolutely failing to take into account the utility value aspect. With this kind of implemented working strategy only very few solutions satisfy the utility value aspect of mass production. Making thousands of punch marks ‘by hand’ without any aids would, without thinking, transfer learning and working strategies from the training workshop to realistic work problems in a way that is completely unsuitable for the task. The task, however, makes clear that the solution requires creative and innovative thinking inherent of any kind of ‘real’ competence. Trainees, whose various solutions could be designated to the type ‘toolmaker’, generated proposals for solutions ranging from simple aids through to complex tools (such as the impressing tool in Fig. 2). The illustrated proposal enables the 21 depressions on the dice to be manufactured in one stage of production. Although this production approach was generated by a trainee after just one year of training, it can be rated as a professional solution on the level of skilled work. The technical faithfulness to detail of the sketch or trouble-free implementation in practice is not a deciding factor in the interpretation of this solution type. Essentially, it is recognisable that the applied working and ↑ learning strategies are adequately geared towards the current problem situation. Trainees, who presented a solution of the type ‘toolmaker’, demonstrate that
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they have developed both specialist skills as well as an understanding of the ↑ occupational field they are training for. Their proposed solution proves that they are able to approach realistic ↑ work tasks from a professional perspective.
Fig. 2: Solution type mass production – the ‘toolmaker’
This evaluation task that was presented at the end of the first year of training focuses on the learning and working strategy the trainees have adopted. In the interpretation of results, it does not take into account the trainees’ strategy for professional cooperation. This latter important aspect of vocational learning and competence development (WENGER 1998b) was considered in the course of implementing evaluation tasks in the following two years of training in that the interpretation and evaluation of the results was not only validated by the researchers, but also by supervisors and expert colleagues. Their criteria of skilled work and proficiency were ultimately taken as the basis of evaluation and judgement upon whether a presented solution would be considered acceptable by other colleagues or not. 5.2.6.6
Conclusions
The method of assessing vocational learning by way of evaluation tasks, as presented here, requires some final appreciation and also critical examination. This methodological approach to recording relevant domain-specific facets of competence presents the subjects with practically rel-
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evant, but not trivial, tasks. Thereby it is assumed
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5.2.7
that these tasks are prototypical of the require-
Situation Film Felix Rauner
ments of the occupation and open enough so that the solution characteristics of the resolved task can provide an indication of the ↑ vocational competences acquired to date. This encumbers the method with hermeneutically not unproblematic implications that are not accessible to any simple solution. In principle, the objection cannot be refuted that ultimately it remains to be seen whether reliable conclusions can be drawn from the subjects’ ability to penetrate and resolve problems theoretically, and their ability to act and deal with challenges and problems in a realistic work situation. It is possible and likely that skilled workers, who demonstrate their expertise every day in their work practice, are not necessarily experts on ↑ verbalisation or drawing. As, in this sense, we cannot take for granted that they are ‘experts on communication’, there remains the suspicion that their ability to reveal their own learning and work strate-
5.2.7.1
Conceptual Definition
Situation films are a form of accentuated condensation of cinematic documentations. The criteria underlying accentuation and condensation arise from the analytical and developmental objectives pursued by the respective research and development proposal. In ↑ qualitative research, situation films are viewed as a medium of communication which allows to single out a specific object of study from the sphere of unspeakability. Using the videotaping technique, authentic film documents, for instance covering focal points in a company, are produced. These play a key role in ↑ organisational development (cf. MÜLLER 1995, 333 ff.). Given the fact that in general organisational development processes in companies involve different agents and groups who are affected indifferent ways by the development process – depending on whether they are executives or lower-level specialists such as skilled workers or qualified clerks – five features of thee situation film make this medium particularly suitable for this purpose:
gies may be less developed than their actual ability to apply those strategies in a real work setting (cf. HACKER 1996, 9). This aspect may be worth to be taken into account when interpreting the presented solutions of the ↑ evaluation tasks. In comparison to other currently available examination and ↑ competence assessment tools, evaluation tasks stand out by their closeness to actual ↑ work processes and demands. Further can the results obtained through this method and their interpretation be highly valuable for the formulation of guidelines and recommendations to improve vocational training programmes and ↑ learning environments. Thus, the strong point of this method lies in its far reaching potentials, which extend beyond the assessment of individual competence development and dimensions.
Location-Specific Perspectives and Changes in Perspective Situation films make it possible to capture situations ‘objectively’ on film. One and the same focal point in a company, for instance, can be presented from different perspectives: from the angle of the general management, from the point of view of process planning or from the viewpoint of the “workshop”; captured from different perspectives, the realities in companies become the object of cinematic documentation. The medium of the situation film not only opens up subjective representations for the procedural research process (cf. LEWIN 1963; ENDRES / WEHNER 1996), but also serves the function of complementing already available forms of comprehension and communication by the aspect of media-aided communication and reconstruction techniques which are applied in interest-motivated ↑ implicit knowledge. Raising (expatiating) implicit knowledge to the
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level of subjective theories is considered one of the most complex forms of self-reflection of one’s actions (HIRSCHHORN / GILMORE 1992). Applying the dialogue-consensus (SCHEELE / GROEBEN 1988) – a criterion of truth which is given wide attention in empirical social research – the situation film provides the possibility to open up differential creative spaces by taking into account the levels of knowledge of the actors involved as well as the accentuated knowledge tied to the various interests.
Concentration of Action and Dramatisation As part of the film production process the action documented on film (raw material) is condensed in such a manner that the dramatic nature of industrial situations which is at the centre of the analytical and developmental process, is highlighted, thus safeguarding the ↑ objectivity of documentation. In this way a dramatisation of the action is achieved which also boosts the readiness and ability of the actors involved to reflect on their educational and job situation.
Reflexive Documentation The method of producing situation films is based on the insight that industrial and professional realities are not neutral but are socially constructed. The working environment and the way in which e. g. a milling machine operator who is involved in an integrated production process experiences his work, widely differ from the working environment and the experiences of those who are involved in planning the production process, although both agents are part of the same working context. This is the reason why the working realities of the actors involved – which differ due to their locationrestriction – are captured as different forms of a superior reality. The meanings, interpretations and assessments of situations arise from the communication between actors and researchers. The situation film does not include any instructive comments or solutions to problems. In this respect the situation film differs most sharply from instructive films. And this is the reason why the situation film is a particularly suitable medium for ↑ qualitative research. A wide experience in the use of this me-
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dium has already been gained in the field of ethnology (PETERMANN 1984).
Representativeness The situation captured on film represents a typical focal point in a given social context (in this case an industrial/vocational setting) for which solutions are not readily available. The primary criterion applied in the selection of situations to be captured on film is their usefulness for research. This can be exemplified with a situation film produced by Wolfgang Beyer, Friedhelm Eicker and others on the cooperation efforts between instructors of theoretical courses and those of practical subject matters in vocational training programmes; this cooperation has become increasingly problematic in the past few years (BEYER / EICKER / MESSING / WENZEL 1980). Prior to the production of this situation film, training programmes and the demands on teachers of practical courses had been analysed in all regional states of Germany.
Creative Space Using situation films as a means to study organisational structures and vocational training programmes seems to be particularly suitable in shaping-oriented research (RAUNER 1995a; HEIDEGGER / JACOBS / MARTIN ET AL. 1991). Werner Petermann expounded the problems of the ‘authority’ of films. This is a crucial issue with respect to documentary films. They suggest a level of authority which reflect the producer’s view that images ‘speak for themselves’. The same importance is ascribed to the comments accompanying the images even in those cases in which an image only serves as an illustration of a commentary. In contrast to documentary films, “open films” which openly present their scientific and production-specific premises (PETERMANN 1995; 230 ff.). Initiating and maintaining a dialogical discourse with the agents involved in the industrial hotspot is a major challenge which faces the use of film production as a research tool (ibid., 231)
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5.2.7.2
Handbook of TVET Research
Genesis of the Situation Film as a Tool for Vocational Training Research
The term ‘situation film’ was coined by Achim Heimbucher and Jürgen Zimmer during a preschool project designed to develop a situation-specific ↑ didactical concept for pre-schools (HEIMBUCHER / ZIMMER 1975, 251 ff.). The ‘activities‘ planned by kindergarten teachers for the groups of children will be replaced by well-directed, situation-specific measures designed to promote the children’s development. In a close cooperation between filmmakers, scientists and pre-school educators the medium of the situation film was developed to advance this didactical concept for preschoolers. On the basis of everyday situations, situation films are designed to capture instructional opportunities that arise from the situations themselves and not from the instructional measures taken. In practice this concept is not easy to maintain, since obviously suitable situations are not easily available. Situation films create a quasi-real situation and thus provide a good starting point for kindergarten teachers to take instructive action. By proceeding in this way it can be assumed that children experience a quasi-real situation. As part of research projects designed to point out the differences between the work of teachers teaching theoretical knowledge, the work done by teachers of practical contents (R AUNER / DRECHSEL / GRONWALD / K RÜGER 1980) and research projects looking into teaching structures applied in “labour and technology”, the concept of producing situation films was used as a method to analyse and develop technology, labour and vocational training concepts (cf. BEYER / EICKER / MESSING / WENZEL 1980; Müller 1995; Fischer/Jungeblut/ Römmermann 1995). 5.2.7.3
The Situation Film as a Medium for Participatory Organisational Development
Along with the increased use of internet-based and computer-aided manufacturing techniques the creative space in labour design and ↑ labour organisation as part of industrial ↑ organisational development processes has also grown significantly and thus has become a central issue in the re-
search on ‘labour and technology (cf. NOACK / WEGNER / GLUCH / DIENHART 1990). These research initiatives generated the educational guiding principle of “Enabling agents to become actively involved in the development of their working environment” (RAUNER 1995a). This guiding principle is of major importance for the arrangement and structuring of organisational processes in industry (DYBOWSKI / PÜTZ / RAUNER 1995c). Transferring know-how from the area of engineering research to the actors in charge of the development of computer-aided production processes was traditionally brought about by offering instructional training programmes. As part of the research on ‘labour and technology’ issues the project ‘participant-oriented creative learning’ was carried out; it represents a fundamental change in perspective: The training programme was designed to induce participants to develop the creative potentials and options of computer-aided and Internetbased production techniques and to apply them as part of user-specific solutions and processes of organisational development. In this process the medium of the situation film gained central importance. Three video tapes, which captured authentic working situations in two engineering plants that use different production techniques, represented the main didactical material used in the training programme. Plant A was a traditional engineering company in which the production planning department was separated from the programming department where the CNC programme was developed. This plant also had a foreman’s office and a workshop with CNC-controlled machine tools. Construction (CAD), production planning (CAM) and engineering processes CNC) were interlinked through a computer-integrated manufacturing concept, with the CNC programme being generated by the CAD data and made available to the CNC tools via the Internet. This production procedure was documented by producing two situation films – the first one capturing the procedure from the perspective of the workshop and the second one capturing the process from the viewpoint of production planning. A third film was produced to capture a workshop-oriented production concept in a similar company. In this company production planning, the development of the CNC programme and CAD
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design were housed in the workshop department. The staff of the workshop – skilled workers, foremen and engineers – were jointly responsible for the entire production process – including planning and carrying out the production orders as well as constructional modifications. The situational films uncovered two conflict areas as industrial hotspots. The first area of conflict was the division of labour in plant A – with programming and production planning on the one hand and the machining technicians in the workshop on the other hand. This production procedure which is characterized by a hierarchical division of labour was efficient, mainly because the machining technicians independently made corrections to the planning procedures and CNC programmes to ensure smooth production. In general they did not inform the production planners and the programming department about these changes. Instead they made ample use of this opportunity to point out the ‘incompetency’ of the production planners. The discrepancy between the formal responsibility of staff members and their competency was at the centre of this industrial hotspot, which eventually developed into a crisis that jeopardized the company’s competitiveness. The parties involved for the first time became aware of this potential for conflict through the situation film and were thus able to discuss it. The second area of conflict was revealed during the production of the film and the procedure of gaining the approval of the managing board and of those in charge of the operational areas involved. During the approval procedure the management initially classified a large number of film sequences as unacceptable. This way of proceeding had been previously fixed by contract and was a precondition for the film team’s gaining access to the facility in the first place. All the department heads involved in the approval procedure demanded that precisely those film sequences were handed over to them which presented their department in a bad light. It turned out that the executives of the company were for the first time confronted with the hard realities of their companies when viewing the two situation films. The researchers were taken aback by the level of surprise the executives and the department heads showed when they were
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faced with the realities of operations in their company. In a series of discussions moderated by the researchers the confrontation between the executives could eventually be resolved. – In the end the situations captured on film were accepted as industrial realities. – The statements made by the actors involved were acknowledged as legitimate viewpoints. – There was general agreement that changes needed to be made and the decision was reached to implement an ↑ organisational development project. – It was acknowledged that the know-how and interests of all those involved – and particularly of the workshop staff – were important and should be considered in the implementation of the organisational development project” (MÜLLER 1995). The procedure of approving the film generated a learning process with the executives which eventually resulted in drastic changes in the organisational structure of the company. The researchers stated that they had not realised that the situation film was a crucial medium for industrial organisational development until after the start of the project. This finding was given special attention in another research and development project that focused on skilled maintenance work in computer-aided production processes and on the possibilities for using ↑ expert systems (F ISCHER /JUNGEBLUT / RÖMMERMANN 1995). The situation film was also used as a medium in the analysis of skilled maintenance work and in documenting the participatory contributions of staff members to this operational process. The film entitled: “Every machine has its own whims” (FISCHER / JUNGEBLUT/ RÖMMERMANN 1995) captures in detail how a skilled maintenance and production worker proceeds in troubleshooting. The skilled workers explain their way of proceeding to each other and also involve the researchers in their discussions during the working process. The case study captured on film played a central role in the developmental process: it served the function of proving the respective level of functionality achieved by the supportive system and of assessing it (FISCHER / JUNGEBLUT/ RÖMMERMANN 1995, 200–201). In this case the situation film also served the function of a medium that was used by the skilled workers to discuss the work they do – maintenance tasks and
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measures taken when process upsets occur – with the researchers. As part of this cooperation, criteria for the development of software tools were formulated. These tools were designed to be used in the documentation of the relevant know-how.
The Methodical Concept of Situation Films As regards methodology, a distinction needs to be made between the production of a situation film and its use as a tool in scientific studies of developmental and organisational processes and as a suitable medium to acquire design competency as part of ↑ self-directed learning processes. Instead of a screenplay there is a description of a situation to be captured on film and of the tools to be used in the exploration of creative spaces that are available in the implementation of new technologies and in the application of new, creative approaches in the design of industrial environments or of vocational training programmes. This description is jointly produced by the representatives of the groups of actors to be involved in the film – including their interest-motivated views, concepts, experiences and prejudices – as well as the film producers and the scientists who moderated the discussions. The researchers involved in the film project must have acquired the relevant scientific and practical background knowledge so that they are generally accepted not only as specialist interlocutors but also as neutral experts and mediators who are not directly involved in the conflicts. During the preparation phase the filming team in general gets to know the personalities, views and interest of the main agents involved in the situation to be captured on film. In this preparatory stage the team also gets an initial overview of what caused the hotspots and of the magnitude of their social, technological, organisational and economic implications. When shooting the film, the team applies the method of participatory observation. Due to modern video technologies, only a minimum of effort and equipment is required and after a short phase of familiarisation the agents involved are hardly distracted by the side noises of the filming procedure. Producing a good situation film means to capture the ‘right’ incidents at the ‘right moment’ and in such a manner that the film clearly shows the respective hotspot in its specific context and
Handbook of TVET Research
also captures the dramatic nature of ↑ organisational development. The images must speak for themselves. To achieve this effect the filming team needs to have special know-how and the skills required for producing such a film. A controversial discussion among methodologists is currently underway on whether an expert who has specialised skills is better qualified for shooting such a film or a filmmaker who acquires the necessary knowhow for producing a situation film. When shooting the film the team is aware of the fact that only one tenth of the material produced will actually be used for the situation film. Hence the film does not represent unaltered and unprocessed material which shows the incident in question from a ↑ distance. The situation film is a pointed, condensed version of the filming material produced which allows the researchers involved in the production of the film to intervene by raising questions. The raw material is analysed in four steps: (1) The person shooting the film and the scientists condense the material in such a manner that they get a rough cut. (2) The scientists and the main actors in the film jointly follow up the rough cut. In the process the criteria of authenticity and originality (in terms of ↑ validity of content) of the audio-visual statements made are applied. (3) Final approval of the film is achieved through a discursive process in which also the decision-makers are involved. (4) In a last step companion material is produced. The consternation and identification of the viewers with the situation captured on film must not be reduced by educational comments or instructions. The companion material is produced to promote the readiness of those involved to engage in the organisational development process. The experience gained so far with the use of situation films in organisational development processes has shown that the ↑ efficiency of situation films as a medium of observation, analysis and development can only be fully exploited if the technical competency of the filmmaker, the scientific knowhow of the researchers monitoring the project and the practical skills of the industrial staff involved are interlinked; an optimal result can be obtained if the production of the film has been systematical-
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ly incorporated in the ↑ organisational development process. This view is supported by Martin Fischer et al. who produced a situation film that was used in the analysis of skilled maintenance work and in the development of a work-oriented software tool for industrial maintenance operations. The situation film which presents a concrete incident and was produced under this project illustrates the manner in which skilled maintenance and production workers proceed in troubleshooting. “The troubleshooting example provided the basis for a joint analysis of work-related problems and of industrial maintenance operations; in the developmental process [a cooperation between skilled workers and scientists, F.R.] the case study presented in the film represented the material by means of which the functionality of the support systems (software tool) was demonstrated and assessed” (FISCHER /JUNGEBLUT / RÖMMERMANN 1995, 202).
5.2.7.4
Classifying the Situation Film among Audiovisually Supported Research Tools
In the field of curricula- and education-oriented ↑ media research the turn towards producing situation films was triggered by a general criticism of didactical and instructional educational theory. In didactics the audio-visual method applied were instructional films. In vocational ↑ training research the production of these instructional films increasingly conflicted with an approach that came up in the early 1970s: experimental and action-oriented learning. And in the field of ‘labour and technology research’ a teaching concept that provides participants of vocational training programmes with creative options as well as with opportunities for self-controlled learning was given more attention. Research in the field of labour and technology, which started in the early 1980s, sought to achieve innovations in industry; right from the start the studies carried out were based on the concepts of ↑ participation and ↑ interdisciplinarity. The use of media which promote communication play a major role in this process, since the actors involved bring in different levels of experience and competence which must be linked together. The ESPRIT project called “Human-centred CIM Systems” was the first of its kind in which an ↑ interdisciplinary as well as participatory development project
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was empirically tested on a large scale (CORBETT / RASMUSSEN / RAUNER 1991). The ‘Rolling Development’ concept was devised for industrial design and organisational processes (ibid., chap. 4). In subsequent studies Ruth Kayser and Wolfgang Müller (K AYSER / MÜLLER 1993) as well as Martin Fischer’s research team used this concept as a basis when they adjusted the method of producing situation films to the special requirements of research on vocational training programmes. Producing films as a means to capture, analyse and evaluate observations has a much longer tradition in empirical social research (ELLGRING 1991, 203). In his paper on carrying out observations by means of audiovisual support systems Ellgring points to the long tradition of using audiovisual support systems in empirical social research. Among other things he emphasizes the ‘Cinema Analysis’ of Arnold Gesell who used the method of producing films in ↑ longitudinal studies of infant and toddler development as early as in the 1920s and 1930s (GESELL 1935). Film production has also been given some attention in cultural anthropology and human ethnology (EIBL-EIBESFELDT 1984). Ellgring gives six features which are of general importance and which make film production a particularly suitable method for observation: (1) Films provide the option to document major behavioural phenomena. No other medium allows to capture elusive situations in such a comprehensive manner. (2) Secretive filming. Among scientists this approach is disputed for ethical reasons. (3) A high level of ↑ objectivity (intersubjectivity). This feature is at the centre of fundamental methodological discussions, since film production can also be used for conveying subjectivity. However, a film document represents the objectivised form of a situation, thus making this situation accessible to discourse and analysis. (4) The assessment of behavioural patterns. This process is facilitated by producing a situation film because this medium captures the relevant actors’ nonverbal communication, thus opening their behavioural patterns up for interpretation.
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(5) Objectifying Effect This effect is achieved by confronting the relevant actors with their statements and behavioural patterns. (6) Video Editing This procedure allows to evaluate and accentuate the cinematic raw material by applying different analytical methods. In psychoanalytical hermeneutics the production of feature films has gained some significance. The interaction practices captured in these films are perceived as a drama. Hans Dieter König claims that affective comprehension is achieved by the reader/viewer getting emotionally involved in the text/film – a view that is in line with Freud’s theory of psychoanalytical understanding (KÖNIG 2000, 556 ff.). And finally: Visual sociology (cf. DENZIN 2000) defines itself by the media of images and films. The interpretation of visual and audiovisual material is at the core of its methodical tools. 5.2.7.5
Concluding Remarks
In vocational ↑ training research there is a wide field of methodical applications in which the film as a medium – in particular the situation film – can be used. The few research and development projects carried out so far have supported this view. Methodically, the production of situation films follows on from the use of films in empirical social research (cf. ELLGRING 1995; SCHERER / EKMAN 1982; HARPER 1994). Vocational training programmes and learning in ↑ work processes are of central importance to ↑ organisational development in industry. There is an interplay of education/learning and technological/ organisational processes of change. Traditionally these are the fields which are analysed in industrial science, in ↑ engineering science and in economics. The studies carried out on ‘labour and technology’ are part of an ↑ interdisciplinary study programme which is the first of its kind that is designed to develop and subsequently implement a comprehensive integrated ↑ research approach which also includes vocational training research. In this respect the situation film may also turn out as a medium which is suited to exceed the boundaries of sin-
gle sciences, which facilitates mutual understanding and helps to justify and implement interdisciplinary research projects. This shows that the scientific potential of using cinematic material in vocational training research has so far only been touched on.
5.2.8
Studies of Work Jörg R. Bergmann
Outside and independent of the established research in occupational sociology and sociology of work a new approach known as the ↑ Studies of Work has emerged in Anglo-American sociology over the past 25–30 years. For many observers this approach still seems to be somewhat enigmatic. It has emerged from the ↑ research programme of ↑ ethnomethodology (GARFINKEL 1986) and since a few years it is being received in the German-speaking countries, albeit hesitantly (cf. for research in the ↑ vocational disciplines R AUNER 1998b, 23 ff.). This approach escapes an easy reception because the theory on which it is based is sophisticated and complex, its thematic orientation must be confusing for German-speaking sociology, and its methodological – and practical – consequences are radical and appear to be unpredictable. In what follows the basics of the Studies of Work approach are depicted systematically and historically. The major research themes are then outlined and illustrated by the presentation of some empirical studies. In a concluding section the approach is discussed with a view to its potential and its perspectives. 5.2.8.1
Basic Idea and Conception
The ↑ Studies of Work aim at investigating, by means of detailed documentation, description and analysis of real ↑ work processes, the situated, ↑ embodied practices in which the constitutive knowledge and skills of this work materialise. Work activities in their material, temporal and social organisation are thus in the focus of attention. It is a characteristic feature of the Studies of Work that they do not presuppose normative or idealised versions of work but rather concentrate on real work processes in their rich details. The top-
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ic of the Studies of Work is the embodied knowledge that materialises in the mastery of professional practices and that is constitutive for the successful perfomance of a particular job. The Studies of Work thus aim at the empirical analysis of competence systems (LYNCH / LIVINGSTON / GARFINKEL 1985, 182) that are characteristic for a particular type of work and define its identity. These competences are taken for granted by experienced practitioners. Therefore they can hardly be made explicit in retrospective, interview-elicited descriptions of work processes, and they escape a depiction in training manuals and textbooks. In labour studies and in the ↑ vocational disciplines the great importance of these practical competences and ↑ implicit knowledge has been recognised already for some time and associated to the Studies of Work (R AUNER 2004a, 8 f.). According to their ethnomethodological orientation proponents of the Studies of Work assume that the ↑ performance of ↑ work tasks cannot be explained as rule-abiding actions. Rules, instructions, norms etc. are, by their formal status, general propositions that have to be interpreted and adapted by the actors. They have to be transferred into the situation, i.e. situated (cf. HERITAGE 1984, 293 ff.; SHARROCK /ANDERSON 1986, 80 ff.). Actions therefore have, as Garfinkel puts it, an inevitably indexical character because they unavoidably refer to the context in which they are localised. Due to this indexicality there is a principal gap between official textbook descriptions of the rules of work, which can only deliver idealised versions of work processes, and the actual, practical work performance in situ – a gap that common experience knows as the difference between theory and practice. Each kind of work – from driving a truck to playing the piano to accomplishing a mathematical proof – has to be learned, beyond theoretical instruction, as a practical activity as well. In this learning process the future professional acquires the ability to identify and to handle situative contingencies and to make decisions on the course of work not schematically, but on a case-by-case basis; he learns to deal with imponderabilities and local constellations so as to somehow maintain the adequacy and ↑ efficiency of his activities. This somehow has been systematically left out in the descriptions giv-
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en by labour experts and sociologists. The Studies of Work take this somehow as their primary ↑ research object and ask in a praxeological manner how exactly it is that the specificity and logic of a particular work is constituted in the details of the embodied performance of practical tasks. The Studies of Work therefore are in some sense connected to research in the vocational disciplines on ↑ work process knowledge (cf. as an example NIETHAMMER / STORZ 2002; BECKER 2004). One of the major difficulties is that these practices can neither be identified by a pre-given catalogue of criteria nor can they be determined by attempting to capture them under some external ‘aspect’, e. g. as variables or motivational factors. Like other actions, work activities generate in their developing course an autochthonous order that is characterized by a “natural accountability” (GARFINKEL 2002, 173, 190), which is to say that the work’s intelligibility, describability and meaningfulness is generated through the ways it is realized and is not merely the result of scientific representation and analysis. The endogeneous practices of generating order and meaning in the performance of work are the core topic of the Studies of Work. 5.2.8.2 Genesis and Development The Studies of Work emerged as an approach of its own from the ↑ research programme of ↑ ethnomethodology which was inaugurated in the 1960s by the American sociologist Harold Garfinkel (1967a). Based on the assumption that actors pursue the meaningful ↑ structuration of what they see and do in the social interaction with others, ↑ ethnomethodology has the objective to identify and analyse the principles and mechanisms by means of which social order is accomplished in the course of action. With this programmatic ↑ research question Garfinkel builds on the works of Alfred Schütz (1971) on a phenomenological foundation of the social sciences. Like Schütz, Garfinkel criticises the then dominant paradigm of structural functionalism by Talcott Parsons for neglecting the actors’ specific practices of acquisition, interpretation, translation and decision-making as irrelevant or for equalling these achievements with the model of scientifically rational behaviour. Garfinkel’s claim is that the solution to the problem of
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social order can be found only in the elementary processes of the constitution of meaning in everyday life. Research has therefore to focus on how actors in their day-to-day activities transform the cultural values and norms into the situation, coordinate them with others and make them practically relevant. Although the name may invite such a misunderstanding, ethnomethodology must not be understood as a plan for a scientific methodology. Ethnomethodology is rather a term for the situative techniques and procedures (“methods”) by means of which actors in everyday life (“ethnos”) jointly generate meaningful social order and rationality for all practical purposes. With the shift towards the methodical procedures of actors, through which social phenomena are constituted, Garfinkel implements a constitution-analytical programme as the main venture of ethnomethodology. At the same time he criticises traditional sociology and social research for using, without further clarification, everyday knowledge and common sense practices as resources instead of making them a topic of research. Whilst the criticism of the normative paradigm (WILSON 1973) of traditional sociology played an important role in the early stage of ethnomethodology (cf. CICOUREL 1970), later on the focus shifted more and more to the empirical realization of the ethnomethodological ↑ research programme. An approach that emerged from Garfinkel’s original programme in the early 1970s, but was also strongly influenced by Erving Goffman’s (1971) studies on interaction order, is ↑ conversation analysis (cf. BERGMANN 2004; SACKS 1992). Conversation analytical studies pursue the mechanisms of situated order production within the domain of verbal and non-verbal interaction and show how actors, in the local context of their interaction, generate the “natural accountability” of actions and events. Besides the research in conversation analysis, which soon found international dissemination and recognition, studies were carried out during the early development of ethnomethodology that were concerned with the local production of ↑ work processes and professional tasks. An example is the study by Don Zimmerman (1969) on the practical foundations of ↑ work tasks in a public social
Handbook of TVET Research
service agency. However, the decisive momentum for the development of the ↑ Studies of Work was another research domain to which Harold Garfinkel and other ethnomethodological researchers turned: the work of scientists. From an ethnomethodological point of view science must not be identified with its models and representations in methodological and theoretical textbooks. It has rather to be regarded as something that emerges from the situative practices of scientists and that finds its social order and rationality in these practices. In such a perspective, science loses the character of being something immaterial, purely ideal, even ethereal and becomes a concerted social achievement (LYNCH / LIVINGSTON / GARFINKEL 1985). In order to find out in detail through which practices scientists produce in their cooperative work the characteristic features of their discipline (↑ objectivity, consistency, standardisation etc.) it is necessary to study scientific work the same way as anthropologists studied tribal societies: at close ↑ distance, by participant observation, through the collection of various data and materials. In this methodological spirit several ↑ field research studies were done in the late 1970s, which later became famous as “laboratory studies” and which exercised considerable influence in the sociology of science (cf. for an overview K NORR-CETINA 1995; as exemplary study cf. LYNCH 1985). Almost in the manner of a “fractal sociology” these laboratory studies reconstruct in fine-grained detail on a micro-level – e. g. on the basis of some laboratory shop talk on the magnified and coloured photograph of a tissue sample or by reference to the different versions through which a scientific manuscript iterates before its final version – how the institution science is continuously constituted in every moment through artful work practices. Since the late 1980s the ethnomethodological ↑ Studies of Work found broad reception in another domain – the research area in which various disciplines are concerned with the foundations, but also with the development, application and effects of the new ↑ information technologies. Here, an important part was played by the study of Lucy Suchman (1987), in which the author – then a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
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– convincingly demonstrates what kind of problems can emerge in human-machine interaction when in the development of such systems the situated, local character of human action is not taken into consideration. The study which is strongly indebted to the work of Harold Garfinkel is based on detailed empirical observations and audiovisual recordings. It is also due to this study that some researchers in cognitive science and AI research, which used to operate with a rigid model of action, nowadays conceptualise cognitive processes more closely to communicative processes and take their situative and emergent quality into consideration when formalising actions (cf. ENGESTRÖM / MIDDLETON 1996). Today the influence of the Studies of Work is most clearly visible in the domain of technological sociology (BUTTON 1993; HEATH / LUFF 2000), especially in the studies on “↑ Computer Supported Cooperative Work”. In CSCW research and in the development of software systems it was realised that work activities and interaction with computers are inevitably of a situative character and do by no means follow the ideas and prescriptions of systems developers. The consequence is that systems designers who strive for “usability” need to have knowledge about the ways these systems are actually used and about the contexts in which users work with the systems. For the acquisition of this knowledge systems designers who are concernced with “requirement engineering” and “participatory design” have to rely on detailed ethnographic observations in local work environments. In the last years the so-called “Workplace Studies” developed as a special ↑ research field (LUFF / HINDMARSH / HEATH 2000; K NOBLAUCH / HEATH 1999; HEATH / BUTTON 2002) in which the Studies of Work programme figures prominently and additional perspectives are brought in by various other ↑ research approaches (such as ↑ Activity Theory, Actor Network Theory, Distributed Cognition Approach). The “Workplace Studies” are the result of joint efforts of social scientists and information scientists to investigate how situative professional work practices and new information technologies interact with each other.
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5.2.8.3 Object Relation and Exemplary Studies A central ethnomethodological theorem that is also a starting point for the Studies of Work asserts that actors continuously employ techniques and procedures in their actions in order to render these very actions accountable to others. The actors thus continuously generate for each other the factual character of social facts and the ↑ objectivity of objective state of affairs. This meaningful construction of reality is an essentially reflexive process: actions become identifiable, accountable and meaningful through the meaning they convey, and the meaning is in turn communicatively confirmed time and again through the performed actions. The conception of the Studies of Work radicalises this idea of the meaningful generation of reality. It does no longer distinguish between descriptions, representations and accounts on the one hand and objects and facts on the other, but postulates the undivisibility and irreducibility of the local production of social order in the actors’ ↑ embodied practices. The meaning and reality of social objects are therefore no longer viewed as the product of (isolated) practices of representation. Object and representation are rather understood as a unity, as a whole that realises itself in the accomplishment of sensual-material activities. (For exemplary studies on how objects emerge from discursive practices cf. GOODWIN 1996; GOODWIN / GOODWIN 1997). This idea was heavily influenced by Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s studies on the ↑ phenomenology of the body. His efforts to overcome the distinction between the body as “mechanism-in-itself” and the mind as “being-for-itself” are continued in a sociological way by the ↑ Studies of Work and their way to approach the ordering/ordered character of work activities.. Given these considerations it is quite clear why the Studies of Work are not limited to analysing verbal and non-verbal events within ↑ work processes. The direction taken is quite different from ↑ conversation analysis: Although recent conversation analytic studies predominantly took conversations in institutional, professional settings – in court, in medicine, at schools – as research topic (cf. as a representative collection DREW/HERITAGE 1992), a certain prior-
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ity is assigned to everyday conversation not influcenced by institutional constraints. The Studies of Work, on the other hand, take into account everything that occurs in the ↑ performance of work activities even over a longer period of time. This includes not only the verbal interaction of workers, but also for instance the technical handling of instruments, the manipulation and spatial organisation of objects or the visual and written documents that are generated in the work process. A particularly instructive example is the case study by Garfinkel, Lynch and Livingston (1981) on the work of a team of astronomers who discovered an optical pulsar in 1969. On the basis of the tape recorded work discussion of the scientists during their observations as well as on the basis of their log entries and their ultimately published scientific article the authors analyse the “discovery work” of astronomers in an observatory. Their ↑ central question was: “What does the optically discovered pulsar consist of as Cocke and Disney’s [the astronomers involved] night’s work?” (GARFINKEL / LYNCH / LIVINGSTON 1981, 132). The authors thus dissolved what they called the “Independent Galilean Pulsar” into actions and transformed it into a cultural object that was made up of an ensemble of work specific objectifying practices (cf. also SUCHMAN / BLOMBERG / ORR / TRIGG 1999). Another case study (HEATH / HINDMARSH / LUFF 1999) is concerned with the isolated and apparently non-social work situation of a train driver in the cab of a London underground train. Based on ethnographic observations, tape and video recordings of the normal work routine the authors demonstrate that the practical intelligence and social sensibility of the drivers are an indispensable condition for the safe and reliable transport of passengers. There are several formal procedures and clearly specified tasks for the drivers to limit the range of their work activities and to constrain their discretionary power. But these formal prescriptions, according to the authors’ conclusion, do not themselves guarantee trouble-free operations, but rely on the social and interactive organisation by means of which the drivers steer the trains and maintain the service for the passengers. In the context of the Studies of Work numerous studies on a variety of professional work contexts
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were carried out in the past years. All these studies concentrate on the description and identification of the specific practical competences on which the accomplishment of a (professional) activity is founded. No professional activity has to be principally excluded in advance – even the establishment of the intelligibility of a mathematical demonstration, which is normally supposed to take place independently of any context and in a purely ideal sphere, is deconstructed in an ethnomethodological view into situated sequences of action of a mathematician working with chalk on a blackboard (LIVINGSTON 1986). 5.2.8.4 Methods In an ethnomethodological manner the Studies of Work, identify as their ↑ research object what is mostly taken as unquestioned resource and condition in the traditional sociology of work and occupations. David Sudnow, who has himself presented an ethnomethodological study on the improvisational work of jazz piano playing (SUDNOW 1978), criticises that studies in the sociology of music reveal a lot about the role model, the income, the work situation, the drug consumption etc. of jazz musicians, but that the work of making music itself remains unmentioned in these texts. This “missing what” (Garfinkel) is the topic of the Studies of Work. But since it cannot be determined in advance what these taken-for-granted practices of a specific type of work consist of, it is methodologically impossible to simply draw upon the established procedures of data collection, data processing and theory building. When a social object is methodically processed through coding and numerical-statistical transformation it is lost for ↑ ethnomethodology since the situative practices of its generation are eliminated. Furthermore, these practices cannot simply be surveyed by interviews, since they remain, as Garfinkel (1967a) puts it, “seen but unnoticed”. In ethnomethodology there are great reservations against explicating the procedural rules prior to the actual research and to fix these rules in a mandatory methodological catalogue. According to the conviction underlying this position methods must never be allowed to dominate the ↑ research object and have to be abandoned if they limit access to
Research Methods
the specific nature of a research object. Garfinkel (2002, 175 f.) goes so far as to postulate a “unique adequacy requirement” as an ideal for ethnomethodological ↑ research methods. In its weak version this ideal stipulates that a researcher has to be deeply familiar with the mechanisms of meaning and order production in his field of research in order to investigate it. In its strong version the postulate means that the methods for investigating a field should be seen – and found – as part of the field itself. An example would be a field observation that takes up the methods of observation already practised in this field. In the ideal case the methods of investigation should be uniquely adequate to the object – but since this can be decided only when one already has obtained knowledge about the object or when the researcher is part of the ↑ research field, a formalisation of methods is impossible. (The very claim that the researcher needs to be a competent member of the field he investigates is, of course, highly unrealistic. In fact it was only in a few cases that this claim could be fulfilled, cf. LIVINGSTON 1986; BURNS 2000 and, for a German example STOY 2001). A ↑ Studies of Work researcher cannot decide a priori in what details and structural features the “lived order” (Garfinkel) of a ↑ work process becomes observable and how a practitioner’s situative competence becomes apparent. Therefore the researcher needs first of all to gain ethnographic access to the field of investigation and to record the work process as exactly as possible in its temporal and spatial course, its material shape and its documentary traces (written material, diagrams etc.). Given its orientation towards the local practices in which work is constituted as an intelligible pheonomenon, ethnomethodology depends on “data” whose representational form is such that the practices it focuses on are conserved. Accordingly ethnomethodology is committed to a “registering” conservation mode (BERGMANN 1985) by means of which social events are preserved in their raw appearance regardless of plausibility and behavioural expectations. This is the background for the ethnomethodological interest in tape and video recordings of social interactions in natural, i.e. unarranged contexts and in the development of transcription rules that allow for the written fixation of a conversa-
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tion without orthographic standardisation and reduction that ethnomethodologists and conversation analysts have shown since the 1960s. For the analysis of this material no standardized methods were developed by the Studies of Work or ethnomethodology as a whole. The closest approximation to such methodological standards can be found in ↑ conversation analysis (BERGMANN 2004). A first analytical access to the data can often be gained through one of the following two strategies. One possibility is to use the work-related statements of practitioners during the ↑ performance of a work activity to become attentive to the specific task constellations and problem-solving procedures that are embodied in the work routine and that reveal the orientational patterns and relevance structures of a particular work. Another possibility is to look for “disruptions” or “trouble-makers” that may come up during a particular work and that offer the researcher an opportunity to observe the practical employment of order-generating activities and the work specific competence that is necessary for their performance. According to their complex research objects and the heterogeneity of their data the Studies of Work employ a variety of methods for analysis and do not hesitate to borrow from other methodological approaches (↑ ethnography, conversation analysis, text analysis). It is not the application of a particular method that is crucial for the Studies of Work, but the ability to use the general theoretical considerations (on the indexicality of actions, on the concern for “accountability” etc.) such that the practices that generate the identifying features of some work activity become accessible and visible. 5.2.8.5 Perspectives Undoubtedly the ↑ Studies of Work are a provocation for the sociology of work and occupations. Traditional sociology of work hardly can make anything of the claim to take the constitutive practices of work activities as the central ↑ research object, to abandon any interest in typologies and to concentrate instead on the particulars of the work in question (but cf. BARLEY/KUNDA 2001). In his programmatic texs Garfinkel persistently talks of the “haecceitas” of the social, identifying it as the focus of ethnomethodological interest. This term
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is meant to express the idea that everything that is social exists only as an singular, unique phenomenon. When the social is described in general concepts and subsumed under pre-given, theoretically deduced categories this feature of uniqueness is eliminated and lost (GARFINKEL 2002; cf. also LYNCH 1993, ch. 7). Nevertheless in the meantime this ethnomethodological provocation was productively received in labour studies and in research in the ↑ vocational disciplines, and it gave rise to thematic and methodological innovations (cf. R AUNER 2002d). To insist upon the haecceitas of all social objects, which must not be neglected in scientific treatment, entails some danger for the Studies of Work. Some of the studies that follow this approach are characterized by an exaggerated reservation against any generalisation. Instead they move through more and more detailed loops of description, which ultimately leads to a descriptive duplication of the research object. In this case taking haecceitas into account leads to a kind of scientific agnosticism and paralyses any strive for generalised statements. Along this road the Studies of Work would develop into an empty and futile provocation of the modell building social sciences. Garfinkel’s reminder to consider the haecceitas of all social objects can nevertheless be of high value especially for the study of professional work practices. The scientific investigation of professional activities is very often in danger to neglect the lo-
cal, reflexive process in which its object is constituted. The situative demands, the practical skills and the embodied knowledge of professional work gets frequently ignored with reference to the necessary scientific formalisation and generalisation. It is not seldom that scientists encounter “practitioners” with a certain epistemic arrogance while practitioners in turn can only shake their heads about the ignorant observers who apply some external categories to their work. At this point the potential of the Studies of Work becomes evident, which strive to study ↑ work processes according to their own internal logic. However, such an analysis delving deeply into the internal logic of work processes cannot be achieved by a researcher who permanently maintains a ↑ distance to his object. Consequently Harold Garfinkel (2002, 100 ff.) pointed out that ↑ ethnomethodology has to be applied ethnomethodology through and through. It has to develop into a hybrid discipline in which different ↑ professions are jointly engaged in the analysis of work processes. In the area of ↑ CSCW research the Studies of Work already stood the practical test to a large extent. Should they also succeed in other areas of work in gaining access to the constitutive sub-structure of practical skills and embodied professional knowledge, their findings would be of inestimable value and have a revolutionary impact – for practitioners as well as for scientists.
5.3.0 Experimentation and Development Peter Röben 5.3.0.1
Conceptual Clarification and Definition of Key Issues
The two terms ↑ experimentation and development have a highly positive connotation in the scientific field. Experimentation is a key tool for obtaining knowledge and insight in the natural sciences and development is a central feature of the ↑ engineering sciences. The success of these two divisions of science have led to a higher regard for its methods.
However, one does not learn anything about the role that experimentation and development can and should play in vocational ↑ training research by examining natural and engineering science. First it is necessary to take a closer look at the adaptation of these methods in the social sciences and ↑ humanities, particularly in educational theory and ↑ vocational education theory. The approach pursued by Gerald Straka inter alia represents an attempt in this direction. One of the major results is the contradiction between internal and ↑ external validity of laboratory
Research Methods
and field experiments. While laboratory experiments make it possible to monitor the investigation variables to a large extent and thus ensure their external validity, transferring their results to the external world evidently poses a much greater problem than in the natural sciences. However, even in the natural sciences laboratory findings do not necessarily guarantee their application in the real world. Nevertheless, if the interrelationship of the investigation variables has been isolated from disruptive influences in the laboratory, it supplies rules that are generally valid in the form of natural laws, i.e. also outside laboratories. A drop experiment conducted in a vacuum in the laboratory, for example, is not wrong because the atmosphere in the real world makes the falling of the bodies appear differently than under the conditions in the laboratory. On the contrary, by eliminating a disruptive influence (e. g. of the air), the effect of another influence (gravitation) becomes identifiable and in the further course of research the influence of the disruption in itself can then be determined. Natural science has accumulated an enormous store of verified knowledge through this isolation of individual influencing factors, quantitative determination of their extent and effect as well as successive determination of other influencing factors. As a discipline geared to the realization of useful artefacts (tools, products, machines, buildings, equipment), the ↑ engineering sciences are able to utilize the verified knowledge accumulated in the natural sciences in their development and shaping process. A fundamental difference exists between the field of natural and engineering sciences, on the one hand, and the field of ↑ humanities and social sciences, on the other hand. It relates to the laws and rules. Whereas one can only find laws in the natural and engineering sciences but cannot violate them, social laws are created by humanity. However, not only the creation of laws is the reason behind the fundamental difference between the two large divisions of science, but also the nature of these divisions. While the laws of the natural and engineering sciences apply objectively, social laws can be violated. There have been, for instance, innumerable attempts to build a perpetuum mobile, i.e. to create a machine that generates constant use-
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ful power without any energy supply. Back in 1775 the French Academy of Sciences declared that it would not accept or examine any more papers on the topic of perpetual motion, at a time far before the discovery of the law of conservation of energy in the mid-19th century. There are constantly violations against the property law, as an example of a social law. It exists only to the extent that state organs vest power in it. Furthermore, social laws cannot simply be examined independent of researchers. The Hawthorne Experiment (see in Wikipedia, for example) is a good instructive example of how examination of a social group from a natural science point of view can lead to confusing results. In the section by Straka et al. 6 other effects are described that act as disruptive factors in a social experiment and may question its results. One cannot avoid this problem by restricting oneself to laboratory experiments. After all, the gain of ↑ internal validity is repeatedly called into question by the loss of ↑ external validity. Therefore, social sciences and humanities have to develop their own methods to make valid statements on the subject of their research. One of these methods is the ↑ qualitative experiment, which differs clearly from the quantitative experiments of the natural sciences and the disciplines inspired by the natural sciences (see → 5.3.2). The concept of qualitative experiments encompasses phenomenological investigation, dialogues and genetic reconstruction, through which the relationship between research and the subject of study is also included. A large-scale form of ↑ experimentation that is used to a relatively large extent in German vocational ↑ training research is accompanying ↑ design projects research, such as that presented in the article by Peter Sloane. The role played by researchers in a design project is due to their scientific understanding. In the case of detached (non-intervening) accompanying research, an attempt is made to realize ideal research in which the result of a design project is not determined by the activities of the researchers who take note of and document what happens in the design project from the point of view of a neutral observer. In the case of intervening accompanying research, the realization that the activities in a design project are influenced
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by the mere presence of the researchers is applied positively and an attempt is made to support the achievement of the goals of the design project participants during the design project, and even to devote oneself to serving the interests of the design project participants. Responsive accompanying research departs from this ideal of serving the research scientists in the interests of the project participants and emphasizes that both researchers and project participants have their own respective interests and the activities of the design project must therefore be negotiated. Whereas the development process within the framework of individual design projects may be of a perceptible experimental nature, objectives that are no longer of an experimental nature result at the level of design project programmes and especially at the various political levels of the vocational training system. The goal of equivalence of vocational and general education, for example, is a normative maxim so that this goal is withdrawn from the field of experiments. Only specific design projects that are aimed at promoting this goal are of an experimental nature. 5.3.0.2
Genesis and Historical Development
Among the most famous experiments in ↑ humanities and social sciences, which especially received widespread attention in pedagogical science, are those conducted by Skinner (1904–1990, “Skinner box”). The “laws of learning” identified in rats, dogs and doves were taken to be universally valid due to a questionable equation with experiments in the natural sciences. These “laws” were applied and distributed via popular learning methods of the 1960s and 1970s (e. g. programmed learning, whose basic concept still forms the foundations of many computer-based learning programmes). Other examples for famous historic experiments in humanities and social sciences that are also relevant for TVET research are the Stanford prison experiment (1971), the Milgram experiment (1963), which was intended to test the “Germans are different” hypothesis, and the experiments by Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) on the usage of tools by great apes. These experiments were relevant for gestalt psychology and yielded important results for experiential learning.
In the early sociology of work and industrial sociology the Hawthorne experiments (1924–1932) in a factory of Western Electric (Cicero, Illinois, ↑ USA) are of great importance. From the discussion on the interpretation of the results between representatives of the company and trade unionists the human relations approach emerged, which found its German counterpart in the programmes “Humanisierung der Arbeitswelt” (humanisation of the world of work, 1974–1989) and “Arbeit und Technik” (work and technology, 1989–1996). A typical difference between experiments in the natural sciences and experiments in the social sciences and the humanities is the fact that the interpretation of the latter is already influenced by moral judgements of the interpreter. Taking a moral stance towards the law of gravity is absurd, for there is no alternative to this law. But studying the working and learning conditions of workers and showing indifference with regard to the relevance of the results for the people affected is wrong. For these conditions are the result of actions and decisions to which there is always an alternative. One of the major educational tasks in TVET research is to support an awareness of alternatives also in the domain of technology. The title of the German programme on the improvement of working conditions, “humanisation of the world of work” already points at conditions in the ↑ work process that tend to be inhuman. Unskilled work continues to take place under conditions that cannot simply be evaluated by the measurement of objective quantities like brightness, sound, temperature etc., but only by reference to its meaning for the persons who have to endure this type of work. TVET research, to the extent that it conceives of itself as a pedagogical science, shares one specific feature with general educational science. This characteristic feature of the educational sciences of not simply generating knowledge that can prove to be action-directing or action-oriented in practice, but of having incorporated standards as an absolutely constituent element, has been known since Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776– 1841) at the latest. In his section Felix Rauner examines the implications of this far-reaching thesis for vocational ↑ training research and its relationship to the system of vocational training. A key
Research Methods
concept in his section is the notion of development. The objective of vocational training research is, for example, to develop training courses, job outlines, ↑ educational processes and organisations conducive to learning. An especially highly charged field is that of ↑ interdisciplinary cooperation, which is pushing into nearly all areas of development of vocational training research. The system of vocational training is extremely broadly differentiated, its degree of detail can be indicated, for example, by the great number of training occupations (346) and the many thousands of occupations actually performed. The task of vocational training research is to develop ↑ domain-specific competences for a very large number of knowledge and activity domains. 5.3.0.3
Major Research Areas and Topics
↑ Experimentation and development in the context of TVET research is a vast field. It stretches from the connections with the neighbouring disciplines psychology and sociology to the classical pedagogical research areas of learning, competence and personality development and to the related pedagogical measures like ↑ curriculum development, design of learning media and the definition of the teacher’s role in the entire field of initial and ↑ continuing vocational education and training. The latter includes all relevant learning venues, the classroom and the laboratory in the work process as well as in the ↑ in-company training centre. A problem that should not be underestimated is the variety of contents. This becomes clear immediately when considering in which contexts TVET research is carried out. The range of these contexts comprises the entire knowledge utilised in society for the purposes of production, reproduction, administration, distribution and management in domains as heterogeneous as agriculture and ↑ information technology, media and gardening, metalworks and medicine, to name but a few. Bruno Clematide makes key comments on the role of vocational training researchers at the interface of this diverse fields of knowledge. He examines the process of participative development in which it is important for the researcher’s expertise to interact with that of the practitioner in order to produce an optimal development result. A significant aspect
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in this context is making a distinction between the respective learning of the groups involved in the development process. The learning of practitioners and workers makes itself felt in their altered practice while the learning of researchers goes beyond that and finds expression in the documentation of the altered practice against the background of theoretical assumptions and findings. However, the learning of individual researchers does not become a learning of the research community until the latter receives the publications of a practiceoriented project and thus places them within the framework of theoretical discourses. Researchers at the interface between practical communities and the scientific community find themselves in a delicate balance between proximity and ↑ distance. The proximity to the practical community is necessary to comprehend its significance. However, maintaining distance to the practical community is necessary since the data collected in it must be recognized in a context that is alien to it, i.e. the theoretical discourse of researchers. 5.3.0.4
Perspectives
Participative development meets with criticism among researchers who work on a quantitative basis. In their eyes the successes of participative development are singular events with limited scope and very restricted generalizability. This criticism can only be refuted by means of results of vocational ↑ training research that, on the basis of initially singular events, produces a generalizable result, which can be communicated in a broad scientific community, through disclosure of the methods applied (e. g. future creating workshop, dialog conference, narrative approach, appreciative inquiry, learning organisation) and a participatively developed understanding of the dependent (influenceable) and individual (non-influenceable) variables.
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5.3.1
Handbook of TVET Research
Laboratory Experiments and Quasi Experiments Gerald A. Straka, Katja Meyer-Siever and Johannes Rosendahl
5.3.1.1
History
“In our judgement the controlled experiment still remains the single most powerful tool for enabling investigators to disentangle just what causes what, and is the standard against which other research methods continue to be measured” (ARONSON / ELLSWORTH / CARLSMITH /GONZALES 1990, XVII).
In Germany a breakthrough occurred in ↑ educational research in the late 19th century in the field of experimental methodology. According to Klauer (1973b) this breakthrough was caused by two major events: In 1849 John Stuart Mills raised the question of how causal connections could be demonstrated empirically and inductively. Until today the systematic answers he provided are of importance. The second event was the establishment of the Institute for Experimental Psychology by Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig – the first of its kind worldwide. Although Wundt mainly conducted experimental psychological research, some of his students extended these studies to educational fields. Noteworthy in this context are the works of Lay (“Experimental Didactics” 1920), Meumann (“Introductory Lectures to Experimental Psychology” 1907/1908) and Fischer (“On the Role of Experiments in Educational Research” 1913) [translation: S.O.]. Up to the First World War these scientists were the representatives of the first bloom period of experimental methodology in educational science. In the 1930s the enthusiasm for experimental methodology in Germany gave way to disappointment because this methodology was pushed aside by the humanities-oriented educational science. The decline in recognition was even reinforced by the fact that those personalities who were closely linked to the tradition of experimental research, distanced themselves from it; they now argued that experiments were often tedious, ambiguous and unreliable when repeated. Moreover, a large number of representatives of the ↑ Humanities held the view that experimental methods could only be applied
to a limited degree in educational science, since they were not justifiable ethically and also because this kind of approach was not appropriate for complex educational contexts. After World War II educationalists in Germany tried to re-connect with the traditions of the ↑ Humanities. The inaugural lecture of Heinrich Roth in Göttingen in which he propagated a realistic turn towards ↑ educational research (ROTH 1962) actually represented a shift in direction. However, this shift only gradually became widespread (K LAUER 1973b). A glance at the relevant bodies in vocational education shows that until this day neither empirical nor experimental ↑ research methods have won wide recognition in this field. These scientific approaches might become more widespread in vocational ↑ training research through the impetus of international quantitative studies like TIMSS and PISA (BAUMERT / BOS / LEHMANN 2000; BAUMERT /K LIEME / NEUBRAND ET AL. 2001). 5.3.1.2
Conceptual Definition and Classification
In general the term ‘experiment’ is associated with clarity, accuracy and control; however, it is interpreted differently in the relevant literature. To illustrate this point, the definitions of well-known representatives of experimental methodology are given: Wundt (1913, 25): “An experiment is an observation which links up with the arbitrary effect of the observer on the development and the course of the events to be observed” (Later on Wundt added the criteria of variability and repeatability to the criterion of arbitrary producibility). Bredekamp (1980, 1 f.): “Hence an experiment can be defined as an observation of certain phenomena in a given situation, in which test persons have randomly been placed in conditions created by the investigator, and in which the sequence of conditions is changed at random with repeated observations of the test person […]” [translation: S.O.]. Hager (1987, 71): “An analysis (UU) is an experiment with respect to the independent variable X if the same facts are observed systematically under different circumstances (X1, X2, …, XK) and if the test persons and the conditions are associated with each other at random or if the test persons and the sequence of conditions in which they are observed systematically (X1, X2, …,
Research Methods
XK) are associated with each other at random” [translation: S.O.]:
Despite these differences in defining the term ‘experiment’ some key aspects of an experiment can be identified: (1) specific and methodically created experimental conditions; (2) systematic variation of at least one independent variable; (3) systematic recording of at least one dependent variable; (4) monitoring of disturbing variables; (5) repeatability. In general the term ‘experiment’ is used to describe a study carried out under the ‘artificial’ conditions of a laboratory. This procedure – called laboratory experiment – makes it possible to work under strictly controlled conditions. In contrast to this the field experiment is performed under ‘natural conditions’. The laboratory experiment and the experiment in general are based on the same question: Checking the impact of independent variables (X) on dependent variables (Y). The two also share the feature of ‘controlled condition variation’ according to which specific conditions can be controlled by the investigator (through elimination, random allocation, parallelisation or keeping constant) and other conditions can be changed (K LAUER 1973b). A marked difference between the field experiment and the laboratory experiment lies in the fact that in a laboratory experiment it is largely possible to control potentially disturbing factors (GADENNE 1976) whereas in a field experiment this control is only considered possible to a limited degree. Campbell and Stanley (1963) systematized the controversial disturbing factors according to their internal and ↑ external validity. A study may be described as internally valid, if it is ensured that changes in the dependent variable can be attributed to a variation of the independent variable and were not caused by disturbing variables which mixed up with the independent variable. A study can be described as externally valid if the results it yields can be generalized and are also applicable to other individuals, situations and operationalizations of the independent and dependent variables.
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Set against these criteria, the field experiment is considered to have a greater ↑ external validity and – broadly – a smaller ↑ internal validity, whereas the laboratory experiment is believed to have a greater internal and frequently a smaller external validity. However, to what extent this assessment of the different types of analyses is actually appropriate, must be determined separately for each case (BRACHT/ GLASS 1968; COOK / CAMPBELL 1976). Campbell and Stanley (1963) make a distinction between eight different types of disturbing factors which threaten the internal validity of an experiment: (1) history: events that may occur simultaneously with the ongoing process between the first and second measurement; (2) maturation: maturing of the test persons (grow older, more hungry or more tired etc.); (3) testing: effects of a first test run on the levels recorded in a second run (effect of training and routine; pre-test effect, K LAUER 1973b); (4) instrumentation: use of different measuring instruments, presence of different observers or analyzers may cause changes in measurements and/or in the results obtained; (5) statistical regression: impact of the selection of test groups on the basis of the extreme values they produced; (6) selection: different strategies applied in the selection of test persons; (7) experimental mortality: drop-out of test persons; (8) selection-maturation interaction, which in specific quasi-experimental groups may be confused with the effect of experimental variables or may be mistaken for the effect of such variables. The external validity of an experiment is influenced by the following disturbing factors (BRACHT/ GLASS 1968; K LAUER 1973b): (1) reactive or interaction effect of testing: impact on the sensitivity or responsiveness of the test persons by preliminary studies (pre-test or post-test responsiveness, BRACHT/ GLASS 1968); (2) interaction between biased sample selection and the experimental variables;
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(3) reactive effects of the experimental situation: impact on the level of generalization on those persons, who have been exposed to the treatment under different conditions than those of the experimental situation; (4) multiple treatment interference: Effects of previous analyses or experiments complicate the identification of the causes of the results obtained or make it more difficult to apply the results to situations in which only one variable is independent. (5) Hawthorne-Effect/Placebo-Effect: if a test person is aware that he/she is undergoing an experiment, this knowledge may cause changes in his/ her behavior which would not occur if he/she had no knowledge of this fact; (6) Novelty Effect: The results obtained may partly be attributed to enthusiasm or to the unfamiliarity of the experimental situation; (7) Impact of the investigator’s personality: certain characteristics, modes of conduct or the mere presence of the investigator may unintentionally influence the behavior of the test persons. In the following types of studies the above-mentioned disturbing factors cannot be controlled: Quasi- Experiments (CAMPBELL / STANLEY 1963; Kerlinger 1964). In principle these may be based on the same questions as field experiments. However, in contrast to field experiments the control of potentially disturbing factors is far more difficult in ↑ quasi experiments. The most prominent difference between a quasi experiment and an experiment is that in a quasi-experiment the random allocation of test persons to experimental conditions is not carried out. Frequently this random allocation is not justifiable because of the conditions prevailing in the educational field and also for reasons of scientific ethics. Since quasi-experiments are most commonly used in the social sciences, it will be given special attention in this paper (CAMPBELL / STANLEY 1963; COOK / CAMPBELL 1976; K ERLINGER 1964). Methodologically the term experiment must be differentiated from the ex-post-facto- experiment. As part of this approach the independent variable(s) (X) was already realized and the potential correlations and effects of the independent variable on the variable(s) presumed dependent were analysed retroactively (K ERLINGER 1964). Hence the investi-
Handbook of TVET Research
gator can by no means vary the independent variables in an ex-post-facto- experiment so that a control of potentially disturbing factors through random allocation is not possible. 5.3.1.3
Criteria Underlying the Study Designs
Different study or ↑ experimental designs can be used to control the disturbing factors and to ensure the ↑ internal validity of the experiment. “An experimental design is a standardised scheme (structural scheme) which can be routinely applied and which provides the basis for the organisation, monitoring and methodical assessment of an empirical study on independent (IV) and dependent (DV) variables” (SARRIS 1992, 4). [translation, S.O.]
In the following some of these ‘structural schemes’ will be outlined. Where this is possible, the study designs will be illustrated by examples from the DFG-funded study program “Teaching-Learning Processes in Initial Business Education” (1994 to 1999) (BECK /K RUMM 2001). The optimized experimental designs created for statistical analyses will not be considered (e. g. BORTZ 1999; FISHER 1935/1972; WINER 1962/1991).
Experimental Designs ‘Real’ experimental designs are designs comprising several groups, since at least one control group must be compared with one experimental group. In addition to this the test persons will be randomly allocated to different groups. This is done to ensure that the experimental and the control group do not differ from each other; thus any differences that occur are exclusively attributable to the measures taken, and the treatment performed, respectively.
(1) Posttest Only Control Group Design
R TE TC O
Random allocation Treatment to the Experimental Group Treatment to the Control Group Measurement (observation)
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The control group design including a follow-up examination is widely appreciated because of its simplicity and ↑ efficiency. It is not necessary to carry out a pre-test, since generally it can be ensured through random allocation that at the outset the groups do not differ from each other. Another benefit is that pre-test effects can be avoided (sensitization). If a statistically significant difference between the mean values of the experimental group and the control group occurs, this can be attributed to the effect of the treatment (T) carried out. Ebner and Aprea (2001) analysed the effect of active graphic representation of economic facts on the level of their acquisition and use. For this study 143 future bankers in their second year of training were randomly allocated (R) to the control and the experimental group. The experimental group was given a short training in mapping procedures. Subsequently the trainees were asked to create such a network diagram for a text they were given (TE). The control group, however, was only given a text and an exemplary diagram (TC). The question underlying this experiment was to determine if the learning ↑ efficiency varied in line with the ↑ teaching method applied. Random allocation of the trainees to the groups under comparison makes it possible to maintain disturbing factors like maturation, testing, instrumentation used, statistical regression, selection and experimental loss of test persons, as well as interaction between the various variables at a constant level and thus to control them. From this follows that an internal validity of the results can be assumed, although ↑ external validity continues to be threatened by effects such as, for instance, the Hawthorne-effect, the novelty-effect or the impact of the investigator. Therefore population validity is not in place, since the trainees are not a random sample of the entire group of ‘future bankers’.
(2) Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design
This design has the same benefits as the “Posttest only control group design” – not least because of the Random Allocation of the Test Persons – and
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thus has a high ↑ internal validity. In addition to this there is the possibility to determine initial values and to check the equality of the groups by means of theoretically significant control variables. The disturbing factor ‘history’ is eliminated, since both groups are exposed to the same conditions. However, it may happen that the internal validity is affected by the simple presence or conduct of the investigator, the sequence of occurrences and – in lengthy experiments – by the by the experimental loss of test persons. ↑ External validity is threatened because the test persons have been sensitized to the problem in preliminary tests. In those cases in which the experimental group(s) and the control group(s) is/are not representative of the general population, the risk of an interaction between the selection of test persons and the treatment continues to exist. The two-group design can be extended to carry out a more comprehensive analysis of conditions and to control disturbing effects like the placebo effect, the novelty effect or the effect caused by the presence/conduct of the investigator. One example of such an extension is the, 2 x 2-factorial design’ in which two treatments are carried out in two ways (= 2 x 2). Given the internal validity of the experiment, it is possible to compare the effect of four experimental conditions. In a study on Learning by Solving Problems in Commercial Calculation (STARK / GRUBER / HINKOFER ET AL. 2001) the authors addressed the question of what impact the two different ways of solving problems and ↑ learning strategies (TA/B) have on the transfer of what has been learnt. The analogous exemplary solutions covered the issue of securities, stocks and bonds. The multiple (differing) examples also covered the issues of loans and corporate ↑ participation. In both treatments the structure of the tasks assigned was the same (TA/B). The learning strategy applied either was ‘thinking out loud’ (i.e. pupils were asked to express what just crossed their mind) or the pupils explained how they intended to address the issue. The pupils were allocated at random to the two groups; the level of their knowledge (O0) established at the start of the experiment confirmed that there was a high level of equality between the two groups. Af-
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ter conclusion of the experiment the test persons’ transfer ↑ efficiency was determined (O1). In addition to the study designs presented above there are other, partly quite complex ↑ experimental designs (cf. WINER 1962/1991). In general they presuppose a random distribution of the test persons to the groups under study – conditions which are rather unrealistic, since groups (classes) in vocational training programs are generally not arranged at random and these groups are studied in vocational ↑ training research. For this reason researchers in this field developed 2 alternative solutions: Quasi-experimental and extended non-experimental study designs.
Quasi-Experimental Designs A typical example of this mode of approach is the study carried out by Sembill, Schumacher, Wolf, Wuttke and Santjer-Schnabel (2001). It was designed to analyse how the problem solving ability and and the level of motivation of learners could be improved through self-organized learning. In the study two classes, which had been parallelized in terms of gender and age, were compared. The experimental group temporarily used the strategy of self-organized learning (SoLe = TE), whereas the control group was instructed ‘traditionally’ (TraLe = TC). During the teaching units the researchers also compiled processing data, i.e. at 5-minute intervals the students were asked to assess their cognitive, emotional and motivational status. The structural design of the study is presented in the following:
Fig. 1: structural model (empirical)
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P TE/OP P TK/OP
O0 O3 O0 O3
TE/OP O1
TE/OP O2
TK/OP O1
TK/OP O2
P OP
parallelization compilation of processing data during treatment
This quasi experimental field study in which measurements were taken at different times and processing data were compiled during treatment, presents the course of development of major parameters (motivational development). By parallelizing the two groups under comparison and subsequent checking of the homogeneity of the experimental and the control group by means of tests carried out when the first measurements (O0) were taken, it was possible to show in this study that in the experimental group which temporarily learnt in a ↑ learning environment of self-organization (SoLe-Group), the problem solving ability had improved. However, the observation that the students in the SoLe-Group were more self-motivated in learning, may also be attributable to the novelty or Hawthorne effect – an effect, which researchers tried to avoid by extending the study over 29 weeks. 5.3.1.4
Future Trends
The fictitiousness of a ‘real’ experiment (SARRIS 1992) as well as the relatively high level of time and effort involved in ↑ experimental designs prompted methodologists like Blalock to think
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about ways in which quasi- and non-experimental study designs could be used to check causal relationships (BLALOCK 1964). As a result of the subsequent methodological discussion – held, above all, in the Social Sciences in which experiments are not always possible – the relevant strategies were developed and put into practice; they helped to raise the internal and ↑ external validity of non-experimental study designs. Among these are: compilation of longitudinal data, testing of alternative hypotheses and application of strategies such as the cross-validation of results in major samples (BURKE 2001). In this context the development of multivariable statistical procedures like factor-, regression and path analysis as well as the programs developed to analyse structural equation models (e. g. LISREL) need to be mentioned (e. g. BACKHAUS / ERICHSON / P LINKE / WEIBER 2003). The later in particular make it possible to analyse the effects of several variables simultaneously so that the complexity of the wide field of vocational education is taken into account. As part of a field study, for instance, which looked into the factors that can be used to determine the level of competent action in students enrolled in commercial vocational training programs, a structural model was confirmed (STRAKA / LENZ 2003; Fig. 1): This figure shows that the ‚conditions in class’ did not – as initially presumed – directly impact the ‘vocation-specific competence’. However, in line with the findings obtained in the studies on interests and ↑ learning strategies (BECK /K RUMM 2001) it turned out that the factors ‘content-based interest’ and ‘working and control strategies’ impacted a student’s ‘vocation-specific competence’ in different degrees (= moderator effects). The latter prompted students to attribute their scores to different causes (attributions). ‘Economic competence’ which is focused on the national economy, only had a moderate effect on the company-oriented ‘vocation-specific competence’, an observation which may indicate that the test persons had not yet interrelated these economic fields. These ↑ evaluation methods have been advanced to complex, multivariable and multifactorial analytical methods; new software tools in this field have much facilitated the application of these methods
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so that it is not only possible to control potentially disturbing factors statistically but also to rule out several alternative hypotheses at the same time. The co-efficients in Fig. 1, for instance, present net effects, because the effect of third variables is statistically controlled. This form of control of potentially disturbing factors will, however, never reach the level by a random allocation (STRAKA 1974). But from a statistical perspective, methodological developments have helped to blur the line between an ex-post-facto-experiment and a field experiment. On the one hand this progress in ↑ research methodologies has produced major procedures which can be applied to describe and explain complex interaction in the field of vocational training. On the other hand this development requires a systematic working on the findings in order to develop corresponding complex hypothetical models and to validate them on the basis of the data obtained. Insofar Popper’s statement “observation [is] always an observation in the light of theories” (POPPER 1989, 31) might only now receive due attention in vocational ↑ training research.
5.3.2. Qualitative Experiments Franz Stuber 5.3.2.1
Clarification of Terms
↑ Qualitative experiments are characterised by a special type of experimental activity in the social sphere. As experiments, they represent a primary means of acquiring scientific knowledge. ↑ Experimentation in general involves planning the production of particular conditions that allow a phenomenon of interest to be observed systematically without external disturbance, and then conclusions are to be drawn from such observation. Conclusions may range from explanations to new hypotheses based on findings. Experiments can generally be differentiated according to their field of enquiry. In the natural sciences experiments are concerned with elucidating relationships governed by natural laws. Technical experiments focus on the intended application of
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new combinations of the material under investigation. Thus, technical experiments always have a social dimension. The history of modern natural and technical sciences offers a striking picture of their interconnectedness. One example is Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite experiment of 1752. Using a kite attached to copper wire, Franklin was able to provide experimental proof of atmospheric electricity and so elucidate the universally known phenomenon of lightning. This knowledge was, at the same time, the basis for a technical invention with practical application: the lightning rod. The distinction between qualitative and quantitative experiments is not of great importance in the natural sciences. Experimentally established structures are always quantitative relations of a certain quality, while quantitative experiments serve to differentiate findings, that is, qualities of natural phenomena. In the social sciences, however, ↑ qualitative experimentation has acquired significance as a discrete ↑ research method. Experiments in the social sciences focus on social relations and cognitive operations. The demands of experimental research are fundamentally different here from those that govern investigations into animate and inanimate nature. This difference is already evident in the widelyused expression ‘social experiment’. This is used – often with critical intent – to refer to a politically motivated shift in (power) relations within society, where it is uncertain whether the people affected will adapt to the new conditions. In connection with social and psychological phenomena, the specific production and modification of particular conditions in the research process involves examination of the needs and objectives of individuals and their interactional forms. Such modifications represent direct interventions in the living and working conditions of the relevant test subjects. These peculiarities of social science experiments may also apply to technical experiments if and to the extent that the intended new combination of natural laws in artifacts is accompanied by modifications in the forms and processes of work and living.
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Qualitative ↑ experimentation as a discrete ↑ research method can be linked to qualitatively oriented empirical research in social and educational studies. In ↑ qualitative experiments, specific interventions in the social environment are undertaken in order to achieve insights into aim-determination and/or forms of consciousness. As a method belonging to the ↑ qualitative paradigm, ↑ qualitative experimentation is concerned not with the empirical verification of hypotheses, rather with the generation of theories appropriate to the object of enquiry, as well as with the multi-perspectivity of the research process and the reflexivity of the actors. In contrast to ↑ pilot project research (→ 5.3.3), qualitative experiments are limited to the microanalysis of social conditions. 5.3.2.2 Genesis of the Method Qualitative experimentation as a research method has diverse roots. Experimental research in psychology had its first heyday in the early 20th century. Indeed, the term qualitative experimentation was coined at that time (MACH 1980). The emerging schools of perception, thought and Gestalt psychology, but also animal psychology, declared qualitative experimentation to be a preferred method. In the much-cited ‘Marienthal Study’ as well, in which the subjective effects of unemployment were investigated in an Austrian village, researchers varied the social environment according to qualitative experimental criteria (JAHODA / LAZARSFELD / ZEISEL 1960). This tradition, established at the beginning of the 20th century, was continued by, among others, K. Lewin with his qualitative experimentation on the effect of educational styles on the group behaviour of children and in J. Piaget’s experiments in learning psychology that he performed on his own children (for details see K LEINING 1986; VOLLMERS 1992). In education research, traditionally the distinction between qualitative and quantitative experiments is not so pronounced. Early discussion was more concerned with the suitability of experimental research to education in general. An early-differentiated position was represented by A. Fischer: “An experiment has limits that are determined by its object, the child and the current technology status of the
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experiment itself. The setting and rationalising of educational objectives must, as with every instance of setting and rationalising values and target conditions, set aside experimentation. … All these limits can be admitted, but there is no need to view them with excessive pessimism. Things that today are unripe for experimentation may become ripe tomorrow; this is the hope that fills our work” (FISCHER 1913, 56).
Without distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative approaches, in this way Fischer assigns experimental pedagogy its proper place in educational science and, at the same time, clarifies the unsuitability of experimental procedures for normative educational practice. ↑ Teaching methodology has since proved to be an appropriate field of application for (quantity oriented) experimentation, in particular the comparison of different methodologies in relation to attainable learning effects (K LAUER 1973b). With the dominance of behaviouristic psychology and socio-scientific education, quality-oriented experimental approaches became largely peripheral towards the middle of the 20th century.
Qualitative Heuristics Their ‘rediscovery’ and elaboration in Germany dates to the 1980s, in particular to the work of G. Kleining. Kleining places qualitative experimentation in the context of his ↑ heuristic methodology. “Qualitative experimentation is intervention according to scientific principles in a (social) object for the purpose of investigating its structure. It is the explorative, heuristic form of experimentation” (K LEINING 1986, 724). “It is not based on existing knowledge or hypotheses, rather it aims at something new, at discoveries. It does not make use of variables, rather, it seeks and reveals structures. … Relations are of a qualitative nature; for the most part they cannot be measured, because they involve not only processes, but also negations, contradictions, unstable dependencies, reversible relations and discontinuities. The conditions of an experiment are not to be regulated. … Repeatability is not a condition for a qualitative experiment” (italics in the original, K LEINING 1986, 725).
With this decisive dissociation from mainstream empirical sociological research, Kleining reacts against an over-emphasis on hermeneutic methodology in the social sciences generally and argues for the further development of detecting ↑ research strategies (K LEINING 1995a). As basic methods for
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such strategies he names observation and experiment. Thus, the model for his ↑ heuristic methodology is the methodology of the natural and technical sciences. “In summary, qualitative heuristics attempts to win back the qualities of exploration and discovery for psychological and sociological research” (K LEINING / WITT 2000, par. 6).
In order to embed ↑ qualitative experimentation in the research process, Kleining postulates four rules of qualitative heuristics (K LEINING 1986; 2004): (1) Openness of researchers towards modifying their preconceptions when these are opposed by new findings. (2) Openness of the research process; provisional findings concerning the ↑ research object are gradually brought more into line with the object itself and the research process may itself be modified during its progression. (3) Maximum structural variation in research perspectives and methods; the object should be viewed from as many different perspectives as possible. Disparate findings should (4) always be subjected to intensive examination for possible points in common. 5.3.2.3 Examples of Qualitative Experiments Only a few ↑ qualitative experiments have been documented that consistently comply with the rules of qualitative heuristics. Kleining and Witt report on the successful application of qualitative experimentation in testing the method of introspection: “Two [qualitative experiments, F.S.] regarding a sudden alarm, two about television communication, two about the acceptance of artistic films, several dealing with various emotions … A series of factors were varied systematically in these experiments with the goal of complying with rule 3 concerning the structural variation of perspectives” (K LEINING / WITT 2000, Abs. 15 f.).
According to the authors, these experiments and their introspective analysis proved to be an appropriate tool for locating individual modes of receiving and managing disturbances. A further example of qualitative experimental research is offered by the so-called ‘Passau Madonna Debate’. In the early 1990s the social scientist A. Mintzel questioned the coat of arms of
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the non-denominational University of Passau, as this features the Roman Catholic cult symbol of ‘Our Lady of Victory’, a Madonna figure armed with a staff with crucifix who is depicted defeating a dragon. The manifold reactions to a resulting request for change to university administration revealed the close connections between university management, the Catholic Church and conservative powers (MINTZEL 1991; K LEINING 1999). Kleining illustrates a further application of qualitative experimentation in analysis of a literary text. Specific variations in individual passages from the first chapter of Cervantes’ Don Quixote are used to show how the story operates with various levels of reality (K LEINING 2004).
Technology Development Schulze and Haasis (2003) outline an application in the field of development and implementation of IT-supported planning and organisation systems at DaimlerChrysler AG. Their starting point is the oft-cited paradox, according to which digital ↑ information technology is on the one hand attributed an extremely high potential for product and process innovation. On the other hand, their introduction in ↑ work processes frequently causes so many unforeseen problems that the abandonment rate for ↑ IT projects remains persistently above 50 %. In recent years steps have been taken in development and implementation practices to counter this trend through participative and prototype-based strategies (→ 3.8.2; → 3.8.4). In the view of Schulze and Haasis, the procedural models employed here lack suitable development criteria: “It is supposed that an IT development and implementation team of interdisciplinary composition will, in a first phase of evaluations and brainstormings, elaborate – in whatever way – a ‘suitable’ scenario and a ‘suitable’ prototype that they will gradually refine. How one ought to go about this remains open” (SCHULZE / HAASIS 2003, 135).
They argue that this could easily give rise to a ‘tunnel perspective’ that does not adequately illuminate the solution space available in the development process. To plug this gap, the authors advocate the application of qualitative ↑ experimentation:
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“In this way it is no longer a question of ‘arbitrary’ modification of prototypes, but of a systematic maximal variation that is nonetheless appropriate to the research object” (ibid., 137).
Unfortunately the authors present this application scenario only as a thought experiment. A trial under real industrial conditions of development and implementation has yet to be carried out. 5.3.2.4 Conception of Qualitative Experiments Experiments are always planned interventions. As ↑ qualitative experiments involve intervention in social configurations, dialogic strategies are required that the researcher uses to manoeuvre within the subject-object relationship. Building on Kleining’s study, B. Vollmers distinguishes three main types of qualitative experiments: (1) phenomenological investigations aim at spontaneous and intuitive variations in experimental arrangements. “The investigation should conclude with a set of theoretical categories that summarise the variety of phenomena as precisely as possible” (VOLLMERS 1992, 245).
(2) In dialogues, questions are put to the object of enquiry in order to penetrate to the “crux” of the matter through constant questioning (ibid., 247). (3) Finally, genetic reconstruction integrates the relationship between researcher and object itself into the experiment. In such experiments, the constitution of the object via the subject-object relationship within the investigation becomes the focus of inquiry. This analytical distinction corresponds to an overlapping of the three types in the practical research process. For the organisation of this process, Kleining proposes a total of six techniques that he calls the experimenter’s “tools”. – Separation/segmentation involves the division or re-articulation of actions, groups, etc. The researcher establishes the fitting accuracy of the change from the reaction of the object. – Combination, by contrast, puts artifacts, people, groups, etc. together in ways different from those in which they were originally found. For example, “Men and women, Germans and foreigners, children and elderly people are combined in a single working group – what happens? The result reveals something about the
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peculiarities of the elements that have been brought together” (K LEINING 1999, 146).
– With reduction/weakening, parts and functions are removed from an experimental arrangement in order to establish their significance for the identity of the object. – Adjection/intensification, on the other hand, attempts to draw conclusions from the (increased) assistance of things, actions, etc. – In substitution, elements within the experimental arrangement are replaced in order to trace functional equivalence. – Through transformation, the attempt is made to establish idiosyncrasies of the object through transmutation. “The experimental production of something completely different that is nonetheless the same or something very similar that appears totally dissimilar – these are goals that, once reached, give us information about the characteristics of objects” (K LEINING 1986, 738).
5.3.2.5 Scope and Development Perspectives ↑ Qualitative experimentation continues to lead a shadowy existence in vocational education research. Empirical (vocational) education research is dominated by designs for testing hypotheses, and experimental settings can be found more readily in the domain of psychological research without any direct link to vocational learning and working processes. From this perspective, the great merit of G. Kleining’s school consists in particular in the revived awareness and methodological refinement of qualitative ↑ experimentation as a detecting ↑ research method. ↑ Qualitative experiments enrich objectrelated ↑ research methodology and in this way also stimulate fresh reflection on the relationship between natural and socio-scientific research methods. The vehement dismissal of the principles of quantitative experimentation is understandable in the context of debate within empirical social research. Several things, however, need to be ‘put straight’ regarding the application of this method in vocational education research. Thus, the opposition asserted by Kleining between approaches ‘based on existing knowledge’ and those that ‘aim at new knowledge’ is particular-
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ly questionable (see K LEINING 1986, 725). One essential feature of experimental activity is precisely that it distinguishes itself from unsystematic ‘trial-and-error’ procedures. Even the experimental examination of social conditions is based on theoretical assumptions concerning the object of inquiry. Without this pre-existing knowledge about the object, criteria for setting up an experiment would be lacking. The problem of explicating prior knowledge, which comes to light for example in approaches linked to so-called ‘grounded theory’, is also posed in ↑ qualitative experimentation (see K ELLE 1994). The same can be said for the contrast between qualitative and quantitative characteristics of relations. Certainly, the determination of a relationship, such as that between a particular operational information source and a successful disturbance ↑ diagnosis, represents a valuable insight into expert competence. However, it is difficult to countenance the idea that for a deeper understanding of this relationship, quantitative data is negligible or impossible to measure. On the other hand, further relativisations of traditional experimental conditions – controllability, reproducibility – coincide very closely with the specific demands placed on experimental research as an element of vocational education research.
Development Perspectives To what extent the experimental techniques described are practicable in the various fields of vocational education research is a question that can hardly be answered at present. For this purpose specific trials and manifold ‘experiments’ with qualitative ↑ experimentation are required. As already mentioned, the field of technology and labour development appears to be a first favourable area of application. Here, the integrated adoption of ↑ qualitative experimentation promises a foresighted and balanced implementation of operational innovations. Integrated here means that the relevant innovation goals are transparent and that all actors participate equally in the dialogic process. The qualitative experimentation method can also be applied to the exploration of ↑ domain-specific knowledge of the labour process (→ 3.6.4). A systematic variation in the conditions of expert activ-
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ity can help to establish the presence, significance and relevance of activity ↑ performances, strategies and (implicit) ↑ skill acquisition. A further direct link to teaching methodology in vocational education emerges. ↑ Experimental learning has acquired great significance as a basic form of enquiry-based learning in particular in commercial-technological vocational education (→ 4.1). Guidance of experimental learning using the ‘tools’ of qualitative experimentation can aid the perception of technological conditions in relation to their social function and the exploration of technological and ↑ organisational development options in the learning process. In this way support is lent to the central goals for experimental learning in vocational education: the grasping of professional reality (EICKER / RAUNER 1996) and the promotion of active student learning (ACKSTEINER 2001). In addition, the combination of qualitative experimentation in the learning process with the business game and scenario method also appears promising. Overall it can therefore be said that the application and development of the method of qualitative experimentation has great potential for research into vocational education. Those active in the field would do well to act broadly on this proposition and experience qualitative experimentation for themselves.
5.3.3
Experimental Research Designs (ERD) in Vocational Education Peter F. E. Sloane
5.3.3.1
Introduction: On Experimental Research Designs (ERD)
This contribution focuses on ↑ research programmes in the area of vocational education and training. It is based on German experiences in design projects (I use the term design project as translation for the German concept of ‘Modellversuch’ according to the An-
glo-American approach of ↑ design based research. This kind of research program will be illustrated later on) .
These are development programmes run by enterprises, schools, and so on, accompanied by research groups and financed by the government. These programmes, therefore, are embedded in an institutional framework. One interesting point is how research work done in these settings refers to methodological recourses on research. In the following an ↑ experimental research design is worked out. Starting with a few remarks on ↑ research in real life settings (chapter 1), I will illustrate different possible ↑ research approaches for the work in design projects (chapter 2) and then summarize different research programmes (chapter 3). As research work in social fields always means that research actors move into different life settings, the specific aspects of this moving across fields will be examined at the end (chapter 4). 5.3.3.2 Research in Real Life Settings On first examination, “research” is a way to generate knowledge about a specific subject. Research on vocational education and training is focused on particular aspects of education. On the second examination, research therefore also depends on the interest of researchers in specific topics and on problems they have defined. And on the third and last examination, common sense structures on the subject of vocational education exist. There are at least two different ways to de-contextualise the subject ‘vocational education and training (VET)’: (1) as an individual’s process of development based on learning processes and (2) as a social system these processes are embedded in. These two views are integrated in the German concept of didactics. In this holistic approach (Didactics is not an approach just referring to vocational education and training. It is a general concept to describe learning and teaching processes as well as the aims of these processes and mechanisms to regulate them (instructions))
it is possible to differentiate between (1) the organisation (regime) of VET, (2) the instructional design, (3) the intentions and the curriculum (syllabus, basic assumptions, main tasks etc.) of teaching and learning, (4) teachers and (5) learners as subjects of the teaching-/learning.
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The overall intention is to grasp the whole complexity of vocational education and training. Within this context, it is important to emphasize that this social system is not a neutral object of research, but a ↑ research object, which can be characterized as institutional-political and responsive practice. – Institutional-political practice VET is regulated. The regulations are negotiated by the same social groups that are also responsible for the implementation and observance of the regulations. These social groups are manifold and reflect the pluralistic character of modern societies. They include associations, trade unions, churches, political parties and so on. This implicates that the researchers who want to investigate this practice have to make arrangements with those who regulate the practice. This leads to certain particularities for research, which will be dealt with later. – Responsive Practice Research on practice is no neutral process of observation and/or systematization. The social system reacts to its observer. It reacts not only beforehand, i.e. when research is authorised, but also during the research process, as well as after the research process, when the results of the research are interpreted. 5.3.3.3 Basic Concepts of Research on Vocational Education
The ‘Logic of Research’ The ‘logic of research’ is in accordance with the rules about how researchers do their job. Paradigms regulate the way ↑ research programmes are handled and define what is allowed, and what is not. This is a regulation by the social community of researchers, the so-called scientific communities. Besides this there is also a general interest of society for the work of researchers. In an institutionalized world there are a lot of influences between research and public partners. Max Weber therefore made a distinction between the inner legitimation of research and its outer legitimation: – Inner legitimation of research
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Aspects of methodological standards are important for the coherence between researchers. Therefore, it is necessary to express ↑ research methods, and it is important to have the possibility of discussing ↑ research approaches in the scientific community. Of course main approaches exist which are accepted by a broad majority in the group, as well as minority positions. – Outer legitimation of research Research is related to society. Even if research groups have the idea of neutral research they have to consider the different links they have to society. At least the work of researchers has to be accepted by society. Furthermore it is a matter of general agreement in modern societies to solve problems by research. From the position of society this means that research is an important instrument to develop society. From the point of research and the scientific community it becomes necessary to work out the rules of cooperation with society in general and especially the rules for public ↑ partnerships.
Ideal Research Approaches Inner and outer legitimation of research lead to different possible research programmes. In my opinion three ideal approaches exist: the approach of rational research, the approach of rational practice and the approach of reflective practice. – The approach of rational research This is a paradigm of empirical research. Rationality is in accordance with the way researchers work: they generate hypothesises and prove them in real life. The result is positive knowledge (see ALBERT 1982) especially about all that what we do not know. According to Karl R. Popper (1969) researchers have to create hypotheses that they then try to falsify. If this is transferred to vocational education we learn a lot about those concepts of education that do not work. In a more smooth way the empirical approach is transformed into a verifying concept. Researchers then try to evaluate concepts of vocational education, thus to create positive knowledge. – The approach of rational practice Besides the empirical tradition in social research there is a critical tradition, fostered by the proponents of Critical Theory. According to this con-
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ception (cf. MARCUSE 1967; ADORNO 1970) research work and science in general also has to concentrate on the social backgrounds of their own work. Researchers ought to change society and should work for a better future for all people (HORKHEIMER / MARCUSE 1937). This concept follows the idea of enlightening the practice. It explains social structures (see LAKATOS 1974, 126 f.). – The approach of reflective practice Central to the approach of reflective practice is the assumption that practice is able to reflect upon itself. This does not necessarily need to be contradictory to empirical research, since this assumption does not automatically exclude empirical-analytical collection of data via rational methods. Nevertheless, it changes the idea of rationality insofar as those who are the objects of research are conceded to possess the same ability to act in rational ways. This approach acts on the assumption of an epistemological concept of the self (epistemologisches Subjektmodell), which means that “the behavior of the object under scrutiny and the behavior of the scrutineer fall in the same range of a single explanatory model” (LITTLE 1972, 97). In other words: each actor is self-reflective and can therefore generate knowledge on what happens in the research project. At this point, there are links to the concept of subjective theories (see SCHEELE / GROEBEN 1988). The approaches of rational research and rational practice pick up the contradictions between empirical ↑ research programmes on one hand and critical reform programmes on the other. One main question is: should research intervene in social processes or not? Research results are not something like pictures of social structures and interactions. This naïve idea of research work reduces the difference between rational research and rational practice. In this case we discuss whether the quality of the picture is important or if the motif of the picture has to be changed. The approach of reflexive subjects changes the point of view and has more sophisticated ideas about the relationship between researchers and their subject. Research programmes are the result of ↑ participation and co-
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operation between researchers and other actors in the social field. 5.3.3.4
Research Programmes
Research on research programmes has identified three ideal-typical approaches of accompanying research: distanced research, intervening research and responsive research. These approaches are ideal-typical conceptions of research. The three adjectives – distanced, intervening and responsive – refer to the habit of the researcher. The respective habits are, indeed, based on differing, particular conceptions of research:
Distanced Accompanying Research Empirical-analytical as well as phenomenological, text-based approaches can be subsumed under distanced accompanying research. Empirical-analytical accompanying research aims at the development of explanatory theories (see LAKATOS 1974, 126 f.). The main intention is to verify theories through interviews and observation in research projects. Accompanying researchers generate nomological knowledge, which might be the basis for technologies (see POPPER 1987; ALBERT 1972). For this purpose, ↑ quasi-experiments, for example observance in class, with researchers and pupils being objects of ‘neutral’ observance, could be used. Predominant in approaches of distanced research are interviews, for example in order to identify profiles of attitudes of the various actors. In this case, the subjective views of the participants are collected and systemized at regular intervals. Another ‘distanced’ approach of covering research projects is the text-based interpretation of documents generated in the context of the project. In this case, research is conceived as organised and reflected work on everyday experience in the field (see SOEFFNER 1983, 22). It is a phenomenological approach. The interpreter analyses the impacts of texts. Within the context of ↑ research programmes, a multitude of texts is produced. Researchers generate texts through interviews, observance and so on. According to Terhart (1981, 771 ff.), these texts can be validated twice (communicative validation):
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– A statement, which is gained through interpretation, can enforce itself when the person who interprets and the person who is interpreted agree on one interpretation and therefore validate it communicatively (communicative validation) (ibid. 771). Transferred to the practice in research projects, this means: accompanying researchers, the responsible body of the research project and the field agents need to agree on the meanings of texts. – The second way of communicative validation is a process in which agreement between the community of interpreters and researchers (ibid. 775) is sought. In this case, the reality in research projects which is covered in the texts is regarded as an individual, particular case of a general theory (see GADAMER 1972, 291, 312 ff, esp. 316). The interpreter understands the text as a particular case of a general theory. In research projects, researchers explain texts by using theories.
Intervening Accompanying Research Action research can be regarded as the general methodological basis of intervening accompanying research. The development of organisations has taken root as a special approach in the field of research on research projects. Central to action research are, inter alia: – Change in social reality through the researcher (see K LÜVER /K RÜGER 1972, 76), – Initiation and documentation of processes of change (see PIEPER 1972, 100 f.), – The learning process of researchers (see K LAFKI 1973, 499) or – The process of change in general (see HEINZE 1987, 29 ff, esp. 36). On the basis of these central points, the following issues arise for research in design projects: accompanying researchers understand their field as an ever-changing practice (cf. FUCHS 1970, 9), the gaining and development of insights and conclusions are regarded as processes (ibid., 9 f.) and the researcher is on duty for the practice and the problems that are defined in practice. Within this context, the following ↑ research methods are used (see for example HAAG 1972, 38 or EICHNER / SCHMIDT 1974): observation, simulation, reflection on the field and concerted analysis done by the researcher and his ↑ research object. The
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shaping of practice (see K LAFKI 1973, 488; 1984, 267 f.) is part of scientific reflection. Research is meant to initiate reflective learning processes (see K LAFKI 1973, 500 f.). Discourse and action are crucial elements of the proceeding: For Moser (see 1983, 64; 1977), the actors who are involved in the discourse and their working on their everyday experience are central. He refers to this discourse as a subversive one. Patterns of explanations and justifications are developed in these discourses. This leads to a thoroughly reflected practice (cf. KÖNIG 1983, 86). Actors agree on actions in order to generate knowledge which then leads to actions again (KÖNIG 1983, 87). In such an approach, the difference between research and practice (field) blurs. Accompanying researchers, the responsible body of the research project and the field actors (teachers, trainers, managers et.) reflect on their concerted actions, particularly with the intention of being able to organise activities in the research programme more reasonably. This leads to a gain in rationality (see ZIMMER 1995a). To put it more precisely: the actors who participate (teachers, manager, trainers and so on) are researching themselves, i.e. practice is conducting research on itself. The actors make experiments together in their everyday life and analyse the ‘successes’ of their experiments (see ALTRICHTER / POSCH 1998). Action research basically emphasises the learning processes of the actors. The aforementioned approach which focuses on the development of organisations aims, on the other hand, more at the shaping of organisations. Its main intention is the integration of the human being with the organisation (see FRESE 1988, 155 f.). This approach is regarded as a strategy of intervention, which is initiated by counselling (WOHLGEMUTH 1982, 57). It is considered an ‘open process’, in which the actors, together with their counsellors, agree on goals in order to plan, implement and evaluate actions (see EULER / SLOANE 1989, 127; FRENCH / BELL 1982, 67; WOLLNIK 1986, 182). Particularly in ↑ research programmes on enterprises, the accompanying researchers have often been engaged as counsellors on ↑ organisational development. They were responsible for the analysis and ↑ diagnosis of problems.
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Action research and approaches on the development of organisations emphasise the processes of communication between the responsible body of the design project and the field actors, sometimes with the involvement of external responsible bodies. The central aim is the gain of rationality. It is, however, not clear who defines these ‘gains’.
Responsive Research Distanced accompanying research on the one hand and intervening accompanying research on the other hand act on very different interests in insights and actions. Their point of reference is their respective theory (programme of rational research) or the institutional structure (programme of rational practice). Responsive accompanying research is based on the assumption that these two programmes are integrated: they cover and document the action within the research project as done in distanced research and advise the responsible body of the research project or the field actors (= response). There are a broad number of possible, concrete proceedings with different variations. In the following, two concepts are introduced: the approach of responsive evaluation and the approach of communication between theory and practice. Responsive evaluation distinguishes between two interrelated phases of work: the evaluation of the action within the research project and the giving of suggestions, which are based on the evaluation. The evaluation ought to record the interests of the actors participating in the research project openly and sensitively (see EHRLICH 1995). Therefore, evaluation does not only have to take empirical-analytical preciseness into account, but should, at the same time, act responsibly from a social point of view (see BEYWL 1988, 145). This particularly concerns the intentions of the evaluation: the individual independence of the human being ought to be supported (see WEITZ 1995, 146; BEYWL 1988). Research on research programmes therefore acts on the assumption that the interests of the participating actors are considered (see PÄTZOLD 1995b, 55; HUSCHKE-RHEIN 1987, 43; an overview is provided by DEHNBOSTEL 1995b, 81 ff.). According to the approach of communication between research and practice (see SLOANE 1985b; 1985a; 1992; 1995; EULER 1994; K REMER 1997),
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different kinds of people or groups, pursuing their particular intentions, act in research projects. The accompanying researchers, the responsible body of the research project and the field agents follow different interests and ideas of rationality. Harmony between the respective interests on insights, actions, arrangements and developments is rather an exception than the rule. The responsiveness in the approach of communication between research and practice results from the division of work in research projects: mutual services are provided, agreements on objectives are made, task schedules are agreed upon and so on. The responsible body of the research project and the field agents aim at improving their own work. The accompanying researchers aim at generating knowledge. Therefore, mutual responsiveness emerges from the differing interests.
Design-Based Research (DBR) ↑ Design-Based Research (DBR) has developed in the context of research on innovations (see REINMANN-ROTHMEIER 2003, → 5.1; R EINMANN 2005): Based on the experience that research programmes only very rarely lead to sustainable changes in practice, the DBR approach acts on the belief that innovations are developed in practice itself. The intentions to change practice are normally not motivated by scientific interests. Nevertheless, the analysis of case studies on innovative practices in the field of practice can provide science a worthwhile insight into the structures of practice and their impacts, for example by figuring out the central variables which configure processes of innovation (see GOMEZ / FISHMAN / PEA 2003; REINMANN 2005, 64). This approach regards the practitioners – teachers, learners, students, trainers and so on as subjects who reflect their actions: “Reflective practice” (BROWN, A. L. 1992, 174) is the basis for the building of theories. The term ‘design’ aims at the techniques, methods and possibilities of changing and shaping practice used by the practitioner (see BAUMGARTNER / PAYR 1999 and REINMANN 2005, 59). These actions are shown in the form of specific analysis of problems, decision-making processes and so on, which are conducted competently (this is the often implicit assumption of this approach) by practitioners in
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the actual situations in practice. Such “processes of designing” (R EINMANN 2005, 60) can be the basis of scientific analysis, which can, in turn, lead to the development of specific theories for the respective field, to solutions which are made for the specific situations and methodologies of design (see EDELSON 2002; REINMANN 2005, 61). Participants in a DBR-programme are therefore not to be regarded as objects in a treatment which is evaluated, but as reflective participants in a project that is conducted together: “participants are not ‘subjects’ assigned to treatments but instead are treated as co-participants in both the design and even the analysis” (BARAB / SQUIRE 2004, 3).
DBR follows a basic understanding of practical action that is very close to the humanistic concept of art: to design means to create. Finally, a holistic research concept is pursued, such as, for example, that carried out by Gabi Reinmann (2005, 63). The assumption that scientific research is able to generate knowledge that is incorporated in the processes of actions in practice is central for the approach. The intention is not to control processes of action along the lines of evaluative research (see EDELSON 2002); the intention is rather to gain deeper theoretical insights into the ways practice works (see REINMANN 2005, 63 f.): “↑ design-based research focuses on understanding the messiness of real-world practice” (BARAB / SQUIRE 2004, 3).
5.3.3.5 Crossing the Borderline – Research in Life Settings Up to now, it was assumed that the borders between accompanying researchers, the responsible body of the research project and the field actors are clearly delineated. In practice, however, these boundaries between the different actors are not always clear. Also, the predicate ‘scientific’ cannot necessarily be given to the accompanying researchers. The field agents, in particular, also consider their work as ‘scientific’, and search for ↑ research cooperation with the accompanying researchers. The concept of action research loosens the demarcation lines between accompanying researchers, the responsible body of the research project and the field agents. It calls for the concerted effort of all partic-
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ipants to enhance practice, with the aspired aim of gaining rationality as the prime goal of science. The following, concluding section examines research projects such as research and development programmes. It explicitly focuses on the aspect of research in research projects. The claim to conduct research is, from now on, not exclusively associated with the accompanying researchers. At the same time, this implies the need to define criteria of identification for science or research. This is ensured using a model of life spheres. Having a scientific attitude – or simply being a researcher – is the judgement made by the social group of scientists concerning one member of the group and their working methods. It is a question on the ethics of the ↑ profession, which touches, amongst other things, the following aspects: – Which attitude towards research is favoured? This refers to aspects that are mentioned above under the point type of research (distanced – intervening – responsive research). – Which aims are pursued? This refers to the interests in cognition and has its strongest occurrence concerning the question of which kind of ‘quality’ of cognition is aspired to. Within this context, action research aims at another ideal of cognition (the gain of rationality for practice) compared to distanced research (enhancement of theory). – Which methods are accepted? Scientific groups have their own specific beliefs on the admissibility of ↑ research methods. Researchers are border crossers between two finally incompatible worlds (see K IRSCH 1997, 45 ff.): Research and everyday life (here: the field of the research project). The work in research projects leads to their confrontation with totally different working contexts. It leads to an alternation between the two worlds: Each of these two worlds – science and the field of the research project – can be described by three characteristics: – Each world has specific demands on the person and his or her abilities. – Each world has its own culture that determines the action within this world. – Each world has its own specific institutional system.
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Fig. 1: Research projects as model of life spheres
To act in a research project implies for the accompanying researchers to drop out of one world for a certain amount of time and to enter another world. At the same time, it is not only accompanying researchers who switch from research into everyday life within the research project, but also ‘practitioners’ who switch by leaving their practice and entering the life sphere ‘research’. When researchers ‘engage’ with research projects, agreements are made, expert knowledge on concrete problems is offered and so on. The action of the researcher is responsive: he or she offers solutions to problems, explains certain issues, documents events and so on. He or she therefore does, for example, counsel, explain, (co-)develop and investigate in the field of action. The intensity of his or her activities can vary from distanced observing of the events in the research project to partial ↑ participation in the action of the research project to complete absorption through the new life sphere and the integration in it. The work in research projects with the switching between different life spheres implies that the personal abilities of the respective researchers need to fit. This means that the specific competence of the researchers is needed and that the researchers are willing to engage with the rules and the institutional organisation.
Scientific work in research projects demands – according to this concept – to come back into science. This then means that the researcher has to leave everyday life within the research project and to re-enter the world of science in order to report on the life in the field. By doing so, experiences in research projects can form the basis for the generation of new theories in science. It is vital that the demands on the person and its abilities as well as the norms and the institutional organisation in science define the frame of reference for the researcher. The switching between the two life spheres is, at the same time, also a switch between different perspectives. The researcher acts as a two-sided observer: on the one hand, science is observed out of everyday life. On the other hand, everyday life within the research project is observed out of science. Thus, the researcher becomes a counsellor for the particular, other life sphere. The researcher enriches science by providing practical, in some parts narrative and casuistic contributions and explains everyday life with the help of theories. This two-sided role can, ultimately, lead to the definition of accompanying researchers as mediators. Fig. 1 illustrates the switch between the two life spheres and the double-sided role of observing resulting from switching. The switch is not only a
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switch from the world of research into the world of the everyday life in the research project. Such a switch can also be done by other actors in the research project, for example by field agents. A typical example is the field agent (e. g. a teacher) who is writing a PhD. The writing of the PhD leads to the field agents’ temporary absence from his field of practice. They ‘enter’ the world of research and needs to meet the demands posed on him as well as to ‘learn’ the culture lived in research groups and the institutional organisation within science. Central in this case is the degree of engagement with theory what is structurally comparable to the above-mentioned thoughts on ↑ distance to, partial participation in and integration in the life sphere of research. Within this context, he might also act as a mediator in terms of enriching science with experiences gained in practice as well as by explaining everyday life with the help of theories.
5.3.4
Participative Development Bruno Clematide
5.3.4.1
Conceptual Clarification
Basically participative development builds on collaboration between researchers and practitioners. Who the researchers and practitioners have to be, obviously, depends on the themes of research and intervention. As an example, participative development regarding the ↑ social dialogue on specific VET issues on the local level has to involve representatives from employers’ associations and trade unions. The representatives will contribute their knowledge about the local area in question, and the researchers will bring a theoretical background in industrial relations and general insights about the ↑ VET system. Participative development regarding the development of an optimal link between ↑ workplace learning and ↑ institutionalised learning, as another example, will have to build on the collaboration between employees and managers from enterprises, teachers from training institutions and researchers
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with a background in learning theory and insights in how workplaces can hinder or foster learning. What is essential in this collaboration is that two kinds of expertise – the expertise of the researcher and the expertise of the practitioner – meet with equal value and importance but with different and equally legitimate perspectives. On the one hand participative development aims at practitioners’ learning and developing practice, on the other hand it aims at documentation and theory building with value in the research community.
Three Arenas of Learning in Participative Development Learning in any research based on participative development takes place in three different arenas: (1) learning during the interplay between researchers and practitioners, (2) learning among practitioners and (3) learning between researchers. In the joint learning arena the researcher has several tasks: firstly, the researcher has to feed the joint learning process with up-to-date knowledge from the relevant VET domain. Secondly, the researcher has the role of being the master of the methodological tools in the process: the researcher brings in methods that are adequate for the collaborative learning process between researchers and practitioners and will often be in charge of bringing these methods to work, facilitating the process, and securing that the rules of the game are followed. It is, for example, very important that the practitioners’ and the researcher’s contributions are recognized and regarded of equal importance. Thirdly, the researcher has the responsibility of documenting the joint learning sessions. A lot of learning takes place among practitioners between the joint sessions with the researchers. When the practitioners are at work again they will find situations where reflections from the joint sessions are transformed into new ways of working, new ways of co-operations etc., a transformation which has to be understood as a specific learning process (ERAUT 2004). Learning between the involved researchers takes place in their own space: there are joint reflections based on experience from the researcher’s and the practitioners’ joint learning arena where the new knowledge is produced in cooperation. In the re-
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searchers own learning, they are learning on the basis of their professional competence in handling data, in constructing theories, and in relating the gained knowledge to existing theories. (NIELSEN / NIELSEN 2006)
Related Concepts In Scandinavia, participative development in ↑ VET research is highly influenced by different kinds of action ↑ research approaches – a type of research which has contributed substantially to insights and concrete improvements in working life. In Sweden the term interactive research has been put forward (SVENSSON / NIELSEN 2006) in recent years, in an attempt to place action research not only as an alternative to predominant mainstream social science but as real complementary research with the same value in the research society. 5.3.4.2
The Genesis of Participative Development
There are many different kinds of participative approaches and tools in participative development. While the first generation of socio-technical thinking in work life development was highly expert driven and had a limited involvement of the workers affected, the following generation was eager to find models that could encourage a higher degree of ↑ participation by the workers/learners. Nielsen and Nielsen (2006) make a distinction between two trends in recent Scandinavian action and interactive research: the pragmatic approach represented by the dialogue tradition influenced by Habermas, and the critical theoretical trend represented by the critical utopian action research influenced by Horkheimer and Adorno. Organisation theory from the line of human resource management has also made many marks on participative development. It may appear as if there is a free choice between lots of tools in a super market for participative development tools: sessions of joint reflection, future workshops, several narrative tools, dialogue conferences, tools of appreciative enquiry and others. However, a closer look at these methodological tools reveals that the choice of participative tool
will depend on which degree of radicalism the envisaged intervention is aiming at. In the last decades some divides between action researchers have emerged. Still the different positions share a research concept where researchers participate in the process of improvement together with those who are directly concerned. They are not detached from ‘real life’. Some action researchers give explicit priority to concrete changes when they design research. Typically, their written publications are like anthropological stories about the improvements, and the way these improvements are achieved, and are less focussed on theoretical discourses in the scientific community. Others follow a double strategy where the scientific community is addressed with reflections about both improvements and the processes of change. The goal of this double strategy is – besides the concrete improvements – to step out of the concrete practice, to reflect and make these reflections accessible for other researchers in the field. The choice of methods of course will also depend on the focal issues of the specific participative development. In the following paragraphs different approaches are described.
Future Creating Workshop One of the methods with direct roots in the critical utopian tradition is the future creating workshop (JUNGK / MÜLLERT 1981). Contrary to the Dialogue Conference, participative development using future workshops deliberatively takes for granted that the hierarchical power structures of society cannot be neutralised. In future workshops attempts are made to overcome existing power relations. There is an explicit agenda to create collective sociological fantasy when researchers and practitioners cooperate aiming at transcending existing barriers in the way working life is organised. Expressed in terms of learning, expansive learning (ENGESTRÖM 1987) is dominating the agenda. The researcher’s role during the three phases of a future workshop – critique, utopia, realisation – is the one of being the facilitator, ensuring that the democratic rules are kept and supporting the process of structuring the discussions and the results of the discussions. This kind of rather radical approach is quite rare in VET-research, last but not least because of the
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fact that national VET-programmes usually are focussing highly on more consensus-oriented developments.
Dialogue Conferences Probably the most widespread way of participative developments in the past two decades on the more pragmatic, Habermas-inspired path, is the socalled Dialogue Conference (GUSTAVSEN 1992). At Dialogue Conferences, which typically lasts two days, all participants jointly define the problem and develop action plans that the workers/learners are expected to act on in a time period after the Dialogue Conference. Theoretically the Dialogue Conference is inspired by Habermas and builds on a belief that during these conferences it is possible to create relations free of power – independent of the positions the participants in these conferences have in their working life. One of the roles of the researcher in a Dialogue Conference is to secure this aspect of power free relations, and as process facilitator to ‘guarantee’ that each participant has the opportunity to express his/her opinion. In Norway and Sweden almost all of the large programmes for the improvement of working life have built on this concept. Quite a lot of these efforts at work life improvements were, of course, direct learning activities, often inside one company.
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Appreciative Inquiry In the last decade much participative development has built on systemic theory and appreciative inquiry in facilitating development processes related to work (LANG / LITTLE / CRONEN 1990; COOPERRIDER 1990). Many process-oriented tools adopted in participative development projects, e. g. reflective teams and mutual interviews, have their theoretical roots in systemic thinking. These methods are also applied in many development projects regarding workplace learning and pedagogical practice at VET-colleges.
Learning Organisation Also, from organisation theory following the principles of the learning organisation (SENGE 1990/1994), inspiration into participative development in VET-areas can be tracked. Senge’s almost normative guidelines for establishing learning organisations that are able to meet modern demands for flexibility and rapid change, have been inspiration for a countless number of development projects aiming at developing learning organisations. In participative development projects aiming at turning VET-institutions into learning organisation, Senge’s approach has been and still is a source of inspiration – although it has been criticized for being purely management-oriented.
Narrative Approaches
5.3.4.3 Conception and Adaptation of Participative Development
Narrative approaches seem to gain importance as a methodologically and theoretically based tool in ↑ VET research of the participative kind. Many studies have dealt with ↑ tacit knowledge in many ↑ occupational areas. In attempts to make tacit knowledge visible and verbal, such narrative approaches seem to be very useful. An example is the use of history workshops adopted as orchestrated ↑ workplace learning (CLEMATIDE 2005), for instance when employees in their pre-retirement period together with their younger colleagues try to pinpoint the huge bulk of tacit knowledge that risks being lost when the older colleagues actually retire.
Which one of the above-mentioned approaches will be chosen in the specific participative development projects, depends primarily on the scientific background of the researchers involved. There is no canonized best method in participative VETrelated developments which is shared by the whole VET-research community. Yet, common for all these methods used in the meeting between researcher and practitioner is that they are primarily process-oriented. The direct outcome is more often the learning process in itself and the changed work practices or teaching practices as results from the learning process, than specific products like a didactic tool kit or a new curriculum.
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Therefore participative developments need the researchers’ documentation and communication of the process and theoretical reflections if others than the directly involved individuals or groups of individuals are likely to benefit from these participative approaches. For the researcher it can be a challenge to maintain an adequate balance between closeness and ↑ distance. Closeness is necessary for understanding the mechanisms and relations between the practitioners, and distance is necessary for providing space for reflection and for contribution to theory building. The most common participative developments in VET-research are rather short term projects supported by national R&D programmes. For example in Denmark the Department of Education launches every year an R&D programme with a series of themes where technical and commercial colleges can get financial support to step-by-step improvements, often supported in the process by VET-researchers. A characteristic of participative development in this framework would be participative development configured as follows: the researchers involved make desk studies of the current stateof-the-art regarding the focal theme of the project. In a joint workshop with teachers from the participating colleges this state-of-the-art is presented together with examples of best practices from the participating teachers. Researchers and teachers define a working agenda with joint seminars and periods where the teachers try to test new practices which the joint seminars pointed at as possibly promising solutions. In joint seminars the researchers facilitate reflection on the teachers’ experience with new practices. In a joint effort adjustments for the next coming test period are agreed upon. The teachers adapt the new practices. Researchers might observe new practices. At a final seminar, conclusions are drawn and the researchers make a written documentation. The target users are other reflective practitioners among teachers at commercial colleges and technical colleges. Jointly the researcher and the teachers involved present experience from this kind of participative development at the annual R&D conference, and the researchers, finally, produce papers aiming at the scientific ↑ VET research community.
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5.3.4.4
Contextualisation – Illustrative Examples
In the framework of Learning Lab Denmark researchers from Roskilde University Centre, the Danish University of Education, Aalborg University and the consultancy company Kubix formed a group of senior researchers, who were all part of a research consortium on ↑ Workplace Learning. Part of the research which has taken place was participative development trying to meet the above mentioned characteristics. The core activity of the consortium was to explore the learning processes that take place when workers learn and develop competence on the job and in the formal educational system, respectively, and the interaction between these two. The researchers followed a main working principle in their mutual learning. Firstly, there were joint sessions with the focus on joint theoretical reflections, and secondly, each researcher brought in a specific participative development project he/she was responsible for. There was a two-way relation between the joint group activities and the specific projects: On the first hand, the group acted as a sparring partner for the researcher regarding the specific project. On the second hand, each of the projects delivered empirical findings that were used as basis for theoretical reflections in the group of senior researchers. This working format was to a high degree contributing to the wished balance between nearness and ↑ distance that is so crucial to achieve in participative development. The collaboration between the researchers and the practitioners following the above-mentioned guidelines for participative development is illustrated by the following example (ELSBORG 2005). Elsborg describes how he as a researcher contributed to the development projects on three building sites. Altogether about 10 teachers from a public technical college and 140 construction workers participated in these projects. The development projects were designed so that they could match the working tasks. Thus, it was the specific building task that defined the group of participants and the duration of the training. Each of the development projects actually involved 20–40 skilled and
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unskilled construction workers and stretched over five months. The concrete change processes were not defined in advance. The change processes were to be developed in co-operation with the persons involved in the project in order to make it possible for the participants to develop their individual competences and qualifications on which the projects focused. The construction workers from the building site and the related teachers met one hour once a week in so-called reflection rooms. These rooms have been regarded an integrated part of performing work and consequently the time used for reflection was paid work for both teachers and construction workers. The communication form was dialogue, and target-setting, action plans and evaluations were continuously made. The specific themes varied according to the conditions which the construction workers themselves outlined as decisive – the physical and the ↑ social working environment and the logistics, respectively. In this connection the discussion of and decisions concerning the co-operation and the communication across occupations and level of management have been consistently in focus. This implied that also the daily learning at work was thematized and reflected upon. Theoretical knowledge of reflection was used as a starting point for the design of the participative development. That it is possible to provide training through reflection in the work, and that it contains great potentials for both individual and ↑ organisational development, have been pointed out by both VET researchers and workplace researchers (e. g. SCHÖN 1984; BOUD 1985; HØYRUP 2004). Working with collective reflection as an integrated part of the working place development provides a purpose-directed attempt to create and support working place learning through the establishment of collective practice, that is, a practice in which present values, structures and culture are questioned – above all by constructively forward-looking thinking and acting. That such a formalised possibility for collective reflection in the work for skilled and unskilled construction workers would be particularly relevant, was a starting point for the development projects. For one thing, skilled and unskilled persons constitutes a group on the ↑ labour market for whom
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doing the work provides rather poor possibilities for learning, and for another the group is not scholastic trained for self-reflection. The content of the weekly meetings in the development projects were guided by the basic values which the participants had co-developed and approved. In general, the basic values of the work on the building site focussed on the desirability of a high degree of information, good co-operation, good communication, optimization of the working operations and job satisfaction through good planning and respect for each others’ work. When the employees on these reflection meetings pointed at a need for more exact knowledge, also more traditional teaching was carried out by the teachers from the technical college. These more traditionally-organised teaching elements in the development projects resulted from problem areas which the construction workers wanted to put on the agenda – for instance management concepts, communication and co-operation skills. At the same time this offered the possibility to thematize and reflect on tendencies within the industry and the development in society and, thus, it reached beyond the learning at the individual and institutional level. In overall terms, the development projects were based on the assumption that it is only possible to find the solutions through which the participants are going to develop individually, if the change processes use the participants’ knowledge and understandings. Therefore, the development project had no pre-arranged scheme for the development process, but offered the frame of the mandatory co-operation. Everyone got the opportunity to present the situation from their point of view and experienced that also their ways of looking on things were taken seriously. It was expected that in this way the participants would be motivated to enter into a constructive dialogue about the development of specific activities and carrying out these activities. In order to achieve the main purpose of contributing to individual competence development, the projects also had an overall pedagogical starting point in an understanding of learning that regards the individual participant as a resourceful person who has to be involved in own learning process-
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es. Therefore, the projects tried to secure the competence development through providing opportunities for equal and respectful dialogue across the occupations, and now and then also between the skilled, the unskilled, and the managers. A dialogue about the working conditions based on the participants’ practice experience. In the development projects, the training processes were planned in order to thematize and make the ↑ implicit learning visible through orchestrated ↑ workplace learning (CLEMATIDE 2005). The purpose was in this way to support the ↑ informal learning that took place every day on the participating building sites. In itself the purpose of the change processes was to contribute to explicate the participants’ knowledge in the field and thus form the basis for individual and collective reflection. The assumption was that the development of professional competence in this way would also promote the development of general individual competence, generally demanded in the ↑ knowledge society. The construction workers who participated in the development projects, expressed in the integrated final evaluation an explicit desire also in the future to involve their individual competences and qualifications in doing their work, if they in a similar way could get the possibility of having real influence on the work organisation. The purpose of the continuous and the final evaluation of the project was to stimulate the change process. With a ↑ research design where the research-related cognition is achieved through contribution to change the reality, it is desirable that the research currently qualifies the change processes which the project tries to implement. The above example illustrates how participative development can utilise the possibility of reflection in the field of practice, the motivating possibilities for the workers to influence their working conditions, and the researchers’ theoretical generalisations by relating the specific fields of practice – a specific work place – to power structures on societal level.
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5.3.4.5 Criticism and Prospective Participative development has often some limitations and is regularly confronted with criticism. The most important ones are dealt with below.
Limited Range of Effect in the Field of Practice The range of implementation of participative developments often does not go further than to those agents directly involved in the specific participative development projects. In many developments of the participative kind supported by national programmes like the Danish ones mentioned earlier, the directly involved practitioners learn a lot and develop new practices, but their new practices often stay encapsulated and do not affect practices in general. The ↑ VET system as such risks staying unaffected even by very promising participative developments projects.
Lacking Generalisations Analogous to the modest changes of the dominating VET practices there is a risk of participative developments not contributing to the updating of the scientific ↑ knowledge base. This might be the case for two reasons: firstly some participative development projects are explicitly only aiming at new developments in the field of practice. Criteria of success and criteria for receiving financial support might often be formulated in terms of changed practice only and not in terms of production of generalisations and theory construction. A second reason could be that the agents in participative developments do not reflect sufficiently on the factors hindering the transition from isolated changes to changes on the VET system level. To overcome this embedded risk of remaining isolated cases of changes, it is necessary to deal synchronically with these hindering factors. If for example a specific participative development is aiming at more holistic learning processes integrating work place learning with ↑ institutionalised learning, it would be necessary to address both how competent involved training institutions and enterprises generally spoken are regarding the adaptation of new learning principles, and which factors in the ↑ organisational learning space of the training institutions are necessary to be dealt with be-
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fore the results from the participative development projects have a chance of being broadly adapted.
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5.3.5
Interdisciplinary Development Felix Rauner
Isolated Cases Participative developments risk remaining single cases without contribution to theory construction and generalized understandings of the specific themes which the participative development projects have dealt with. The fact that each action or participative research to a great extent is unique seems to make it difficult to make cross-comparisons (WESTLANDER 2006): the weakness in current Scandinavian Action Research is the far too infrequent efforts to make such comparisons aiming at reaching a level of more general knowledge.
The Question of Validity A well-known criticism of any ↑ qualitative research from the side of purely quantitative oriented research community has also been expressed against participative and action research. Critics like Sørensen (1992) are claiming that action research lacks any validity. This kind of criticism might not be as widespread in the ↑ VET research community as it is in other mainstream social sciences. Yet, participative development as ↑ research approach has to prove its validity in every single case. Participative development might tend to focus on what the joint development has aimed at and by doing so tend to neglect what did not go as well as hoped. As Eikeland (2006) puts it, it is a serious problem of participative development that is does not reveal and say what it actually does but covers it up in order to make it look nicer and more innovative than it is. The most important rule for securing validity must be making the research process in participative development visible, exposed and understood. Of course it is necessary to be aware of these criticisms. Yet, it is an indisputable fact that participative development is a promising way of delivering the double ↑ commitment to both the research community and to VET practice, meaning that participative development as a ↑ research method can contribute to new theoretical insights and at the same time be able to influence practice.
5.3.5.1
Conceptual Explanation
↑ Research on vocational education and training (VET) is largely about the development of vocational training schemes. The correlation between research and development is accentuated by all of the principal praxis-guided sciences as well as by their related ↑ research traditions. (Vocational) education, which is one of the constitutive aspects that make up vocational ↑ training research, isn’t only characterized as a praxis-oriented or actionguiding science, but also one that is, itself, derived from practical experience. (HERBART 1806; WENIGER 1953; H ERRMANN 1995; BENNER 1995; SCHMIED KOWARZIK 1980). Therefore, the term “vocational training research” has always included developmental approaches. For example, ↑ media research and vocational training, which have been established by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildungforschung/Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, BBF/BIBB) through the 1969 Federal Law for Vocational Training, also include the development of media to be used in vocational training research and in the development of training systems. The tasks of development always delineate the framework for research assignments. The act of “developing” which is one way of taking systematic action is constantly being confronted with the complexity of practice: “The specific importance given educational practice and to theoretical education is only specific in relation to the framework of questions and tasks which are shared by all action-oriented sciences. It is only in this sense, however not by claiming to be self-sustaining, that theoretical and practical education may claim to be independent” (BENNER 1995, 300).
Given the specific terms and conditions of academic processes, that is, in the sense of processes that are themselves “producing knowledge”; in which pedagogy, on its path through the universities, is integrated into a plurality of educational sciences, and in particular the extreme division of labour, it must be pointed out that knowledge that is derived from practical experience demands ↑ interdiscipli-
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nary organisation. In research on vocational training, ↑ interdisciplinarity also indicates a fundamental criticism of the tendency towards separation into disciplines and the implied “disciplining of pedagogy” which are viewed as an attempt to split this science into a variety of fragmented educational disciplines. Taken individually but also as a whole, these various specialized disciplines fail to understand the holistic ideal of hermaneutic pedagogy, which is in and of, and from, itself inseparable, both in terms of educational as well as training processes. Helmut Heid interprets the tension between disciplinarity and ↑ interdisciplinarity as a dialectical relationship: “…the disciplinarity of pedagogical problems can be interpreted from a cognitive, anthropological standpoint and on a highly abstract level as a correlation between single-discipline differentiation, specialization and isolation of academic activities, which can be determined in different ways” (HEID 1995, 177).
Practical research is faced with the task of solving the tension between the widespread demands of ↑ educational policy for the establishment of integrative, ↑ interdisciplinary research and the intrinsic scientific processes of developing disciplinespecific terminology and non-compatible research paradigms. The resulting insight is that the increasing dissociation of the research efforts undertaken in different scientific fields will lead to an alienation of social problems (ibid. 187), has indeed led to a broadening of interdisciplinary research practice, but not however to a scientifically developed interdisciplinary ↑ research methodology. In summary, it becomes clear that interdisciplinary ↑ VET research, which mainly emphasizes development-related tasks, is dominated by research practices which draw on two different scientific spheres. On the one hand, findings obtained in the ↑ humanities and social sciences, which centre around the development of ↑ educational processes and the tension between subjectivity and sociability are used, and on the other hand, vocational ↑ training research draws on the wide spectrum of specialized and ↑ vocational sciences and their respective didactics applied when the contents of VET are an issue. A conceptual explanation of the development of vocational training research can only be provided if the term development is differentiated in such a
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manner that it can be used for VET research. Vocational science draws on those developmental concepts and methodologies that have become established in their respective disciplines. In the vocational fields of the individual-related service sector, which forms a part of sociological and nursing research, the term “development” has a markedly discursively-formed character. The person to be educated as well as the person being cared for is (also) viewed as someone who is a subject of the activities and development processes in question. In the industrial and technical sciences the involvement of technological equipment for educational programmes clearly shows that the action and development processes in this field are much more purpose-oriented. The ↑ didactical concept of “completed action” has its source here. It arose from a hierarchical-sequential type of development which is widespread in traditional engineering and design science. Via the theory on action regulation, which is one of the fundamental theories underlying industrial psychology and industrial science (HACKER 1986b), this type of action finds its entry into vocational education and VET research. The limited scope of this concept of development and the corresponding developmental design has already been mentioned as part of the description of technology-intrinsic realities, e. g. in software engineering. In the field of software development, participatory and process-oriented developmental methods, in which purpose-oriented action is eclipsed by communication-oriented action, have already been applied with considerable success. In VET research and in vocational education the metaphor of spiral development is also used to refer to forms of communicative, interactive, and participatory formulation and development processes. 5.3.5.2
Developmental Tasks
Developmental tasks, which are part of VET research, are not only a component of the development of vocational training and of on-the job learning programmes as part of vocational training systems, but they are also part of training schemes carried out under the existing employment system and of qualification and vocational training programmes.
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The development of systematic structures for occupational training includes: – a vocational development that is based on ↑ qualification research and ↑ social dialogue (→ 3.1) – legal regulations and the accompanying measures for system regulation and control (K ELL 2005) – the institutional framework of the vocational training system, its internal differentiation, penetrability, flexibility, and adaptability in its interaction with the employment system and with skilled ↑ labour markets. (→ 3.3) – integration into the overall educational system and the resulting interaction between general and occupational training (BILDUNGSKOMMISSION 2003) – the structuring of transitions from school into the work world on the first cusp of a transition from occupational training to occupational system) (ibid.) One of the key aims of vocational ↑ training research, which targets system development, is research and development projects within occupational training collaboration. These are carried out as part of development co-operations (→ 2.7) and may be viewed as an additional dimension of intergovernmental cooperation within the process of European integration (→ 2.5). The degree to which different states draw on scientific findings to define the goals and critera of developmenta l approaches varies widely. Development goals and criteria are marked by different academic and ↑ research traditions, which are involved in the development and reform of educational systems. Economic sciences such as ↑ Educational Economics and Human Resources Management ap ply the criteria of “↑ return of investment” to the development of their means of questioning and ↑ research methods. The criteria applied by the ↑ labour market economy in devising the content and design of its research originate from economic calculations driven by the economy as a whole. In contrast to this, within the development of a system that is oriented towards job market research, socio-politically-influenced criteria of analysis and formulation are dominant. The decrease of youth unemployment, the integration of at-risk and marginal groups into the occupational system, the increase of “↑ employability”(Beschäftigungsfähigk eit) and of social coherence are the dominant gov-
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erning criteria of a socio-politically influenced occupational training politics and ↑ VET research. (COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 2004b) System development which is focused on vocational education and educational science emphasizes the integration of general and vocational development, the vertical- and horizontal penetrability of the educational system as well as the predominance of educational goals over the interests of companies in qualification measures. This is particularly applicable for countries which have a decisive academic vocational training system. (→ 3.3.1; → 3.3.2) Vocational education and the development of vocational training systems are not only a dimension for innovation in a particular country, but are also a component of its job market, as well as its social and ↑ educational policy. Hence vocational training requires a trans-sectoral political approach. The European Commission’s establishment of a “Human Resources ↑ Development Task Force”, as well as the development of committees for vocational training at the federal, state, and local levels, is in accordance with the ↑ interdisciplinary academic approach pursued in research and development. 5.3.5.3 Developing Training Programmes As a general rule, the development of training courses comprises the vocational education of the students, the development of vocational training curricula and the examination requirements. This development takes place within the framework of existing educational structures. The processes, which are being monitored and facilitated by vocational training researchers, are dominated by the idea of ↑ interdisciplinarity. (K ELL 2003) This is also valid for the vocational education of students, which, whenever it is professionally organized, is based on educational criteria that are valid for the different vocational fields. (HEIDEGGER / RAUNER 1996) as well as on the implementation of ↑ domain-specific qualification programmes and ↑ curriculum research. (RAUNER 2004d) The development of vocational training programmes, which must be viewed as a component of ↑ interdisciplinary education, also includes analytical research – for example, in the form of activity and ↑ task anal-
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ysis. Thus, for example, the development of the European training programme “Car Mechatronic” which was part of the interdisciplinary, comprehensive, ↑ LEONARDO Development Project (RAUNER / SPÖTTL 2002; MORITZ / RAUNER / SPÖTTL 1997, SPÖTTL / RAUNER / MORITZ 1997), was preceded by extensive sectoral studies within the European Union, in ↑ Japan and in the ↑ USA. These international ↑ comparative studies provided the basis for the development of criteria for European vocational training programmes. Under the LEONARDO Programme the development of educational programmes plays a prominent role. The research and development practices which became established as a result of this programme integrate a large variety of different ↑ research approaches – mainly because the cross-national project consortia succeeded in combining different national ↑ research traditions. A scientific reflection on the practices that have become established in this way in development-oriented ↑ interdisciplinary vocational ↑ training research is, however, still to come. 5.3.5.4
Designing Vocational Training Processes as Interdisciplinary Development Tasks
Various research traditions and sciences have already covered the design of vocational training programmes. Research on teaching and learning is focused on defining general principles and criteria to be applied in the design of ↑ teaching and learning processes. (RENKL 2002) While activities in this scientific field draw on the findings obtained in educational psychology, empirical educational science, psychology of knowledge, and ethno-methodology – fields which have their specific empirical methods and therefore approach teaching and learning processes analytically – the model projects and experimental teaching activities in class which are predominantly covered by ↑ research fields which specialize in vocational education also serve a developmental function. In VET and in studies on ↑ vocational schools this function is also met by efforts seeking to: – develop experimental and action-oriented learning processes (HASS 1979; EICKER 1983; RAUNER 1992; MINGZHONG 2003);
– Develop vocation-oriented ↑ didactical concepts, like those suggested by the Conference of Cultural Ministers for the development of learning fields (KMK 1999; PRZYGODDA / BAUER 2004; LIPSMEIER / PÄTZOLD / BUSION 2000; GERDS / ZÖLLER 2001; RAUNER 1999a); – Promote a development-oriented structuring of vocational training programmes (BENNER 1997; RAUNER 1999a) Scientific monitoring of the model projects and teaching activities in the area of vocational education frequently also covers developmental tasks. One of the key areas of the BLK pilot programme “New Learning Concepts In Dual Vocational Training” is, for instance, the development of ↑ vocational curricula which are geared towards learning fields (DEITMER / FISCHER / GERDS ET AL. 2004). In all those cases in which scientific monitoring of model tests also includes the application of vocation-specific and didactical competence, application of this competence is placed at the centre of scientific monitoring. It has turned out that it is difficult to make a distinction between those contributions which the practical competence of teachers has made to the development of vocational education, and the contributions which must be attributed to the scientific competence of ↑ VET researchers. In most cases the scientists involved, who view themselves as representatives of integrative disciplines such as occupational didactics, industrial science, vocational, labour, and economic pedagogy, make sure that the concept of ↑ interdisciplinarity is applied. 5.3.5.5 Vocational Education and Industrial Organisational Development as Subjects for VET Research At the beginning of the 1990s the first analyses on the correlation between industrial development and vocational education were presented (DYBOWSKI / HAASE / RAUNER 1993). Until that point, industrial ↑ organisational development and vocational education had been viewed as two fields of activity which had to be designed separately. Analysing and shaping the interplay and the correlations between these two spheres became increasingly urgent, and, therefore, this connection was one of the issues to be studied in vocational train-
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ing research. The increased urgency around this topic arose not only from the changed conditions dominating tighter international competition for quality but also from the realization that the inclusion of human resources management into the processes of ↑ personnel development plays a key role in industrial organisational development. „This development reveals why the organisational aspect of industrial innovation and its interaction with technological innovation and vocational education have become central and urgent issues in human resources management. Questions as to how information and ommunication technologies which are characterized by flexibility, openness and modularity can be used most effectively in order to bring concrete technological and organisational solutions in line with the specific abilities of the users of the technologies, are placed at the center of attention, just like questions relating to suitable didactical and methodological concepts for vocational education which enable the participants of vocational programs to contribute to a participatory organisational development and which promote the commitment of the parties involved – a commitment that is required to advance the educational and industrial process” (DYBOWSKI / HAASE / R AUNER 1993, 5).
In this context, the discipline-oriented ↑ research traditions are considered to be of minor importance with respect to their analytical and developmental potential. Industrial sociology has adopted an analytical approach to this ↑ research field: “The socio-theoretical interpretations of empirically captured development processes also allows for prognostic designs” (ibid. 142). In contrast to this, organisational and industrial psychology has, from a very early stage, oriented itself to the concept of creating a working atmosphere which promotes the employee’s personality (EMERY/ EMERY 1974). As a result, research and development interests focus on individual-related assessment and design criteria. Gearing industrial psychology and industrial sciences to the concepts of job design comprises three developmental schemes: – Socio-technological system design – Innovation-promoting job design – Individual-promoting job design With respect to these schemes, research and development interests focus on individual-related assessment and design concepts based on task analyses. These are needed to identify the factors that enhance the employees’ ↑ performance, ↑ well-be-
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ing, and qualifications. It is only rarely that tasks relating to job organisation and industrial ↑ organisational development are addressed as part of vocational ↑ training research – which is mainly due to the fact that the problems and tasks dealt with in this field are specifically subject-related (see LUCZAK 1998; ULICH 1994). Economically oriented research is faced with the problem that due to its disciplinary orientation towards an economic quantification of industrial organisational processes it is not able to provide suitable answers to questions relating to the structure and content of organisational and ↑ personnel development. The extended procedures currently applied to assess profitability – a human resources calculation scheme, ↑ cost-benefit analysis and valuation of the employment system – as well as the use of multi-level schemes for assessing profitability, have given rise to a broader understanding of innovation which attaches greater importance to the factor of “work” as a central element of economic profitability. In the process the fields of personnel management and job design are also addressed from an economic viewpoint (HEEG / MEYER-DOHM 1994). In terms of disciplinarity, ↑ engineering science neither has the methods nor the categorical framework that would be needed to open up the correlation between vocational qualification and industrial organisational development for developmentoriented research. However, the pragmatic method of development was already challenged at a very early stage because it had been possible to master complex systems and to minimize unintended side effects in the implementation of large-scale projects in the field of modern technologies. As a result new project management and system implementation methods were developed, which by far exceeded the level of traditional methods in engineering. This increased orientation of engineering science towards ↑ interdisciplinarity was even more intensified by the studies carried out on the genesis and implications of technology. At a meeting of experts which had been organized by the BIBB and the ITB in 1994 six research and development fields were identified and described: (1) Industrial organisational development and vocational training in international comparison and
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as elements of multi-national research and ↑ development tasks; (2) Organisational development, technological design and vocational qualification; (3) Industrial innovations and strategies for qualification schemes; (4) Model projects and industrial organisational development; (5) ↑ Media development and concepts for qualification in the tension between learning processes, technologies and job designs promoting learning processes; (6) Qualification schemes for professional educators to support learning organisations (DYBOWSKI /PÜTZ / RAUNER 1995c). 5.3.5.6
Scientific-Methodological Implications
Vocational ↑ training research that is focused on development and also takes into account scientific traditions which not only cover contents and types of professional employment but also the changes that occurred in professional qualification requirements and the design of vocational training and learning processes, can only be carried out, if the intersection of research, development and cognitive interests is sufficiently large so that those involved can reach an agreement on common research and development concepts. ↑ Domain-specific curricular development is viewed as a typical example of an ↑ interdisciplinary key scientific area. Ever since the employment-oriented turn occurred in the didactics of vocational training schemes, the main task to be met by vocational training research has been to develop job-oriented curricula by focusing on professional action and learning fields (cf. LIPSMEIER / PÄTZOLD / BUSION 2000; GERDS / ZÖLLER 2001). To achieve this goal, it is indispensable to carry out vocational ↑ qualification research, which is arranged by ↑ professions and professional fields. Research and development methodologies applied in the field of vocational training mainly follow the direction laid out by the research of expertise and the sciences supporting it (RÖBEN 2004a). With respect to this field, the industrial sciences have a long tradition in analysing and designing ↑ work processes. Var-
ious common strands with vocational education and vocational research have arisen from this (see HACKER 1992; 1996). The cognitive interests of vocational education and industrial sciences differ widely: whereas the latter focus on analysing the work load and health risks to which jobholders are exposed and on making employment more human and maintaining health, the former mainly looks into working processes from an subject-related angle and focuses on the learning, educational and competence-building aspects of work. Just like research on expertise, vocational training research is also guided by the goal of exploring how knowledge and abilities are built into working and learning processes (see FRANKE 2001). Research on expertise has revealed that expertise manifests itself in domain-specific competences. However, the cognitive interest of research on expertise is mainly focused on identifying the principles governing the development of expertise and on the question of which knowledge and which abilities make up competence and what is needed to promote the development of competence. Looking into the specific knowledge and abilities, which, for instance, skilled workers have acquired and using the results obtained as a basis for developing ↑ vocational curricula, is only of little or no help. This is the point where vocational training research comes in because it is focused on mapping out the knowledge and abilities required and used in the different professional domains. It is this level of differentiation that is reached in qualification research, which accounts for its didactic relevance in curricular design. In this context ↑ interdisciplinarity also arises from the fact that the findings obtained in vocational training research are also useful for general, cross-domain studies carried out in the areas of industrial and cognitive psychology as well as in vocational education (cf. BECK / HEID 1996). The complementarity of psychological and ↑ educational ↑ research traditions results from the fact that the key study area of industrial psychology is the expertise that manifests itself in the working process, and emerges from there, respectively. By contrast, educational-psychological research of expertise is focused on expertise, which results from the process of intentional education. Comparative levels of complementarity in the field of ↑ interdis-
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ciplinary development have been achieved in manmachine research and in software-engineering, for instance, when the issue of designing skill-based technology is addressed (SALZMAN 1992; EICKER / PETERSEN 2001). Examples from curricular research have shown that whenever theories, scientific approaches and findings from the ↑ Humanities and Social Sciences are successfully combined with those of domain-specific sciences, the results obtained have a particularly stimulating effect on ongoing scientific discussions in this field. This applies, for instance, to the curriculum jointly developed by Patricia Benner (Professor of Nursing Sciences at the University of California) and Hubert L. Dreyfus (cognitive scientist and philosopher) for the training of nurses (BENNER 1997), for the training of educators – a programme developed under a college school project – (GRUSCHKA 1985) and for the model project carried out on the basis of developmental theories: „Business and Work Process Oriented Vocational Education” (BREMER /JAGLA 2000). Measured by the limited level and the results of methodological reflection, it must be stated that –
in terms of methodology – ↑ interdisciplinary, development-oriented vocational ↑ training research is significantly deficient. However, this has hardly had a negative effect on the emergence of interdisciplinary developmental practices, particularly in the area of curricular and ↑ media research and development. This corresponds to experiences gained in scientific research and development, i.e. that the level of methodological reflection and discussion is much higher in analytical sciences than in development-oriented sciences. This is, for instance, true for ↑ engineering sciences, where methodological reflection on the studies carried out is small although the methodological instruments in place are highly advanced. Development-oriented, interdisciplinary vocational training research has also gained wide practical experience. It is one of the major challenges facing this scientific field to reflect this experience on a broader methodological scale in order to give rise to a scientifically founded methodology of development.
5.4.0 Evaluation, Quality Development and Assurance – Introduction Jürgen van Buer and Eugenie A. Samier
5.4.0.1
A Short Review of the 1980s and 1990s and the Current Context – PISA and Its Impact on the Understanding of Quality Assurance and Development in Germany
Germany was deeply shocked by the results of PISA (for the results of both PISA studies in Germany see e. g. BAUMERT /K LIEME / NEUBRAND ET AL. 2001; PRENZEL / BAUMERT 2004). Compared to other European and overseas countries, the questions raised after empirically verifiable results of the education system have, for too long, been answered only on the basis of socially desirable values – results understood in the sense of competence development, change of attitude, and the values devel-
opment of the individual or age groups. The same applies to questions raised after the studies’ outcomes in the sense of a long-term use for individual career and social development as well as the assurance of economic developments etc. (for a differentiation of results that are both direct and short term, influenced by educational institutions, as well as long-term outcomes see e. g. DITTON 2007).
The Problem of Input Oriented Formal Quality Assurance This perspective was supported by the following mindset up to the late second half of the 1990s. ↑ Quality assurance as it was and is still described,
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at least for public schools and vocational training – or rather the formally normative appreciation of quality for a single educational organisation, took place through regulated access to the governmentally-controlled pedagogical fields of activity by means of certificates that enable future teachers to start a professional career. Therefore, the certificates of the 1st and 2nd state examinations had a key function in Germany that made staff recruitment, or rather the implementation of staff recruitment, a crucial factor in quality assurance of governmentally-run educational organisations. This is still applicable to professional teaching for career access in general public schools as well as to ↑ vocational schools. In other learning sites of the vocational education system such as companies with apprenticeship training positions and other educational organisations with different approaches to training and education, access to the ↑ profession has, due to a different legal foundation, never been regulated as strictly as in general public schools. The examination for the qualification as a trainer in commercial organisations, however, soon caused a similar focus on a single moment and input-oriented quality control as it exists in the field of vocational schools (for the examination for the qualification as a trainer in a commercial organisations see KÜPER / STEIN 2006). These qualifying courses were offered by the chambers, and examinations were also conducted there.
The Relation of the Special Structure of Actions in Pedagogic Functions and Input Oriented Quality Assurance This attitude towards input-oriented ↑ quality assurance was supported by the following basic understanding of the special structure of pedagogic activity: in Germany this attitude is particularly based on educational-pedagogical understanding up to the 1920s (see e. g. SPRANGER 1921; WENIGER 1953; LITT 1960; for the vocational field see K ERSCHENSTEINER 1926). At the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 and then in the 1950s, this process was also supported through educational-theoretical didactics (Bildungstheoretische Didaktik; see e. g. K LAFKI 1959). Facing the so-called “empirical turning point” in educational studies in Germany in the beginning of the
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1970s, as well as later developments in the 1990s that one could call the “second empirical turning point”, these concepts still represent an influential focus of discussion (see e. g. K LAFKI 1991). Up until the 1990s, this basic understanding could be summarised as follows: pedagogical activity is characterized through a special personal ↑ commitment of the single pedagogical agent to the single educated child or young person, which makes a regular systematic quality control by no means superfluous, yet – as one could state a little bit ironically – it does not represent a focus of central educational political action. In Germany, this has been formally sanctioned for a long time and is also part of the current relevant discussion, especially because of the legal status of the teacher as a civil servant. Meanwhile this argument has decreased in relevance due to the findings of empirical international and national ↑ ↑ performance studies. It has also been changed considerably through the implementation of highly differentiated and formalized models of quality assurance.
Two Central Questions Regarding InputOriented Quality Assurance In this proposed, and therefore partially rough, framework the following two questions essential for understanding ↑ quality assurance have hardly been raised, let alone investigated and answered through empirical research. (a) How far do these certificates draw a valid picture of the competence they are intended to inculcate, applied to qualifying, or “input”, certificates of pedagogical agents as well as to leaving, or “output”, certificates of (vocational) students? And, (b) what kind of timerelated range can such a certificate claim with regard to the “guarantee” of high quality, everyday accomplishment through competent pedagogical activities in the sense of resource savings, as well as effective and responsible problem solving (see the definition of competence and educational standards in K LIEME /AVENARIUS 2003)? However, the large empirical studies of comprehensive schools in the middle of the 1970s demonstrated, at least partially, the effects of structurally complex major and minor interventions on the systemic level (the exo-systemic level according to Bronfenbrenner 1981), but also increasing-
Research Methods
ly on the level of single organisations (the mesosystemic level) (see e. g. FEND 1986; as a review also STEFFENS 2007). Nevertheless, no significant change in this basic foundation, concerning the general input orientation in control and regulation of the education system, took place (see e. g. WEISS / BELLMANN 2007). This foundation is still being supported by the legal duty of the state to provide sufficient resources to schools. Furthermore, until the 1990s, no change of attitude took place in the general mindset towards control and regulation of the educational system. These concepts were mainly focused on normatively verified, regional or locally moderate top-down regulation on different levels (for termini of control and regulation see ZLATKIN-TROITSCHANSKAIA 2006; administrative concepts of school see e. g. WITTMANN 2007). This applies in several areas, from the educational-political formation of volition to its interpretation on the side of state and regional educational administration, to inner control and regulation of the single educational organisation (in the school year 2005/2006 there were 36,888 general public schools and 10,444 ↑ vocational schools in Germany), and to the guarantee of high quality everyday pedagogical practice (in the school year of 2005/2006 there were 667,000 pedagogical agents in general public schools with 137,064,000 weekly hours of teaching and 121,200 teachers in vocational schools with 2,490,100 hours of teaching; see data for the last school years documented by the Statistisches Bundesamt). A number of other conditions have had an even greater significant impact on vocational education. Vocational education has hardly been the focus of educational-political discussion over the past few decades and when it has, it has been on the occasion of legal initiatives (see the German ↑ Vocational Training Act of 1969 and its amendment in 2005) or efforts to reconstruct the curricula of the vocational ↑ professions. This happened in the 1990s with the introduction of learning fields (for learning fields see e. g. papers in LIPSMEIER / PÄTZOLD / BUSION 2000), or the contrary discussion about the ↑ modularisation of ↑ vocational curricula as they are intended for the ↑ European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and for the national qualifications framework of Germany, which is still to
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be developed (for a critical view on the EQF and its impact on the discussion in vocational education research see e. g. BAETHGE /ACHTENHAGEN /ARENDS ET AL. 2006). Up to the last few new educationalpolitical orientations regarding the definition and implementation of new instruments of control and regulation such as school programmes (see e. g. articles in HOLTAPPELS 2004, also BUER /KÖLLER 2007), systematic external school inspection (see e. g. BOS / DEDERING 2007), and external evaluation (see ARTELT 2007) the following is supported by the majority of those who are educational-politically in charge of vocational schools: the latter are by no means substantially different from general public schools and therefore require no significantly different treatment, even if the discussion about the reconstruction of vocational schools into competence centres seems to point in this direction (for competence centres see e. g. BLK 2002; for the actual situation see BLK 2006). Governmentally initiated education policies have hardly shown dynamics of change in the 1980s and 1990s in Germany, whereas the fields of business, industry and trade have been going through drastic and above all fast and broadly implemented transformations. The continuous and comprehensive technological change resulted in flexible forms of communication and logistics, which finally made a globalization of the markets possible. This applies to either products or services as well as to capital. Markets, competition and decisions regarding the location of a company lose national relevance to an increasing extent. The life cycle of products becomes continuously shorter. These trends have enormous backlashes for companies’ philosophies and organisations. The shareholder value almost entirely eliminated the stakeholder value regarding its relevance for the management of a company (see e. g. BEYER / HÖPNER 2003). Innovative management approaches such as lean production, ↑ quality management, change management, ↑ performance management and others promise tightly organized structures, more efficient processes and high-class results (for management as a characteristic modern feature see e. g. STAEHLE 1999; for change management see e. g. DOPPLER / LAUTERBURG 2002). Finally, these tendencies, coupled with an increasing economic relevance of the serv-
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ice sector, also resulted in change in the valuation and position of ↑ human capital within companies and therefore, also, in a change regarding the demands placed on staff members. These trends stand in a specific and generally tense relationship with each other, each depending on the segment of the ↑ labour market, size of the company, kind of the product or service etc. They regularly result in companies being under short-term highly effective, yet large pressure for change and adjustment. Companies try to deal with the pressure by strategies of staff recruitment (e. g. assessments), staff development (e. g. through a more effective vocational ↑ further education), partially through a flexible balance between permanent staff and seasonal staff, and also increasingly through changes in their strategies regarding the first level of vocational education. In each national ↑ system of vocational education these different development dynamics and trends, partially lead to enormous tensions and high pressure to adjust on the side of government-controlled educational organisations. This especially applies to those vocational education systems which comprise, such as in the German system, governmentally accredited and organisationally assured responsibilities for output assurance between ↑ vocational schools and companies of vocational training or providers of training in order to guarantee a broad range of cooperation and coordination (for the general placement of vocational education between state and market see e. g. KUHLEE 2003; 2006; for the problem of cooperation in the ↑ dual system of the German vocational education see e. g. papers in EULER 2004b). These differences regarding systemic and single organisational dynamics of development especially refer to the training curricula in different ↑ professions and to their permanent, increasingly rapid implementation. They also refer to the matches made between learning milieus in vocational schools, the broad variance of in-company-training milieus, and all of the other learning sites. The increasing pressure has had an impact on vocational schools for at least 20 years in that pressure from the private sector became noticeably larger according to which the educational system should reliably guarantee a normatively defined base line
Handbook of TVET Research
of basic competences for all children and young adults (see e. g. K LIEME /AVENARIUS 2003). In vocational schools this required assuming additional tasks of child-rearing and education, namely the subsequent assurance of standards for young people. These represent a special risk group if schools cannot guarantee the fulfilment of these standards up to the last school year (see e. g. KONSORTIUM BILDUNGSBERICHTERSTATTUNG 2006). Regarding the question of educational standards assurance at the end of ↑ compulsory schooling, the two PISA studies and the TIMSS study (see articles in BAUMERT / BOS / LEHMANN 2000) draw a highly differentiated picture (see articles in e. g. BAUMERT / STANAT / WATERMANN 2006). For some German states, several empirical studies exist that lead one to see an additional regional differentiation (for Hamburg see the LAU studies; LEHMANN / PEEK 2000). The ULME II study for Hamburg, which conducted further tests on subject populations examined by the LAU-studies, shows very much the depth of impact of curricular-bound knowledge in schooling up to the age of 15 or 16 in successful ↑ vocational school training (see LEHMANN / SEEBER / HUNGER 2006). Whether or not and how far the vocational in-company-training is similarly influenced by the empirical view still remains unclear (see BAETHGE /ACHTENHAGEN / ARENDS ET AL. 2006). To date, studies are lacking that provide at least partial answers to both of the following questions. (a) How can the theoretically-founded term individual ‘↑ professionalism’ or ‘↑ employability’ as a limited goal of vocational education and training be operationalized so that it becomes test-instrumental and validly comprehensible for content for accounted training professions (often named Vocational-PISA, see BAETHGE /ACHTENHAGEN /ARENDS ET AL. 2006)? Existing studies either do not at all, or only partially, settle this claim because they are primarily oriented toward knowledge or knowledge-structures as well as solving related problems in paper-and-pencil-situations. This includes school-based test situations that can be adopted and transferred only partially to situations external to schools (see also papers in STRAKA 2003). And (b), which relative contributions do different learning sites achieve in the vocational education sys-
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tem for the development of individual professionalism for subgroups and for employability? Facing the above-described dominant attention, which is paid to general education by the educational-political discussion, but also facing manageable problems regarding the structure of the system of general public schools as well as their institutional variation, the following findings are not surprising. ↑ Educational research in the area of general education is more assured and also more differentiated than that of vocational education research. The ↑ methodology-methods discussion is also further developed in general education (see e. g. PEEK / NEUMANN 2003, also papers of K LIEME / LEUTNER / WIRT 2005). Even less concise is the situation in the ↑ tertiary sector of (vocational) ↑ further education. Nonetheless, Tippelt and Hoh (2001) come to the conclusion that a strong demand to catch up does actually exist. At least for the German vocational education system, there are currently no empirical studies that are structured comparable to those output studies of the German federal states already mentioned and that include a similar dimension as TIMSS and PISA and can therefore produce similarly differentiated findings for big cohorts, but will be implemented within the next years. 5.4.0.2
Quality Assurance – Complex Strategies between Reporting, Resource Sparing Optimization of Intended Impacts and Economic Rationality
As mentioned before, the historically high stability of these concepts of control and regulation in the 1980s and 1990s in Germany, which were, to a high degree, oriented toward administrative formalities, led to the following situation in the German education system: there existed neither models nor concepts of ↑ quality management and related practices that were especially developed for the specific concerns of educational organisations and the systems into which they are integrated. No one model could facilitate the accomplishment of an increasing pressure to adjust the strong public demand for empirically verifiable ↑ quality assurance. Therefore it is hardly surprising that those concepts of management and reporting which were
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mainly developed and tested by the big companies of economy and industry were used in the educational system in an adapted way. The problems of financing in the educational system (see e. g. BLK 2004; WEISS / BELLMANN 2006; for the federal state of Berlin see DOHMEN / RESCHKE 2003) also increased the demands for a preferably resource saving use of financial practices by organisations and their staff. Therefore, the questions of ↑ ↑ effectiveness and ↑ efficiency became those of the greatest importance (for a legal-economical understanding of control and regulation see e. g. ZLATKINTROITSCHANSKAIA 2007). The following concepts of the educational (vocational) system are the most relevant: (a) Strengthening of output control through external evaluation; on the one hand through comparing measurements of the achievement of central standards (see e. g. KÖLLER 2007), and, on the other, through systematic school inspections that focus on process control (for school inspection see e. g. BOS / DEDERING 2007). (b) Development of single organisational, explicitly-phrased programmes of control and regulation or frames of development (for school programme see e. g. ROLFF 2006) that intended a strengthening of internal evaluation of a single organisation followed by an analysis of strengths and weaknesses (see e. g. BUER / HALLMANN 2007). (c) Strengthening of the senior administrator in management and leadership (see e. g. DUBS 2005). (d) Single organisational portfolios of reporting and ↑ performance, which are – in the sense of an increasing market transparency – accessible to anyone (see e. g. PEEK 2007). (e) The systematic dynamic sampling of staff development in educational organisations (see e. g. K EMPFERT 2006) which means the adjustment of teacher’s competence to the new findings of educational and curricular research as well as of the didactics of different subjects or different areas of learning. Thereby, concepts of educational regulation and monitoring (“↑ controlling” in German) become increasingly important (see e. g. BUER / SEEBER 2004; for schools BUER 2005). They are based on regular and prompt gathering of strengths and weaknesses of the pedagogical agents by means of highly differentiated systems
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of performance review (see e. g. BECKER / BUCHEN 2006). The measurement of ↑ human capital in the sense of “soft” parameters in management systems such as the balanced-scorecard are to an increasing extent regarded as a crucial factor for the assurance of competitiveness (for Balanced-Scorecard concept see e. g. K APLAN / NORTON 1997; for its use in schools see e. g. SEITZ / CAPAUL 2005, 144 ff.). (f) The extension of the autonomy of the single school going along with an obligation to prove its ↑ effectiveness empirically (see e. g. FÜSSEL 2007). Not only educational scholars like Heid (2007) create awareness for the following facts: reporting is also indispensable for educational organisations, mainly for those financed by public authorities. Furthermore, ↑ ↑ effectiveness can by all means be seen as a basic category of pedagogical thinking and activity. Moreover, market transparency is not only an economic category. Especially in the ↑ tertiary sector of (vocational) ↑ further education it is indispensable (see e. g. GALILÄER 2005). Additionally, the educational authors also refer to the fact that an economization of the whole discussion is indeed not only a visionary fear but that it is already detectable. An increasing economization is noticeable through the fact that direct (marketdriven) utilization receives much more attention in defining output intended by schools and other training institutions. Thereby, the balance between the demand of the individual for individual development on the one hand and the demand of society from the individual on the other may shift to the disadvantage of the individual (see e. g. K ELL 1995). Governmentally run companies and public authorities have by far the largest demand for (vocational) further education, mainly in the field of qualifying risk groups and unemployed persons. As demanders, they almost have a monopolistic position in Germany in the tertiary sector (see e. g. GALILÄER 2005). The placement of an order is bound to a certain model of ↑ quality assurance that leads partially to a distinct standardization of quality assurance allocating to an essential subsidiary role of the public sector (see e. g. SAUTER 2000). Nonetheless, the situation in the tertiary sector regarding the definition and above all the implementation of instruments of control and regulation for sys-
Handbook of TVET Research
tematic quality assurance and development is still not concise due to a fragmented legal basis (see e. g. NUISSL / PEHL 2004, 20). The ISO EN 9000 ff.model is an established concept that comprises a high degree of validity. Yet, it is equipped rather formally and can, especially in the field of educational and qualifying work, represent the specificity of processes and outputs only marginally. Therefore it is not surprising that the number of relevant models of quality assurance in Germany is continuously increasing; for further education, currently models such as the EFQM-model (1999– 2003), the “phase model” (STARK 2000), the “model of the professional cycle of action” (WEINBERG 2000), and the model “house of vocational education quality” (ARNOLD 2006) are being discussed. Taking this into consideration, one can state the following: the current situation regarding the quality assurance of educational work can be regarded as “stormy” but also “rather reserved”. Furthermore, the previous available findings concerning the ↑ effectiveness of control instruments and regulations are indeed ambivalent (for a summary see e. g. ZLATKIN-TROITSCHANSKAIA 2006). This tendency becomes even more obvious the more one shifts the perspective from the systemic level to that of single educational organisations and to the integrated processes and their impacts that lead to a stronger focus on everyday quality variance within institutions. 5.4.0.3
Conclusion and Prospects
Quality assurance and development can be regarded as a high priority, main target for the effective and efficient use of restricted financial means in educational efforts. This not only applies to further education and all its facets but also, since the PISA-report, to the German education macro-system on the systemic level as well as to the single school on the meso-systemic level. For the implementation of these options a broad range of different instruments of control and regulation is available that are often borrowed from other social subsystems, here mainly the economic sector, and which can only partially and with strong efforts be adapted. Not yet empirically proven are the answers to questions regarding how far the simultaneous use of these instruments implies a high
Research Methods
demand of micro-regulation or causes higher cost (as it has in many other national jurisdictions) and whether the increasing shift of responsibilities towards single organisations definitely leads to higher quality of educational and qualifying processes and of the achievements of the learning individual. Above all, one can refer to many detailed problems concerning the definition of content as well as the ↑ methodology-methods design of such instruments. Problems arise, especially in the assurance of data quality and of a high standard regarding their analysis as the articles in Section 5.4 show from very different perspectives. Currently, the implementation of systematic quality control seems to be established as a pan-European, dominant guideline for general and vocational education. The latter is offered at curricular bound and legally accountable organisations of the educational system and demanded through the biographical design of individual lives. Partly, high investments are being undertaken for the creation of a supervision of quality control in the framework of academic and non-academic accrediting systems. The articles in Section 5.4 of this handbook approach selected issues of this complex set of problems from very different perspectives. Alongside previous findings and approved models they especially present unsolved problems and possible solutions.
5.4.1
Evaluation Research Gerald Heidegger
5.4.1.1
Definitions
Valuing – Evaluation – Evaluation Research Evaluation in it’s general sense (SCRIVEN 1980; 1991) means, in the context of ↑ VET research, to evaluate VET on three levels: On the macro level ↑ VET systems, on the meso level VET colleges, training departments of companies, training institutions and measures etc., on the micro level single courses, but also the progress of learning and
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the learning success of groups of people or even of individuals. If (vocational) pedagogics is understood, according to Schleiermacher (SCHLEIERMACHER 1983/1984), as “science of practice” or even more as “practical science” (SCHMIED-KOWARZIK 1974), this encompasses always to analyse, to improve and to value real practice (SHADISH / COOK / LEVITON 1991). In this view it is important to deal not only with the method and the content, but also with the aims of (vocational) educational practice (see for general education: K LAFKI 1991), including theoretical foundation, legitimisation in view of the possibilities for practice and evaluation. That limits the “technocratic” option of external, authoritative control, but can considerably contribute to innovations, by “enlightening”, through evaluation, practice for (better) practice (→ 5.4.2). In this sense evaluation is happening in everyday (vocational) education all the time without external stimuli, even if only to a more or less great degree. This process of “↑ self-evaluation” (→ 5.4.1.4) turns out to become nowadays increasingly relevant. Evaluation in the narrow sense, however, means a systematic process. This can also be applied to self-evaluation. Consequently, rather clearly defined methods have to be applied in a strict way, even if these are “soft”, qualitative methods (→ 5.4.1.2). In order to lay the foundations of an adequate methodology one has to make use of the whole inventory of the social sciences and the ↑ humanities. This concept of evaluation which is determined through science is more and more called “↑ evaluation research”. Thus the question arises in which way (vocational) ↑ educational research distinguishes itself from evaluation research. During the first phase of the expansion of evaluation research in the ↑ USA. Cronbach and Suppes (1969, 20 f.) differentiated between “decision oriented” and “conclusion oriented” research. According to this distinction research is called decision oriented if the researcher is to deliver information which is required, in the context of demand oriented research, by the decision makers. In the case of conclusion oriented research, on the other hand, the researcher formulates himself the hypotheses which are of interest to him (WOTTAWA / THIERAU 2003, 36). Evaluation (research) obviously is closer to decision orient-
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ed research (CHEN 1990) even if the delimitation against conclusion oriented research is less relevant for (vocational) educational research, at least as far as one accepts the thesis of “pedagogics as a practical science”. The difference between the latter conception and the former definitions consists in the fact that those former concepts place the researcher outside of the field to be investigated. To which degree this point of view is adequate is the central, and heavily contested, issue of the arguments brought forward according to the two most clearly formulated paradigms of evaluation research, the “conventional approach” and the “interpretive approach” (→ 5.4.1.2). A brief, but still rather encompassing definition is proposed by Helmke, according to Burkhard and Eikenbusch (2000, translated by G.H.): “The concept of evaluation encompasses the following features: – to take a systematic inventory – of the processes or the results/outcomes – of a programme or a single measure, – to be compared with pre-defined standards, criteria, expectations or hypotheses, – with the objective of improving the programme or the measure” (HELMKE 2003, 152).
In order to take account of the nowadays stronger connection of evaluation with ↑ quality management one can include in this definition not only programmes and single measures, but the whole range of activities of an institution. In addition, the concept of ↑ meta-evaluation becomes important which, however, is used with three different meanings: – comparative evaluation of the evaluation of similar programmes or measures (WOTTAWA / THIERAU 2003, 138), – evaluation of processes of evaluation because the latter can and should be improved themselves (HELMKE 2003, 152; see also JOINT COMMITTEE ON STANDARDS FOR EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION / SANDERS 1999), – evaluation of a system for quality management since this is, to a high degree, based on evaluation (DITTON 2000).
Handbook of TVET Research
Three Pathways of Development The roots of systematic evaluation as an area of scientific activity are to be found in the qualitive ↑ field research carried through in the ↑ USA. (SUCHMANN 1967). During the 1960’s particularly the programmes for social policies of the Johnson administration have been tried to be evaluated, using increasingly “objectivating” methods (ABRAMSON 1979). In all ↑ OECD countries, methods have been more and more developed and implemented which should judge the effects of interventions (MITTER / WEISHAUPT 1977), including the area of (general) education (LANGE 1983). In (West) Germany the “General Programme for Education” (“Bildungsgesamtplan”, BLK 1973) initiated an encompassing “Programme of Model Experiments”, persisting particularly in the area of VET until today, which demanded “scientific accompaniment” as a must for each single model experiment (→ 5.3.3). For this “accompanying research” the methods of evaluation have been expanded and differentiated according to scientific standards, thus establishing the field of scientific research which is nowadays called ↑ evaluation research. Apart from this development of methods for evaluating interventions in policy fields like social affairs, public health, economy, ↑ labour market and particularly also (vocational) education (HOLLING / GEDIGA 1999) there is a second pathway of development. This was established by OECD studies (OECD 2001a) which aim at comparing the effects (↑ effectiveness and ↑ efficiency) of the educational systems in different countries. These studies are sometimes called “systems monitoring” (MBWFK 2003, 3) or more often also ↑ evaluation studies. This is the case although in the literature on research surveys (BORTZ / DÖRING 2003; WOTTAWA / THIERAU 2003), which however is strongly influenced by empirical psychology, evaluation research is closely connected with the implementation of interventions (ROSSI / FREEMANN 1993, 5). (The determination and assessment of the quality of teaching (HELMKE 2003, 151–192) is usually also called “evaluation”.) The international ↑ comparative studies are focussing, however, mostly the sector of general education – best known is PISA (BAUMERT /K LIEME / NEUBRAND ET AL. 2001). For
Research Methods
VET the first steps towards that have been taken in the context of the EU (see EC STRUCTURAL FUNDS 1999). Since then the Declaration of Copenhagen, and thereafter the Technical Working Group, have developed a quality framework for VET, including evaluation (EUROPEAN MINISTERS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING /EC 2002). The cultural variety – regarding systems, content and methods – is considerably greater for VET than for general (or basic) education which makes comparisons extremely difficult. Comparative studies like the ones of the OECD are, however, also critisized (HAENISCH 1998) since they actually exert pressure only to judge the results – the “output” which is defined according to external and often contested criteria. In this way it is difficult not to exclude the justified resistance against the demands of official education (WILLIS 1979). In addition, a comparative test which tries to “measure”, similarly to PISA, the competences regarding occupational/vocational activities is prone to overlook decisive factors of a ↑ VET system, e. g. of the “↑ dual system” in Germany: allocation of social status or effects on socialisation (LEMPERT 1998) or the structuring of the ↑ labour market (HEIDEGGER 1997a). A third pathway of development is represented through the fact that increasingly the viewpoint of business administration is applied to the realm of education. Especially from the area of industrial production methods of ↑ quality management are transferred to education, including the international standards according to ISO 9000 ff. (DIN 1997). That is because cost-benefit-analyses, using monetary criteria, are intruding more and more into all sectors of society although the former are clearly in opposition to pedagogical thinking which is – particularly in the tradition of Humboldt – not oriented towards utilitarian goals. Nevertheless, for ↑ VET research issues like ↑ quality assurance (→ 5.4.3), ↑ educational controlling (→ 5.4.4.) and ↑ benchmarking (→ 5.4.5) have become increasingly relevant. In all these areas the term ↑ evaluation research is used even if usually no clearly defined intervention, limited in time, is investigated regarding it’s ↑ ↑ effectiveness. Since quality management increases it’s importance for (vocational) schools when they gain more autonomy the
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delimitation to evaluation appears to be vanishing (STEINER / LANDWEHR 2003; → 5.4.1.6). The concept of evaluation research is, in view of these various roots, rather vague. All definitions have in common that evaluation (research) should be supporting planning and decision making, and that in the case of ↑ self-evaluation too. Therefore it is oriented towards practical purposes including, particularly in the view of “pedagogics as a practical science”, also the evaluation of the aims of (vocational) education. That is, human activities should – ideally through a circle of feedback – be improved by evaluating their outcomes regarding their objectives. At least in the “interpretive approach” these aims themselves should – as far as possible by the respective actors themselves – be evaluated, too. In this case the typically close connection of evaluation with the utilitarian philosophy (HOFFE 1975) can be attenuated (see also ARNOLD 1997b). 5.4.1.2
Paradigms of Evaluation Research
The diversity of the roots of evaluation research is mirrored in a great variety of methodologies and rather different conceptions of the aims, including the views of the human being. In an opposition which tries to accentuate the differences they can be summed up in the two main streams of the “Conventional Approach” and the “Interpretive Approach” (BUNDESAMT FÜR GESUNDHEIT (SCHWEIZ) 1979, 72–75). The second tendency encompasses the “Fourth Generation Evaluation” and is closely connected with the approach of “Empowerment Evaluation” (FETTERMANN /K AFTARIAN / WANDERSMAN 1996; see also PATTON 1990). But one should appreciate that particularly in the (vocational) ↑ educational research both paradigms are represented. And in spite of their, at first sight, seemingly strong opposition often combinations of both can be found. This was already proposed by Habermas (1969) who tried, in this way, to reduce the “conflict about ↑ value judgements” (“Werturteilsstreit” according to Max Weber) which later was called “conflict about positivism”. Bortz and Döring (2003, 298) also stress that the opposing “poles” of approaches should not be seen as mutually exclusive. They view them, however, primarily in terms of method-
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ology (“opposition of quantitative and qualitative methods”, ibid.), and here the systematic “↑ Triangulation” (MAYRING 1990) is indeed rather the rule than the exemption. But to talk about different paradigms goes way beyond the issue of methodology. An approach of a “polar dialectic” connection of these oppositions has been developed by Heidegger (1987). He proposes, in contrast to the rather common diffuse “relativism”, to establish explicitly strictly defined relations of the contradictory propositions. In a very rough delimitation the “Conventional Approach” is, with respect to the theory of scientific investigations, connected with the tradition of positivism (Auguste Comte) and those of pragmatism, logical empirism, critical rationalism and, particularly for (vocational) education, the tradition of behaviourism (WESTERMANN 2000). Because these schools of thought represent, in spite of all their differences, the basis of the “main stream” of academic research in the ↑ humanities and the social sciences the concept of “Conventional Approach” was formulated. The “Interpretive Approach”, on the other hand, is rooted in the hermeneutic “understandig” (according to Wilhelm Dilthey) and is based on theories of the research areas of ↑ phenomenology, symbolic interactionism and ↑ ethnomethodology (BORTZ / DÖRING 2003, 300–307). Nowadays it is also related to (“moderate”) ↑ constructivism and tries to extract, according to the “Grounded Theory” (GLASER / STRAUSS 1967), theoretical constructs out of the systematized experiences themselves. Therefore it can be, in the German perspective, seen as an example of the “Geisteswissenschaften” (similar to the “↑ Humanities” in the Anglo-Saxon tradition). On the contrary the “Conventional Approach” aims at testing hypotheses which have been established beforehand. It is based on a view of the human being which supposes that human behaviour can, in principle, be understood in terms of scientific laws rather similar to those of the natural sciences (“quasi-laws”). Especially within ↑ evaluation research the neutrality with respect to values is stressed when this research is carried through “on demand” of a “customer” commissioning it who does not belong to the field of activities in question (WOTTAWA / THIERAU 2003, 32 f.). The “Interpretive
Handbook of TVET Research
Approach”, on the other hand, accentuates the inseparability of values and the perception of “facts”. The researcher involves himself in the issues of the research “field” and aims at an egalitarian relation to the people to be investigated while, in the other case, a conscious ↑ distance is established in order to secure the ↑ objectivity of the research results (see LAMNEK 1993). 5.4.1.3
Clarification of Concepts
Evaluation research has, particularly in the ↑ USA, been developed to become an established proper research area where even an own ↑ occupational profile has been defined. The education of this “Evaluation Professional” is closely connected with psychology in the “empirical-analytical” tradition (HABERMAS 1969). In view of the comprehensive inventory of methods of evaluation research only a few central delimitations of concepts can be outlined.
Input – Process – Output – Outcome Evaluation can investigate – which resources of personnel, curricula, equipment etc. (“Input”) are available (also called “Structural Evaluation”), – in how far the processes are in compliance with externally or internally predefined standards (possibly based on similar processes somewhere else), – to which degree the planned effects (of learning) – “Output” – have been achieved. Particularly within the evaluation in connection with the activities of ↑ quality management of educational institutions one tries, in addition, to estimate the “Outcome” (SEEBER 2000a). For the learning success should lead to good achievements in future (occupational) life. These effects which are to be found only in the future are called “outcome”. Naturally they can, for methodological reasons, measured merely with great difficulties (→ 5.4.3). “Outcome” is supposed to be rooted in the “competences” (capabilities) which have been developed (BERGMANN / FRITSCH / GÖPFERT ET AL. 2000). In contrast to the Anglo-Saxon terminology “internal dispositions” are here at issue. For measuring these obviously particularly great problems arise.
Research Methods
Criteria of Quality As in the empirical social sciences in general the three conventional criteria of quality are also of relevance for evaluation research (see for the following HELMKE 2003, 87 f.): – Objectivity: This construction relates to the degree to which different judging people arrive at the same result. This goal which is decisive for the “Conventional Approach” can be best achieved by quantitative methods. Qualitative methods imply inevitably a – more or less – high degree of subjectivity which is, however, in the “Interpretive Approach” perceived as particularly productive. – Reliability: This is meant to indicate how far the evaluation is “correct”. It is measured according to the degree to which a repetition of an evaluation arrives at the same result. Because most of the “facts” which are to be evaluated – training courses or teachers’ judgements etc. – are man-made they change, as evaluation objects, often within a short time-span. The “Interpretive Approach” tries to avoid this dilemma through employing methods of “deep hermeneutics” as it is called in the German tradition. – Validity: This criterion tries to indicate the extent to which that which is evaluated is at the same time the feature that one really wants to know about. Because of the high complexity of human thinking, acting and behaving here great difficulties arise too. The quantitively oriented ↑ evaluation research which is inspired by psychology has developed a very differentiated inventory of methods (BORTZ / DÖRING 2003) in order to secure the validity it’s outcomes. The qualitative methods, on the other hand, also cannot avoid this problem, not even by highly elaborated methodical means (OEV ERMANN /A LLERT / KONAU / K RAMBECK 1979). For the factor subjectivity (BORTZ / DÖRING 2003, 302 f.) which is at the foundation of this approach represents also a limitation. Beside many further differentiations (SCHNELL / HILL / ESSER 1992, 149 ff.) for vocational education research also the difference between internal and ↑ external validity is of importance (COOK / SHADISH 1994; PATRY 1991b). ↑ Internal validity indicates the extent to which alterations of the dependent variables can be attributed to the effect of the independent variables. But this presupposes a clear
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separation of the two kinds of variables which is strictly speaking mainly possible for laboratory experiments. Here however, it is usually difficult to secure the external validity. This means that the result can be transferred to other circumstances. Because this is, for ↑ educational research, a nearly indispensable requirement here “quasi-experimental” investigations in the “field” are very common. “↑ Field research” in the strict sense, however, takes place in “natural” surroundings which are influenced by the researcher as little as possible.
Formative – Summative The evaluation can, on the one hand, aim at assessing the results of interventions but also those of everyday processes like – in ↑ VET research – teaching during the whole duration of an apprenticeship. This is called “summative” evaluation. On the other hand, evaluation can more or less regularly accompany those processes and “reflect” the results “back” to the actors. It’s task is to support these processes and, in this way, often the development of the whole institution, it forms them. This is called “formative” evaluation (SCRIVEN 1980). In the research concerning model experiments and for ↑ quality management this formative evaluation is pre-eminent in order to assist in improving the processes involved. In the case of quality management, however, as well as for international comparative investigations also summative evaluation, carried through in regular intervals, can contribute to improvements.
Quality Standards for Processes of Evaluation In the ↑ USA in 1975 the “Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation” was established which encompasses scientists and representatives of teachers’ associations, school principals and monitoring authorities (MERTENS 2000). In the year 1994 (SHADISH / NEWMAN / SCHEIRER / WYE 1995) it has published the “Program Evaluation Standards” (1994; JOINT COMMITTEE ON STANDARDS FOR EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION / SANDERS 1999), and also Standards of Evaluation of Teachers (1988) as well as “Student Evaluation Standards” (2003). The German Association for Evaluation (“Deutsche Gesellschaft für Evaluation – “DeGEval”) which
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was founded later has, in the year 2002, agreed upon similar standards (DeGEval 2004). Accordingly evaluation should exhibit four basic features: usefulness, feasibility, fairness, exactness (ibid., 1). They encompass three to nine subcriteria, amongst them for usefulness the transparency of values and for fairness a complete (and fair) assessment. 5.4.1.4
External Evaluation (by Others) Versus Internal (Self-) Evaluation
In the discussions in the literature, but also in the “field” the evaluation by others was – as a systematic method – prevailing until recently. External (evaluation) experts who do not belong to the field to be investigated judge the success of the “objects” of evaluation. Usually research “on demand” is concerned, like for the ↑ OECD ↑ comparative studies or – although in a more open conception – for the research on model experiments in ↑ vocational pedagogy. Comparative investigations on the macro level can only be carried through in the form of external evaluation research. For model experiments the enhancement of ↑ objectivity is at issue as is the case for evaluations within the framework of ↑ quality management (→ 5.4.1.6). The people whose activities are to be evaluated can, of course, be included in the planning and the assessment of the results. This is rather common on the meso and the micro level. For an evaluation which is not designed together with the people concerned will often neglect decisive contextual conditions and orientations for acting. Methods which allow for ↑ participation of the people concerned are called “participatory ↑ evaluation research” (COUSINS 1996). On the one hand one expects a higher degree of validity, on the other hand the degree of objectivity can be diminished through stronger participation (SHAW 1999). In order to avoid that the evaluators usually keep some ↑ distance to the processes in the “field”. It is however possible and often practiced to reduce this distance even more and to proceed to “Action Research” (STANGL 2004). In this conception, developed already more than 50 years ago by Lewin for organisational theory, research and action are intertwined, that is recognising, interpreting and changing a problem situation. Action research connects participation, communication
between researchers and the people to be investigated in a mutual learning and common reflection process, structured like a dialogue (R EASON / BRADBURY 2001). The conscious bias of the researcher is thought to strengthen the emancipatory features of this paradigm which is connected with the “Interpretive Approach” of evaluation research. Distance of the researcher and active involvement can, however, be kept in a balance (HEIDEGGER /DRESCHER / GERDS / RAUNER 1993; HEIDEGGER 1997a, 258). The independence of the people concerned is strengthened even more if these are not externally investigated but if they themselves carry through the evaluation of their situations, activities and their outcomes. This is called “internal” or ↑ self-evaluation. This is the best way to realise the aim of carrying through evaluation as a learning process which is scientifically supported (SLOANE 1999). These activities which are usually connected with the “Interpretive Approach” are meant to lead to “Empowerment Evaluation” (FETTERMANN /K AFTARIAN / WANDERSMAN 1996; see also CHEMLINSKY/ SHADISH 1997). This method of (partial) self-evaluation is also important for quality management particularly in social organisations (STAHL 1998 b, 33 f.): e. g. ↑ vocational schools, training departments in companies, ↑ further education colleges (see WILL / WINTELER / K RAPP 1987b). Here the area of ↑ social work played the part of vanguard. For this field ↑ quality criteria are difficult to define and the consensus about the reasons of success and failure is contested (BEYWL / BESTVATER 1998, 34–37). In addition the effects of interventions in social work can not immediately be recognized because they appear only at a later time (K ÄHLER 1999). All these features may often let external evaluation go astray. (The reasons mentioned apply also, although in an attenuated version, to VET.) For the aforementioned field König (2000, 33 ff.) has outlined a hierarchical scheme for the management in social organisations. On the uppermost level amongst other things the quality management is situated. On a medium level the ↑ quality assurance is to be found which encompasses evaluation. Here self-evaluation has the benefit to counteract this hierarchical pyramid. For the people concerned are at the same time the
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actors and the evaluators and may accept, for this reason, the perspective of quality management in so far as it does not enforce external control. All these features apply also for VET institutions of all kinds. Therefore some requirements are directly transferable, like the following ones: The evaluation activities (lean, concise, factual) should be easily to be integrated into the normal ↑ work process (BEYWL / BESTVATER 1998, 39). The control of planning and realisation of the evaluation and the use of the results is executed by the internal evaluators, and the evaluation is voluntary (BEYWL / BESTVATER 1998, 39; see also Kähler 1999, 93 f.). This kind of self-evaluation aims at innovations. The prospects of realisation are favourable since the concerned actors themselves initiate the whole process which can be called “shaping oriented strategy for innovations” (HEIDEGGER 1997a). 5.4.1.5
Criteria for Comparison
Orientation towards Sample Groups for Comparison A rigorous understanding of scientific accountability, in the sense of the empirically and analytically oriented “Conventional Approach”, is best achieved by ↑ evaluation designs which employ experiments. They are suitable particularly for the evaluation of interventions which are limited in time and content, like single courses encompassing specific contents, methods and media. For evaluating the effects of such a “treatment” one forms, in order to secure “control”, a sample group which often is attending the customary course. The two groups are “randomised”, that is the individual members of the groups are selected by chance. After the pre-test the test after the “treatment” in the laboratory experiment shows the differences if any. But it is by no means sure that the differences can be attributed to a causal relation to the treatment even if they are statistically significant. For variables like the personality of the teacher or social processes in the group of learners, which are possibly not connected with the different forms of the courses, can be equally responsible for the differences. These “intervening variables” can be controlled only with great difficulties. This is the reason for the “deficiency in technolo-
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gy” in education as it was called by Luhmann and Schorr (1979). Helmke (2003) has summed up the state of the art of relating different methods of evaluating with another, like systematic evaluation and judgement of the teacher etc. (see also PATRY 1991b). In ↑ VET research, particularly within research on teaching-learning connections, the “quasi-experimental” design is usually preferred, that is a situation where the groups are “naturally” formed. The object to be investigated is then e. g. the already existing class in a vocational school. The advantage is that one keeps closer to the field, e. g. the organisational structure of the college. Thus the expectation is better founded that the results should be transferable to other classes or schools.
Orientation towards Standards All methods which are related to the “Conventional Approach” are bound to carry through comparisons. If not an intervention limited in content and time is at issue so called “standards” are taken as criteria for comparison. The best known example is PISA where the standards have been designed especially for this inquiry. Standards as such are of course not really new. They are usually represented by the items of the conventional test, particularly if it is centrally organized. For example for the theoretical part of the examination in the German ↑ dual system the test items are clearly defined through the so called “PAL” register. The practical examination is also in most cases structured according to central rules. The new features of the movement towards standards are therefore due to the goal of internationalization of VET and the international VET research (GONON 1998). Common standards, particularly for the EU, are to be developed which should bring about the possibility of comparing the occupationally related capabilities of learners and employees, and that across different countries and on various levels. Here for VET research a branch of ↑ evaluation research is growing which is supported by the EU Commission. Because of the variance of the ↑ VET systems in the member states this evaluation will focus on output even more than in the case of general education (see RUDORF 2001; LIPSMEIER 2001). Problems are arising according
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to the following questions: Who defines the standards and especially the aims that they are thought to represent? How can the interrelation between aims, content and methods be incorporated in the standards? How are the cultural and social peculiarities to be taken into account? 5.4.1.6
Quality Management and Evaluation at Vocational Schools
During the last years this issue has become of great importance for evaluation research (KMK 2003). According to the common, although also contested, tendencies towards deregulation of societal structures the efforts increasingly gain relevance to enhance the autonomy of the individual schools. This was, however, already also an aim of the different phases of “reform pedagogy”. For ↑ vocational schools it is particularly important to co-operate with the regional industry and have regard to regional social circumstances. While in some countries schools are already autonomous in many others the legal preconditions are in the process of development (e. g. in Germany the transformation of vocational schools to “regional VET centres”). But then the public responsibility for the ↑ quality development of the activities of these institutions becomes even more important. To secure the adequacy of their aims is still an obligation of the public authorities, particularly with respect to “education” (in the strict sense) within VET. These aims are in the interest of all stakeholders, including besides the students and teachers in the schools also parents, companies and regional authorities. That is in accordance with the ideas about “New Public Management” (DUBS 1996c). For that the model of the “European Foundation for ↑ Quality Management” (“EFQM”, BEHRENS / ESSER 2003) is used, but also still the conventional ISO standards. Their transferability to (vocational) schools is scrutinized (GONON 2003) and sometimes the adaptability of instruments of industrial ↑ quality management is also called in question (TENBERG, R. 2003). In view of these challenges systems of quality management are introduced which usually combine ↑ self-evaluation with external evaluation. The Swiss model “Q2E” (STEINER / LANDWEHR 2003) has proved to be influential for that. “Q2E” is short for “Quality through Evaluation and De-
velopment” (in German: “Qualität durch Evaluation und Entwicklung”). Because the model is based on an scientific inventory of the state of the arts (GONON / HÜGLI / LANDWEHR ET AL. 2001) and aims at systematic evaluation, to be improved in the course of it’s dissemination, it can be seen as an important step in the development of ↑ evaluation research for this area. The basis is systematic self-evaluation of the school as an “holistic” institution (LANDWEHR / STEINER / K ELLER 2003). It tries, via the rather independent design of a common vision of the mission of the institution, to render the ↑ participation of the acting people concerned possible. This should be secured afterwards, through introducing feedback processes which should support common learning (LANDWEHR 2003) although instruments carrying that through are mostly predefined. This self-evaluation, oriented towards development, which is called “primary evaluation” (LANDWEHR / STEINER 2003, 29 ff.) is to be combined with external evaluation by others. The latter represents ↑ meta-evaluation in the sense of the evaluation of a quality management system which is itself based on evaluation. This should on the one hand strengthen the innovation potential within the schools, by enhancing the validity of the self-evaluation. On the other hand it is intended to give an account of one’s work to others. It is not denied that these two functions, orientation towards development and rendering accountability, which are inherent in evaluation, are partly at variance (STEINER / LANDWEHR 2003, 27). Similar models are in the process of testing, e. g. in some German States (see “STAATSINSTITUT FÜR SCHULPÄDAGOGIK UND BILDUNGSFORSCHUNG MÜNCHEN 2003”). After a pilot testing it is planned to carry through an external “evaluation in the team” (EVIT), similarly to Q2E all 5 to 6 years (for the German State of Schleswig-Holstein see: MBWFK 2003, 4). 5.4.1.7
Transfer of Innovative Interventions: “Transformation Evaluation”
For the evaluation ↑ research in VET not only the evaluation in the framework of quality management is important, but also the evaluation of planned innovations. This kind of evaluation of innovations limited, in the first instance, in scope
Research Methods
and time looks similar to the dominant, psychologically oriented perception of evaluation. It is however typical for the latter kind of research that concepts like transfer or dissemination are usually not mentioned. But for ↑ VET research at last mainly results are of relevance which can be transferred to other cases (see PATRY 2000). The issue of transferability is central for the value of the research concerning model experiments. For it has turned out that model experiments, that is specific, limited innovations outside the usual working conditions, depend strongly on just these exceptional conditions. Thus it is often difficult to transfer the results to the everyday activities somewhere else. Therefore the usefulness of entire programmes of model experiments in VET (e. g. in Germany) has sometimes been called in question. In a specific model experiment (in the German State of “North-Rhine-Westphalia”) the scientific advisers tried to expand the scope of ↑ evaluation research. It should not only assist (in a “formative” manner) the ↑ innovation processes and evaluate (in a “summative” way) the results. Rather it should, from the very beginning, explore what features may support or hamper the transfer of successful innovations. This kind of investigations which is oriented towards transfer is called “↑ transformation evaluation” (HEIDEGGER 1997a). Transfer cannot mean that the results of a model experiment can directly be applied somewhere else. For in another social system the conditions for realising the innovations are different. Therefore one should aim at a transfer process where the next “users” adapt the results so that they are compatible with their own objectives and their specific circumstances. That is, they have to transform the results into a new shape. In these kinds of model experiments development processes and particularly the social actors are at the centre of interest. Therefore these actors with their perceptions and objectives should be provided, through evaluation, with incentives for reflection about the conditions, possibilities and limitations, of the intended innovation (ibid., 270–281). Particularly the “neuralgic areas” are to be found, that is those areas where it is decided if the innovation process goes on or, on the contrary, may even reverse it’s path. These areas are, in the en-
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tire “field” of the innovation (LEWIN 1982), closely interacting, they can stimulate or impede each other. As long as the innovation is limited to a particular area the association of all the areas will rather inhibit the progression because it threatens the existing equilibrium, similar to the process of cognitive development (PIAGET 1976; 1980). Only if the innovations in various areas support each other a threshold can be surmounted on the pathway to a new equilibrium. The transformation evaluation therefore inquires, within the areas which are recognized as “neuralgic”, into the possibilities and limitations of actions which may further or hinder the surmounting of the thresholds.
5.4.2
Participative Quality Assurance Philipp Gonon
As late as at the early 1990s, both ‘quality’ and its ‘assurance’ were virtually unknown concepts in the educational sciences. In the wake of control procedures at operational level, quality assurance became part of advanced training, where it developed into a management concept. Furthermore, quality assurance ties in with concepts of ↑ quality circle meetings in companies, which were discussed as early as the 1970s. In the meanwhile, quality assurance has become a comprehensive requirement for all sectors of the education system and is hence of interest also to educational research. Quality assurance in the context of vocational education involves a multitude of levels and problem areas. Virtually all aspects of the education system, from single teaching-learning interactions to the total system on a national level, can be considered from the point of view of quality assurance. For Herwig Blankertz, attempts at challenging the institutionalised division between grammar school and vocational education as well as overcoming the narrow pragmatic orientation of education had already been indicative of “↑pedagogical quality” (BLANKERTZ 1983b, 809 f.). Yet, the kind of quality assurance that has been established since the 1990s has been linked more closely to institutional processes, relating to firms and compa-
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nies as much as to educational and social institutions (KÖPP / NEUMANN 2003). A question which has so far attracted only little attention concerns the scope for participation of teachers and learners in educational contexts. 5.4.2.1 Terminology
Participation Participation not only means to take part, but it also refers to the ↑ co-management of designing arrangements and processes affecting oneself and others. The crucial aspect is the involvement in problem solving and decision making processes. The degree of participation depends, for example, on the general conditions of the specific context. Especially in the context of education and vocational training, questions of involvement and participation in decision making processes are of crucial importance, since the relationship between educator and pupil, and between employer and employee is normally asymmetric. In view of the differences in power, knowledge, skills and freedom of action one may ask to what extent such discrepancies should be supported, preserved, strengthened, or rather minimised and maybe even abolished. The concept of participation is based on the minimisation of such differences, or as the case may be, it at least demands some valid justification for differences in responsibilities, i.e., for someone’s exclusion from decision making and responsibilities. Participation as a requirement is based on the notions of fairness and equity, even justice (RAWLS 2003, 43 ff.). This requirement is not restricted to the public political sphere, but extends to the economy (KUPER 2004), to scientific research and education.
Quality and quality assurance The notion of ‘quality’ enjoys a long tradition and is usually paraphrased as ‘essential character’, ‘distinguishing attribute’ or ‘inherent feature’. In more recent understandings, an evaluative component has been added to these attributes. Since the 1990s, the notion of quality has been established as a key concept of a market- and user-oriented understanding of education (ARNOLD 2001, 270). As
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a consequence, quality aspects are no longer derived exclusively from within the subject matter, but are increasingly brought forward from outside the immediate context (HEID 2000, 48). This development, and in particular the emergence of the notion of quality assurance, make it clear that there has been a shift of stress, if not a new understanding of quality. Attention is called to customer satisfaction and, in particular, to a focus on processes and innovation (GONON ET AL. 1999). Within the framework of quality assurance, quality needs to be assessed in order to formulate new standards with respect to criteria of success and target parameters. In this connexion, educational institutions are usually required – on their own responsibility – to provide a comprehensive quality management (BRACKMANN 2003, 234). This new concept of quality does not replace the traditional understanding, as, for example, Harvey and Green have noted. Quality continues to play a role as the nimbus of education at elite universities and colleges, in the sense of exclusiveness, which represents an understanding of quality in its own right. Excellence as a claim to surpass high standards equals an understanding of quality that is surely in line with the one held in the traditional education system (HARVEY/ GREEN 2000, 19). However, quality can also mean to be in accordance with standards. Components of quality assurance can be flawlessness and perfection, as well as consistency and usefulness with regard to the enquirers’ requirements and the demands of the institution.
Participative quality assurance The compound ‘participative quality assurance’ is not a well-established term, neither in the discourse on quality as such nor in the pedagogical literature. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that even in recent educational encyclopaedias and handbooks both ‘participation’ as well as ‘quality assurance’ lack entries of their own, and are rarely present even as keywords. According to the Enzyklopädie Erziehungswissenschaften, in connexion with the discussion on democratisation in the school context, participation is usually used synonymously with co-operation, and both terms are used to denote the teachers’, pupils’ and parents’
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rights to hearings, counselling, making proposals, being informed, and active participation (ROST 1995, 505). An exception with regard to the prominence of the notion of participation can be found in the context of adult education and further education. According to Siebert, it is a traditional matter of course that adult education is voluntary and that the participation of the learners is therefore necessary for the discussion of the curriculum. Consequently, any legitimation of ↑ learning targets and methods without a discussion with and among the participants is problematic, particularly in participantand problem-oriented courses. Even the objection that such opportunities for participation are typically only used by few, particularly active participants is not valid. Still, the participation principle is not to be understood as a central demand, but can be put back in favour of a scientific basis (SIEBERT 1995, 175 f.). In ↑ adult pedagogics, participation is closely related to active student involvement, and is furthermore determined as the purpose of social partaking (cf. GNAHS 1997). Thus, participation is a principle of education (SIEBERT 1994, 650); in the form of ‘participative learning’ it should also be part of societal and social processes (LENHART/ MAIER 1994, 487) as well as of the configuration of technological aspects in firms (DOBISCHAT 1994, 596). Analogue applications are quite conceivable for quality assurance as well, since one aspect of quality assurance is the degree of involvement and participation of all parties concerned. This understanding of quality assurance counts on a constructive attitude geared towards problem solving of all employees, rather than delegating the responsibility of quality control to specialists or the management (cf. GONON 1999, 76). Especially in further education, such learner-oriented concepts of quality are increasingly being tried out. 5.4.2.2 Quality, quality circle meetings, quality assurance and vocational education
↑ traditional quality: quality avant la lettre Quality plays a significant role in vocational education. Mastery of a trade depends on sound vo-
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cational training. The tradition of apprenticeship training and a number of other customs and arrangements in trade guilds, cooperatives, and later also in chambers and syndicates aimed at imparting high quality knowledge and skills as well as trade-specific attitudes on work ethic, lifestyle and cosmopolitanism (WISSELL 1929). High quality vocational education does not only serve to preserve professions and ↑ branches of trade, but is generally thought to contribute to economic prosperity for the whole society (PORTER 1991). It is especially the economic revival and the high product standards in German-speaking countries that are related to the there prevalent “↑ dual system” and that is seen as a competitive advantage (BIERHOFF / PRAIS 1997). ↑ traditional quality assurance has always involved the statutory provisions regarding initial and further training, in particular with regard to regulations on education and auditing, but also with regard to the professionalising of teachers and instructors. These well established claims have come to be related to the notion of quality, for example, in the reformulation of the “Quality Charter of Higher Engineering Education for Industry” for the countries of the European Union (RUDORF 2001) or of “Didactics as the core of pedagogical professionalism” as quality assurance (LISOP 1998).
↑ quality circle meetings and vocational education In the 1970s, the concept of ↑ quality circle meetings attracted considerable attention. It had been conceived as a tool of human resources and organisational development, intended for lower rank employees in industrial firms. The idea was that small groups consisting of employees with different occupational qualifications should come up with handson and improved solutions to practical problems. Like that, ↑ quality circle meetings should enable participative decision making and add to the creation of a sound and convenient working environment. Successful results had been obtained by the use of this method in larger firms. Employee participation in the world of work is not only considered as a contribution to the quality of work and the firm’s competitiveness, but also as an essential component of the competitive capaci-
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ty of Europe quite generally (BIAGI 2002). However, one of the problems of participative quality implemented in this way is its weak institutionalisation within the firms. Apart from a lack of continuity, this approach also generates winners as well as losers of the participation process (GREIFENSTEIN / JANSEN /K ISSLER 1993, 165 ff.). A common criticism of ↑ quality circle meetings is that they usually act less as a vehicle for democratisation than as a short-term measure – and consequently as a rather precarious factor – in a fi rm’s modernisation process (GREIFENSTEIN /JANSEN /K ISSLER 1993, 338).
“New quality” finding its way into vocational education Independent of this debate, a second kind of development of a new understanding of quality can be observed. Due to a shortage of financing of education, quality assurance is of increasing strategic importance. With resources running short, the educational system and all educational measures should still adapt to the changing social and economic circumstances. Quality could no longer be understood to orient only towards ‘internal’ norms, as had traditionally been the case. “In search for quality”, it is especially external expectations and a certain pressure towards the abolishment of uniformity of education which are the main issues (INFORMELLE GRUPPE DER ARBEITGEBERVEREINIGUNGEN 2000). Since the 1990s, the quality debate has been characterised by the so-called ‘↑ comparative quality’, which is geared to the needs of the enquirers and customers. Comparisons offer a stronger incentive to take the enquirers’ favour into account. It is particularly in this respect that systematic quality assurance is of central importance. Thus, quality is made into a ↑ task for the management. The perspective of quality management can therefore be regarded as a new dimension of quality, one which focuses more on the overall performance of educational institutions than on the quality of the actual classes (BERGHE 1998, 22).
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Vocational education, ↑ internationalisation and quality assurance In vocational education as in other areas it was international developments which posed the question of quality in a novel way. Comparisons have played a vital role also with respect to internationalisation (GONON 1998). The development of international indicators is a relatively recent phenomenon, despite the fact that such organisations like the OECD, UNESCO and Eurostat have recorded data on education and formation in Europe for quite some time (BERGHE 1998, 27). It was like this, for example, that the European Training Foundation defined indicators of vocational education and training, which in the context of the “key indicator project” are meant to point towards problems and development trends of the vocational educational systems of the European member states (ibid.: 40 ff.). Moreover, there is also a list of indicators with regard to the ‘↑ efficiency’ of the national vocational educational systems as a piece of evidence of quality (LIPSMEIER 2001, 50). A prime motive for attending to quality assurance is thereby found in aspects regarding the recognition and comparability of degrees (ZIMMER 1995b). In contrast, the analysis “Qualitätsentwicklungen in der beruflichen Bildung durch lokale Netzwerke” (“↑ quality development in vocational education by means of local networks”), published in 1999, focused on aspects of innovation (SEYFRIED /KOHLMEYER / FURTH-RIEDESSER 1999). Chances of an “improvement in quality in vocational education” are seen especially in local networks, since they allow the regional actors to develop common objectives and realisations (ibid.: 64 f.). 5.4.2.3 Topics and areas in quality assurance in vocational education Quality assurance has only just begun to attract attention in vocational pedagogy. Yet, stronger intervention is considered necessary, particularly because relevant decisions, like the allocation of resources and reforms, are closely linked to the topic of quality.
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Topics of quality assurance There is an immense variety of problem formulations related to quality assurance. For example, vocational environment education, based on an information centre, is also referred to as quality assurance (GESELLSCHAFT FÜR BERUFLICHE UMWELTBILDUNG 1996), just as is the case for equality of opportunity for women in vocational training and further education (JUNGKUNZ 1997) or quality assurance in vocational training cooperation (ARNOLD 2002). However, in connection with vocational education there are two dominating areas which relate to quality assurance, namely advanced training and ↑ vocational schools.
Advanced training While the vantage point for the new efforts of quality assurance had at first been advanced inhouse training, the concerns of quality management have now become “universalised” (SEVERING 1999 b, 154). After an “initial ISO-euphoria”, more differentiated forms of quality management have come to be preferred in advanced in-house training (STAHL 1998 b, 33). A general survey of European firms reveals that participative methods, including elements of self-assessment, are considered particularly necessary (STAHL 1998 a, 48). According to the understanding of quality in the context of ↑ adult pedagogy, this notion is closely related to “professionalism and an accompanying ethics” (GIESECKE 1997, 42). Furthermore, emphasis is also laid on “applied dialogic ↑ quality development” (“dialogische Qualitätsentwicklung im Feld”) (MEISEL /KÜCHLER 1999).
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schools of Bayern, Rheinland-Pfalz and Schleswig Holstein, and in which quality assurance according to ISO-norms and EFQM-models (European Foundation for Quality Management) is put to the test (STAATSINSTITUT FÜR SCHULPÄDAGOGIK UND BILDUNGSFORSCHUNG MÜNCHEN 2003). In ↑ vocational schools, quality assurance is also considered primarily with regard to advantages and disadvantages of particular implementation systems (HÜGLI 1998; BEHRENS / ESSER 2003). Time and again, emphasis is laid on the importance of offering the teachers the chance of entering a “process of applied ↑ quality development directly related to teaching” (TENBERG 2003, 141). It is impossible simply to prescribe quality; instead of enforcement it is therefore vital to allow adequate scope for development (GONON 2003, 21).
Status quo of the discussion on quality assurance The debate on quality essentially revolves around questions regarding the implementation of quality assurance systems. In further education as well as in ↑ vocational schools, alternatives to the implementation of ‘customary’ quality assurance systems are considered. Instead of taking over established ↑ quality systems in their entirety, only specific concerns or components are accepted and employed. Besides deniers of quality assurance systems there are also quality accumulators and quality eclectics who combine several systems or components of systems. In addition, a number of providers and consultant agencies offer systems of quality assurance that are adapted to the specific users (cf. GONON / HÜGLI / LANDWEHR ET AL. 1999).
↑ vocational schools Quality assurance is an issue at ↑ vocational schools and on the level of secondary school (Sekundarstufe II) (STAMM 1998), and is also discussed in connection with the formation of vocational pedagogues (SEEBER 2000c). Quality in schools, including ↑ vocational schools, is usually understood as a ↑ management task. Measures of quality assurance are often only in a test stage and are furthermore related to broader questions of school autonomy. An example thereof is the large-scale trial of a network model which includes the ↑ vocational
Participative aspects in the quality debate There are indeed approaches that conceptualise organisational reconfigurations mainly under the aspect of ‘team development’, both in the context of advanced training as well as in the quality discussions at ↑ vocational schools. The teaching staff at ↑ vocational schools is hereby defined as a team that has to take on structuring and innovation tasks (NICKLIS 2000, 60). Team building is considered a significant indicator of process quality. In a traditional ↑ vocational school environment charac-
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terised by lone warriors and a lack of constructive criticism, the development of reflexion and of social-communicative ways of acting is of particular importance (FASSHAUER 2000, 92f.). In the canon of advanced training, explicit pleadings for “active participation on the learners’ part” can be found (K EMPER 1998). Even ↑ quality circle meetings are considered a part of ↑ quality development (NÖTZOLD 2002, 88ff.). Participative approaches are rarely considered a prominent topic of quality, even though in many guides and handbooks they appear as a significant aspect (BRATER / MAURUS 1998; GONON /KÖHLER / MATTHIEU / SCHMUCK 2002), to which due attention should be paid already during the development of quality projects (STEINER / LANDWEHR 2003). 5.4.2.4 On the current state of research on quality assurance in vocational education The technical literature on quality assurance is normally of an applied and practical nature, which is why a majority of publications on this topic consists of overviews, instructions, codes of practice and guidebooks (cf. SCHÖNI / TOMFORDE / WICKI 1997). Recording and documenting collected data indeed plays an important role in every system of quality assessment. In this connexion, scientific ↑ evaluation methods are also applied. However, systems of quality assurance do not primarily aim at contributing to scientific knowledge beyond any immediate practical relevance. Therefore, this kind of research is considered accompanying research at best. The same could be said of research in connexion with ↑ quality circle meetings, since it could essentially be summarised as the result of self report data on a qualitatively low empirical level (SEMBILL 1999, 337). Therefore, Antoni’s ↑ survey study on the question of ↑ quality circle meetings as participative group work, published in 1990, finds only a weak theoretical and empirical basis (ANTONI 1990, 202). Accordingly, in his own four case studies he was not able to come up with firm findings regarding the consequences of participation on a company’s operational level (ibid.: 204).
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There are only few studies on quality assurance in practice, and their focus is mainly on the perspective of the institution’s and learners’ organisational and professional development. All the results found so far indicate that it would be essential to provide an incentive to lend more weight to participation (POSCH 2002, 601). In particular, an investigation of quality criteria specific to the particular domain, function and addressee is required (FAULSTICH 1991, 580f.). 5.4.2.5 Perspectives of participative quality assurance Participative quality assurance is not an explicit research topic, and neither is participation in the centre of attention in the quality debate. The central issue is the legitimisation of benefits and the protection of resources in the name of quality improvement. What would be needed here are concepts and research results which provide evidence that participative models are indeed superior to technocratic, authoritative or over-directed, bureaucratic ones. There are fair chances of such results actually being found. In other areas of pedagogy, this question is formulated more explicitly. For example, ‘participation as a quality feature’ is a perspective discussed in ↑ social pedagogics. In explicit connexion with the quality debate, possibilities for adolescent participation with regard to codetermination rights are discussed, particularly with respect to process and output quality (BLANDOW/ GINTZEL / H ANSBAUER 1999, 72). Yet, participation and quality assurance both share the problem that little is known of their actual pedagogical effect (ibid.: 77). The inclusion of pedagogical addressees means that only the specialists’ technical standards, but also the co-producers, i.e., the learners themselves, are considered as contributors to ↑ pedagogical quality (cf. FEND 1998: 378). In this respect, self-organisation becomes a vital aspect of quality (ECKMANN 2000). The lack of codetermination in vocational education classes is indeed considered to have an influence on the quality of the instruction (SEEBER / SQUARRA 2003, 117). In the context of a growing tendency towards school autonomy and the formation of competency centres for vocational education matters, a demand for employee-oriented quality management is in-
Research Methods
creasingly being voiced. An unpublished empirical study on the employee-oriented quality management in a school found that feedback voiced and discussed among the teaching staff carried the largest potential for improvement (MINELLI / WALLISER 1997, 5). It is considered vital to include all officials and intra-school agents in quality assurance processes (WITTMANN 2003, 369). Likewise, the acceptance of model experiments clearly hinges on the participation of the teaching staff of ↑ vocational schools (BUER 2003, 109). In the context of advanced training, a utopian retrospection from the year 2025 identifies “participant sovereignty” as the result of the quality discussion (GNAHS 1995). Quality assurance as quality management is mainly based on guidance. From this perspective, it is comprehensible that the concept of participative methods based on small groups – with ↑ quality circle meetings as a prominent example – had not been at the centre of attention, since it was also directed against Taylorist structures and behaviour patterns (BRANDMEIER 1993, 254). Having said that, it is by all means possible to understand the notion of ‘customer’ as offering the possibility of a participative approach, for example, if user-oriented quality aspects, or the performance quality of educational events are designed to be central elements (WEYMANN 1995, 125). Quality as a medium which addresses the performance expectations of the ‘customers’ as well as of the headmasters and the teaching staff, or of the management and the employees (cf. KUPER 2002, 536), leaves room for participative quality.
5.4.3
Output Orientation as Aspect of Quality Assurance Sabine Kurz
Starting in the early 1990s, the debate surrounding the quality of education and ↑ efficiency of education systems has been stirred up by the results of comparative international studies such as TIMSS, BIJU and PISA. The subsequent focus on heightened output control has led to a paradigm change; from the traditional predominance of in-
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put control, to one more centred on output (cf. i.a. AVENARIUS / DITTON / DÖBERT ET AL. 2003; BMBF 2003e; and SPECHT 2002). By means of central guidelines and resources, input control intends to raise quality per se, with relatively little focus on systematic ex post analysis. In contrast, the output control of learning and teaching processes in education is organized along the lines of desired results and outcomes. One manifestation of this paradigm change is the introduction of educational standards (BMBF 2003d) which formulate the competence and skills to be acquired in the education process. Parallel to this, we can identify two international developments that support this shift of perspective. On the one hand, the issue of how to test the quality of achievement assumes a new dimension. This is unfolding in an environment of increasingly scarce resources and in front of a backdrop of discussion surrounding increased autonomy and the adequacy and ↑ efficiency of the use of these resources (compare HEINER 1996), and the introduction of new decentralized control models (budgeting, agreement on educational levels). On the other hand, via initiatives such as the Bologna or ↑ Copenhagen process, an attempt is underway on the EU level to harmonise educational achievement and awards with a view to making the so-called ‘output’ measurable and transferable. Hence, member states are called upon to contribute to the core objective of developing “compatible systems of ↑ quality assurance with respect to the diversity in Europe” (cf. AMTSBLATT DER EU 2002) and to implement corresponding systems of quality assurance based above all on: “learning outcomes that will enable qualifications and competence achieved in vocational education and training to be compared, and that could form the basis of a European currency in Vocational Education and Training (VET) qualifications” (cf. EC, E. C. 2003a, 24).
This necessarily entails development of a concept of quality measurement which can be made quantifiable on the basis of common indicators that define the system outputs (cf. HUTMACHER 1998). The concept of quality in the education system is thus determined from the perspective of multi-level analysis (FEND 2000; 2001) and is correspondingly centred on the: – Macro level: education system level; – Meso level: level of individual institutions;
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– Micro level: level of learning and teaching processes. Within this context it would, similarly, appear advisable to differentiate different system levels in order to systematize the various notions and concepts. According to Döbert (2001), for the macro and micro levels two tendencies are uppermost in the quality issue: for the macro level we can observe the increasing influence that international bench marks exert on national policy decisions; for the micro level (just as for the meso level) there is a growing ↑ commitment to ↑ self-evaluation. 5.4.3.1
Conceptualizations
Output Orientation The term ‘output’ was originally to be found in the field of manufacturing and computers. It means something like yield, capacity, or issuance. When referring to the field of education, ‘output’ is understood as the results/the learning outcome (SEEBER 2000a). Within a system of ↑ quality management, output quality is one of three classic dimensions. These are defined by Donabedian (1982) as structure quality, process quality and result quality. Similarly, Meier-Ziegler (1993) talks of input quality, implementation quality and output quality (see Fig. 3: Dimension of a comprehensive ↑ quality assurance system). Here, output quality refers to the curricular, non-curricular and cross-curricular impact of the education process. In education, the notion of output refers to the immediate impact of ↑ educational processes, and thus to the certification of achievement and the acquisition of formal qualifications and awards, as well as encompassing the development of qualifications, competence, value patterns and interpretive patterns, etc. (cf. AVENARIUS / DITTON / DÖBERT ET AL. 2003; DITTON 2000): whereas the longer-term impacts of ↑ educational processes relate to the notion of outcome (for more on this see → 5.4.3.2). Hence, output and outcome become crucial aspects in the assessment and advancement of ↑ educational processes and the education system.
Quality Assurance Quality denotes the properties of a product or a service – which can be either good or bad. Notwithstanding, the term quality is applied chiefly to things which exhibit a high level of quality. According to Fend, in pedagogical discourse the concept of quality refers to the “distinction between something high-grade and something low-grade” (FEND 2000, 56) . Precisely what is deemed to be high grade
is dependant on the context and the expectations of the persons who apply the term. With reference to the field of education Harvey/ Green (2000) distinguish between the five concepts of quality: exception, perfection, purposefulness, adequate countervalue for money, and transformation. The measurement of quality can be oriented i.a. to external, self-defined, or customary standards. It can refer to the flawlessness of products or to the advancement and empowerment of learners. This multiplicity of approaches is also evident in the history of quality assurance. Different definitions underlie the various concepts of quality assurance, depending on the branch and respective focus. Thus Garvin (1984) distinguishes between product-related, process-related, customer-related, and value-related approaches (cf. K AMISKE / BRAUER 1999; and OTT/ SCHEIB 2002). Quality assurance in the field of education functions complementarily to the concept of ↑ quality development. It encompasses the entire scope of operative activities that provide guarantees by means of planning, ↑ controlling and testing the defined quality of delivery, training programmes, educational institutions, etc. The systematic approach, encompassing both quality assurance as well as quality development, is known as quality management (cf. HEINER 1996).
Output-Oriented Quality Assurance So far no conceptual definition of output-oriented ↑ quality assurance exists. Until now, it has neither been systematized in the discourse on quality, nor in education research. Within the context of quality assurance the term output orientation refers to the aspect of ensuring and testing the results and impacts of education processes by means of agreed standards or re-
Research Methods
quirements. Thus output orientation constitutes a crucial point of reference for quality assurance and the optimization of education processes. Accordingly, an orientation to output means that the end results are examined in order to draw conclusions about the preceding process, the institution or the underlying system. On the one hand this is done in order to identify strengths and weaknesses, and on the other to come up with data and approaches designed to improve education procedures. The techniques applied differ according to the level at which the output is to be examined and upraised. As a rule, on the micro level it is the efficacy of ↑ teaching and learning processes that is examined within the context of target/actual comparison. This is done with the intention of optimizing individual education procedures: whereas, on the macro level, it is data and analyses that are relevant. On the one hand, this serves to record the relation between effect and effort within the context of ↑ cost-benefit analysis, and on the other hand, to provide ↑ benchmarks which facilitate ↑ self-evaluation of the system. Procedures that incorporate output orientation in systems of quality assurance aim at the prospective improvement of the whole education system. Today the quality discussion in the field of vocational education and training also encompasses corporate training (for a summary see FEUCHTHOFEN / SEVERING 1995; SEVERING 1998; 1999 a) methods and contents of ↑ vocational schools (ALTRICHTER 2000; ALTRICHTER / POSCH 1999; TEMME 2002) and apprenticeship schemes. There are a number of quality assurance systems already in place for vocational training (cf. DUBS 2003; GONON / HÜGLI / LANDWEHR ET AL. 1999), of which the two most known, DIN ISO 9000 ff. and EFQM (European Foundation of ↑ Quality Management), are models for excellence. These two quality assurance systems have a business-economics background and accentuate the importance of customer orientation and customer satisfaction. Here, quality assurance aims to ensure that customers actually receive the quality they expect. Consequently, in order to shape the operative process it is necessary to define the corresponding objectives and standards based on a concept of customer satisfaction. To this end the ISO norm (DIN 2000;
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GONON / HÜGLI / LANDWEHR ET AL. 1999) lays down procedures and operative instructions in a quality manual, which is intended to ensure that the processes and products meet prescribed requirements (compare GONON / HÜGLI / LANDWEHR ET AL. 1999; as well as OTT/ SCHEIB 2002). Within this context Arnold (1997b) points out that ISO is actually ensuring the system of quality assurance, rather than the underlying quality as such. The EFQM model (cf. WUNDERER 2001; GONON / HÜGLI / LANDWEHR ET AL. 1999; as well as GIETL 2001) specifies enabling and result criteria and evaluates these on the basis of benchmarks. Hence, whereas both of these two approaches to quality assurance incorporate prescribed objectives which refer to the output and which are derived from output-oriented data, at the same time they also cover information on input and process variables. There are still insufficient empirical ↑ longitudinal studies (for initial studies see SCHULZ 2003; TENBERG, R. 2003; ROMER 2003) in order to enable successful adaptation of these approaches to the field of education (here, especially, ↑ vocational schools and institutions of ↑ further education). 5.4.3.2
Reference to and Demarcation from Other Research Fields and Concepts
A large number of concepts have been developed in the area of ↑ controlling, assurance and improvement of products and services. These are frequently derived from different contexts and they subsequently exhibit different foci. However, there are growing similarities, leading to partial overlapping of concepts drawn from the different fields. For instance, Witthaus bemoans an “insufficient demarcation between the concepts evaluation, quality assurance and controlling” (WITTHAUS 2000, 152) . More-
over, on the macro level there are clear references to system monitoring. In this paper these concepts will be subjected to closer analysis and scrutinized in relation to one another.
Output-Oriented Quality Assurance and Evaluation Output-oriented ↑ quality assurance in education bears considerable resemblance to summative evaluation. Common to both approaches is that they
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seek to measure the results at the end of an ↑ educational process in order to evaluate its success. In one respect, the compiled data serves to provide legitimation and justification to the outside: internally it serves to improve the evaluated process and as decision-making criteria for future programmes (cf. STOCKMANN 2002). However, differences between the concepts of quality assurance and summative evaluation are apparent with respect to: – Origin and methodology, – Temporal perspective, – The instructing party, – Internal/external implementation. Above all, quality assurance has its roots in the sector of private enterprise, whereas evaluation emerged mainly in the public sector (as an instrument to evaluate processes). This explains why the methodological approach in the case of quality assurance is related more to business economics, while evaluation leans more on socio-scientific methods (cf. STOCKMANN 2002; BAMBERG / GUMBL / SCHMIDT 2000). With regard to the temporal perspective, quality assurance has a more encompassing brief compared to evaluation. Whereas evaluation is generally limited in time, quality assurance represents a continual process. Thus, evaluation can be considered as an instrument related to quality assurance, and quality assurance as a “system of continuative evaluation” (DITTON 2002). The responsibility and the brief for quality assurance lie with the decision makers themselves. They decide on the type, scope and intensity of a system of quality assurance and are intended recipients of the results, whereupon they reach continuative decisions. In contrast, though, in the case of evaluation we distinguish between self evaluation and external evaluation, depending on whom is the instructing party and who is to receive the results. Consequently, it is possible that decisions regarding the consequences of an evaluation may lie outside the institution itself. This is similar for internal and external evaluation. Whereas procedures relating to quality assurance are as a rule carried out internally, evaluation is frequently also conducted by external institutions. Since these concepts of evaluation are not yet rigorously defined
Handbook of TVET Research
in pedagogical discourse, a clear arrangement according to responsibility and actors (Fig. 1) would appear to be useful.
Fig. 1: Self-external evaluation (KELLER 2004)
Output-Orientated Quality Assurance and Education Controlling Originally, the aim of ↑ education controlling was to describe corporate training programmes by means of microeconomic data, using the results to steer training processes. However, until now the concept of education controlling has been insufficiently demarcated from concepts such as evaluation, ↑ performance control or quality assurance. Another author to point out this conceptual vagueness is van Buer (cf. → 5.4.4), who cs the concept of education controlling as one that reaches beyond the practice in companies. In his understanding, education controlling entails the compilation of measurable indicators of education economics. This information should serve “as the foundation for a systematic planning and optimization model” (ibid.).
Following on this definition, education controlling therefore also represents a steering instrument of ↑ quality management on the macro level (see Fig. 2: Classification of quality concepts and procedures (according to NISBET 1990). Thus, in Switzerland this view of ↑ education controlling constitutes an important structural element (cf. BBT 2003). Here, education controlling is seen as a component of quality managements. On the basis of measurable objectives, in a dynamic compari-
Research Methods
son it records deviations of the actual state from target state. This then serves to determine the important influencing factors, and from these to derive proposals for measures designed to raise quality in the whole area of vocational education and training (DBK 1999). Ultimately, education controlling is thus seen as an instrument to check whether the output justifies the input, and it positions the usefulness of education in relation to the resources it takes up. According to Witthaus (2000), education controlling should avail itself of both pedagogical and economic criteria in the development and evaluation of processes of vocational training. With regard to the area of company training, ↑ education controlling possesses some exceptional features when compared with ↑ quality assurance in the education sector. For instance, the integration of employees within their company makes it possible to determine concrete training targets, which then exert a crucial influence over the implementation of training programmes. The success of such programmes can subsequently be measured on the basis of changes in behaviour vis à vis the prescribed aims. (cf. PATRY 2000) In so doing one distinguishes between the construction output, transfer and outcome (SEEBER 2000a). Output denotes the learning success at the end of a training measure. It can be ascertained by means of ↑ performance measurement, e. g. in the form of oral, written, or practical examinations. In addition, transfer describes the process of applying what has been learnt to everyday working situations. To what extent such a transfer actually takes place depends on a number of factors – arising from both the learning situation as well as the working environment. (cf. PATRY 2000; MANDL ET AL. 1992). We distinguish between the following dimensions of structural effect (cf. SCHÜSSLER 2001): – the personal dimension, which refers to the characteristics, competences and motivations that determine subjective learning behaviour, – the situative dimension, which refers to all factors that accompany the learning and transfer process, – the processual dimension, which refers to the didactical-methodological procedure, the course and
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the pedagogical approach applied to the training measure. Finally, under outcome we understand the longterm effects of the training measure, which become evident in the execution of tasks within the working process (WITTHAUS 2000). According to Witthaus, outcome manifests itself in quantitative criteria such as increased sales, economies of time, or reduced absenteeism; as well as “soft” criteria like workers’ motivation, fundamental willingness to learn, or an increased sense of responsibility. This categorization of the results of training programmes may also be suitable for the orientation to output in quality assurance.
Output-Orientated Quality Assurance and System Monitoring System monitoring is a procedure found on the level of the total control of education systems and includes an orientation to output. It entails an institutionalized observation process (SPECHT 2002) in education research, in which systematically selected, quality relevant and standardized system indicators “are periodically observed, analysed, illustrated and evaluated in respect of standards” (ibid., 191). System comparisons, ↑ longitudinal studies of system development, or bench marks form the basis for this approach. According to Haider (2002), system monitoring comprises four elements: – national and international education ↑ statistics, containing information on resources/budgets, demographic developments, ↑ participation in education, education flows, formal qualifications, ↑ labour markets – output measurements, cumulative to the end of the training measure or level of education on the basis of curricular and cross-curricular content, – periodical surveys of important issues surrounding teaching and learning content – representative opinion polls within the context of the education system. International ↑ comparative studies such as TIMSS, PISA, i.a., or regularly appearing ↑ statistics like “Education at a glance” (↑ OECD) compile useful overviews of the relevant indicators concerning investment in education (input), possibilities for application (process) and results (output).
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5.4.3.3 The Object of Research In much the same way as the quality concept, output-orientation can be made the subject of multilevel analysis. It can thus be construed as an aspect in the evaluation of education processes, institutions or whole systems. In this respect it is necessary to demarcate the fundamental concepts and procedures related to quality. Classification can be along the lines of the “evaluation map” developed by Nisbet (1990) distinguishing four dimensions (Fig. 2). The dimension external/internal encompasses the conflicting priorities of ↑ education controlling (macro level) and internal ↑ quality management (micro/meso level): the dimension process/ product encompasses the conflicting priorities of ↑ quality development vis-à-vis ↑ quality assurance. The subsequently derived four quadrants illustrate ‘fields of action’ to which the different procedures of a quality management designed for the education system can be allocated.
Fig. 2: Classification of quality concepts and procedures (according to NISBET 1990)
Regardless of which level is to focus on output orientation, it is necessary to formulate general learning objectives. The extent to which these objectives are met then becomes the object of output orientation. Based on the learning aims, standards must be determined which contain the minimum competence to be acquired for the qualification at the end of the training process. According to the ↑ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), standards can be defined as threshold values of similar quantifications that determine what is to be understood as good or satisfactory quality. ↑ Benchmarks, average values,
Handbook of TVET Research
or a best mark may also serve as standards. Basically one can say that standards describe requirements for competence. As such they can also be defined as ↑ evaluation criteria for outputs. Rheinberg (2001) describes three possible gauges: – The social gauge, where the priority lies on recording inter-individual differences in ↑ performance, – The individual gauge, where the priority lies on tracing intra-individual variances in performance, – The objective gauge, by means of which individual performance is evaluated in relation to an absolute standard (see also EBBINGHAUS 2000). In the area of vocational training in Germany we apply both input standards (training contents/curricula, etc.) as well as output standards (learning results, examination requirements, etc.). Although the Chambers are obliged by the ↑ Vocational Training Act to implement quality assurance and development, the fact remains that the social parties still exert considerable influence on how qualitative minimum standards are determined for the training components in companies. These then apply as the criteria which determine the standards the ↑ vocational schools then base their curricular on. Currently, indicator systems and bench marks are receiving particular attention as evaluation criteria for quality in education. The discourse is being led by countries (England, ↑ France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland) which have long been in possession of national indicator systems for the evaluation and measurement of performance and continuative monitoring of the efficacy of their education systems (cf. DÖBERT 2000). 5.4.3.4
History and Status of Research
The first set of indicators for the education system to reach beyond the compilation of performance data was developed in 1973 by the OECD. In the mid 1980s the “education indicators project (INES)” systematized the results. Since the early 1990s an annual publication “Education at a glance” has included a survey of education data with a focus on output-oriented datasets containing ↑ ↑ performance studies based on pupils’ performance (see ACKEREN 2003). With regard to developing conceptual models for indicator systems in education,
Research Methods
among researchers there is broad consensus on a categorization based on input-process-output data, albeit with divergent views concerning the weighting of variables and, frequently, different definitions of the output concept (HERPEN 1994). Indicator systems can be developed pursuant to the central approaches (FITZ-GIBBON /KOCHAN 2000; BOTTANI / TUIJNMAN 1994; DARLING-HAMMOND 1994) System modelling (indicators which have the function of describing systems), problem finding (indicators which have an early-warning function) or target setting (indicators which have a steering function in matters of education policy). The extent to which national indicator systems have been implemented in the different countries varies greatly. Some countries, for instance Canada, Finland, England, Sweden and the Netherlands are relatively far advanced, whereas other countries are still at the beginning (cf. BMBF 2003b, 144). Individual countries prefer to rely on national ↑ comparative studies, since these provide more insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their education systems and, hence, more impetus to reform and to further development than international comparisons. Besides carrying out comparative studies, various institutions have been established in the different countries to draw up and monitor the adherence to national ↑ quality standards in schools. So far, no international equivalents have emerged in the area of vocational training. This can be traced to the notably different traditions and the varying extent to which vocational training is embedded in national systems of education (cf. LAUTERBACH / SPÖTTL / FASSHAUER ET AL. 1995–2005) and the minor priority attached to vocational training in the international debate, which is dominated by English-speaking countries. Vocational training may be able to partially draw on the above-mentioned contexts of developed procedures and instruments, but due to the special status of vocational training and its special brief, ↑ quality assurance in vocational training ought not be restricted to such instruments (cf. GROLLMANN /KURZ / OTTEN 2004).
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5.4.3.5 Special Methodological Features and Implications If we follow the differentiation of learning success output, transfer and outcome, (cf. SEEBER 2000a) the following picture emerges: for both ascertaining the learning success accruing from a training measure (output) as well as for measuring the effects of the measure in the working process (outcome), it is necessary to determine objectives and indicators, with the help of which it is then possible to ascertain whether the training measure achieves the desired result. This calls for the availability of suitable instruments capable of providing purposeful data so that, in connection with input and feedback data, conclusions may be drawn regarding the education process. Ascertaining the effects of a training measure is thwart with difficulty, especially in the work context; since actions never occur in isolation, but rather are dependant on additional context variables whose influence can not be determined. Besides the intended result, a training measure can also give rise to unforeseen “side effects” which may well be of significance for its evaluation. Hence, it is important to ensure that not only partial effects are measured (cf. WITTHAUS 2000). A further difficulty which may impede the ascertaining of outputs/outcomes is that acording to Ditton (2000) “on the whole it is not clear on which level […], by means of which procedure […], on the basis of which evaluation criteria and expectations […] reliable and valid conclusions may be drawn […] concerning quality or the extent to which targets have been achieved”.
Since transfer constitutes a process, as such it cannot be measured in the sense of the word. Rather, from the outset conditions must be created to facilitate the transmission of the imparted subject matter and methods to the work situation (PATRY 2000). In connection with ascertaining the outcome, the concept of competence (cf. to the definitions e.g. ERPENBECK / HEYSE 1999; BERGMANN / FRITSCH / GÖPFERT ET AL. 2000) assumes a high priority, and inquiries into the development of competences (for an overview: WEINERT 1999) and the measurement of competence take on increased methodological significance. On the European level the concept of competence has a broadly accepted definition:
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with the exception of England, where the concept of competence is related to qualifications acquired at the workplace. Put bluntly, competences can be defined as enabling self-organized, creative action, whereby qualifications are more the product of examination knowledge. Whereas the latter can be measured by means of questions, the measuring of competences stands in need of suitable measuring procedures. The procedures that are called for should lead to certification, validation, accreditation, or valorization (for more on these concepts cf. K ÄPPLINGER 2002), depending on whether the acquired competences are formal, non-formal or informal. 5.4.3.6
ment and measurement of competence is assuming growing significance, since analysis and the knowledge gained will enable us to draw conclusions for the control of inputs, and thus for future requirements
Development Perspectives
Output-orientation as an aspect of ↑ quality assurance in vocational education and training is predominantly discussed within the context of education policy and then in the field of vocational education. In addition to this, outside of the Anglo-American English-speaking countries there is no systematic empirical research taking place on the long-term effects of education processes (cf. RANK / WAKENHUT 1998; for ↑ further education cf. SCHREIBER 1998). Ditton points out that there is also a lack of elaborated concepts on quality assurance in the education sector, whereby existing deficits “are not to be attributed merely to negligence on the part of a primarily pragmatic orientation of research, but rather […] substantially due to the complexity of the subject matter involved” (DITTON 2000, 76).
In his opinion there is a need for a comprehensive theory which integrates the various theoretical approaches to levels of learning, delivery, the organisation of schools, and the education system as a whole. In this context, two areas are important for research on vocational training: on the one hand, farther-reaching research on the causal relationships between output, transfer and outcome. On the other, the development of instruments designed to ascertain the outcomes. Outcome is reflected in action and can only be measured indirectly, primarily as an expression of competent action in ↑ performance. For the subject of quality assurance in vocational education and training, the ascertain-
Fig. 3: Dimensions of a Comprehensive Quality Assurance System
Fig. 3 illustrates that the concept of ↑ efficiency is located on the level of outputs, and the concept of ↑ effectiveness on the level of outcomes. Not until there is feedback is it possible to contribute to improvement, in dependency on the results, so as to intervene flexibly in the respective ↑ school system or ↑ system of vocational education and training.
Research Methods
5.4.4
Educational Controlling Jürgen van Buer
5.4.4.1
Educational Controlling – Context and Conceptual Main Thesis
Context of ↑ Educational Controlling its Development In the 80ies of the 20th century, the cost pressure on products and services offered in commerce and industry is enormously increasing. Due to changes, predominantly on the capital markets, the single company is under considerable strain to plan and make investments under the perspective of preferably short-term yield expectations. (cf. K LEINERT / SCHIMMELPFENNIG / SCHRADER / STEHN 2000; KÖDDERMANN / WILHELM 1996). Discrepancies between planning intervals become apparent with regard to expectations of and demand for return as well as to learning processes of individuals and the implementation of a change of knowledge, competence and attitude for the optimisation of occupational performance (cf. e.g. BARRETT / HÖVELS / BOER /K RAAYVANGER 1998, WALDEN 2000). Therefore, ↑ effectiveness and ↑ efficiency of offers of training and qualification within the company come into focus of the ongoing discussion; mainly regarding to the question, in how far the verifiable quality assurance and enhancement in the single occupational working processes can be traced back to the accomplished measures of qualification. Occupational vocational education as well as advanced training are not only discussed on the level of general socially consented formulations but also on the level of single entrepreneurial calculus as strategic factors (cf. K AILER 1994, 77; LANDSBERG 1995, 12 ). The problematic budgetary position of the public sector and its impact on the financing of general and vocational education as well as its consequences for the recruitment and training of personnel in the single company spreads the demand for appropriate instruments of control and regulation which need to be empirically checked and applicable in politics and management, causing low costs.
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This debate, though changed in its focus, is additionally heated by the findings of the international comparing as well as national and regional school ↑ performance studies such as PISA. These studies reveal massive deficits of a bigger part of German young people mainly regarding to basic competences – especially in contrast to other developed nations (TIMSS: cf. BAUMERT / BOS / LEHMANN 2000; PISA: BAUMERT /K LIEME / NEUBRAND ET AL. 2001; school ↑ performance study Hamburg LAU: cf. LEHMANN 2002). No later than the findings of PISA, the indispensable consequences esp. for the field of vocational education are debated (Berlin: BILDUNGSKOMMISSION DER LÄNDER BERLIN UND BRANDENBURG 2003). Various empirically-evaluative measures and activities are taking place which concentrate on the performance and achievement potential of the single institution of education and qualification as an instance increasingly regarded as the central element for quality assurance and enhancement. Supported by educational politics, they increasingly lead to normative agreements on standards of quality and education etc. (↑ evaluation studies in the field of occupational institutions of education and qualification: cf. for institutions of vocational educations and cooperating companies SEEBER / BUER 2004; vocational schools, e.g. SEEBER / SQUARRA 2003). These trends have lead to a different understanding of (vocational) institutions of education and qualification as well as of their control and regulation (control and regulation cf. the New Public Management e.g. DUBS 1998). It also puts further emphasis on the central role of the concepts “Explication and Transparency of Objectives and Standards”, “Reporting Inwards and Outwards” and “Output and Outcome Evaluation” as evaluation- focussed means of control and regulation for systematic assurance of quality (field of school cf. DITTON 2000).
Exposure to the Term of Educational Controlling – Critical Annotations The terms ‘controlling’ as well as ‘↑ educational controlling’ comprise a undefinedness regarding the terms themselves on the one hand and extremely different methodical approaches to the phenomena on the other hand. Either can be traced
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back to the partially inflationary use of the term (cf. GNAHS /K REKEL 1999). Considering the literature of business- related controlling, the following becomes obvious: The existing concepts and models are extremely heterogeneous with regard to their theoretical basis as well as to their perspective approach to the phenomena of the person or matter controlled (cf. e.g. WEBER 1998, 19ff). (Educational) controlling regarded as a discipline in the field of empirical social science, the following critique is even more profound: According to it, the concept lacks a clearly defined terminological basement in certain segments of evaluationfocussed control, despite highly differentiating instruments. Furthermore, controlling as a science of experience is not yet based on a sufficient empirical data basis (cf. e.g. KÜPPER 1997; also WEBER 1998). This state of controlling applies to an even bigger extent to the field of ↑ educational controlling which is ascribed to the fact that educational controlling was originally not primarily induced by science and that hitherto it is not used under consideration of compliances of scientific standards e.g. collection, analysis and interpretation of data. These reasons lead to models which emphasis the practical usability, especially with regard to a costeffective use and fast availability of data for the following analysis in and for the management. Justified by this strong practical-pragmatic orientation, the field of controlling still deals considerably undifferentiating with the question of the use of disposable knowledge, the consistency in the applied construct, the quality of generated knowledge etc. (critique: cf. SEEBER 2000; BUER 2000, 101 ff.). On the one hand the following is statable: Each form of systematic evaluation focussing interventions and concepts of control and regulation, esp. the evaluation by the means of quantifying data, the quality of the measuring method of the collected data is named as its indispensable fundament. (cf. e.g. WOTTAWA / THIERAU 1998; BALZER / FREY/ NENNINGER 1999). Nonetheless, one needs to emphasize the following: The centre of existing concepts and models of educational controlling is mainly the enhancement of subjective certitude about the judgement on the “quality” of the partic-
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ular action of education and qualification. Therefore, the generation of subjective certitude and the legitimisation of planning and investing actions by the means of cost-efficiently collected data are favoured, yet, without taking into appropriate consideration the possible effects of errors. Nonetheless, the following can be stated: ↑ Educational controlling is implemented as a group of promising approaches for the raise of ↑ effectiveness and ↑ efficiency in actions of occupational education and qualification (cf. e.g. articles of K REKEL / SEUSING 1999)
Position of Educational Controlling between Business Science and Educational Science Overall, educational controlling represents a group of models and concepts which are placed between two very different and only partially compatible scientific ideas with regard to the choice of social actions in social situations: One side emphasises the beliefs in individual decisions with the objective to minimise costs and maximise value (under certain conditions) (cf. ELSNER 2000) which can be summarised as the concept of the “homo oeconomicus” (cf. e.g. K IRCHGÄSSNER 1991; SIMON 1993). The other side focuses the concept of (vocational) education and its tensed position between occupational capability and occupational majority (cf. e.g. HEID 2003). Depending on what approach is followed, educational controlling is in its theoretic basis positioned between (cf. also SEEBER 2000) – Mainly economical or rather managerial focus: This leads among others to a stronger relation to formal quantifiable performance measurement system (cf. e.g. EICHENBERGER 1992; for communal self-administration cf. e.g. LANGTHALER 2002). Thereby, the danger to neglect cause and effect coherences, esp. its structure of interdependencies, increases which will eventually lead to incorrect judgements on the effects of the interventions applied (also critical e.g. WITTHAUS 2000, 156 ff.). – main focus on educational science, esp. in occupational training and qualification as well as in adult education: Here, the questions of models of organisation and functional cycles of further education – including the hitherto rather partial evaluation – are in the foreground (cf. e.g. die criti-
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cal summary of vocational education research in adult education in TIPPELT/ HOH 2001, esp. 163 ff.). Though, the issue of economic calculus of educational efforts is broached, it is yet seldom differentiated sufficiently (critical cf. also EBBINGHAUS 2000). Depending on the focus chosen, the bonding of the particular concepts and models on the use of language as well as on the different approaches of the ↑ related sciences with regard to occupational education and qualification is clearly visible. Nonetheless, there exist overlapping and attempts to systemize term-wise and to find definitions which are meant to connect these two orientations. Yet, despite attempts of multidisciplinary approaches, in ↑ educational controlling does still not exist a sufficient interdisciplinary cooperation with regard to modelling and empirical inspection (critical cf. also SEEBER 2000, VAN BUER / SEEBER 2002). 5.4.4.2
Definition of Educational Controlling – Drafts and Model Assumptions
Alluded several times in this article, the haziness of the use of the term, the position of the issue in different social subsystems as well as its placement in diverse areas of science without more interdisciplinary cooperation make a definition of educational controlling a difficult task. Nonetheless, the following is statable: Hitherto, the relevant attempts to define were merely conducted with focus on the functions of managerial controlling in companies and therefore significantly different to approaches of systematic, institutionalised assurance of quality like in the publicly controlled institutions of education. It is remarkable that no discrimination from personnel controlling is carried out. Following e.g. WUNDERER / SAILER (1987, 506 f.), educational controlling constitutes a managerial instrument which acquires educational data by the means of measurable indicators and which uses this information for a variance comparison as a basis for a systematic model of planning and optimisation. According to this approach, educational controlling alludes to the coordination of the (single) managerial system of planning and control and regulation; its central function is the acquisition of information.
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All this leads to the question of the character, quality, and amount of the information. An answer, however, is yet to be found since the majority of models and concepts remains rather hazy. Nonetheless, the following trend in the managerial literature is visible: By means of economic criteria the educational issues are gathered as quantifiable data and analysed on the basis of numeric models. Pedagogic figures of output and transfer such as increase in competence and change of behaviour at the working place, however, are often characterized as not at all or only partially measurable and are therefore collected by using qualitative data such as subjective judgements (cf. e.g. BECKER 1995, also GNAHS /K REKEL 2000, cf. also the overview on educational controlling in Austrian companies in K AILER / EDER / MAYRHOFER 2000). The partially missing ↑ interdisciplinarity of relevant models of educational controlling becomes obvious. This leads to the fact that options to scale the data acquisition regarding to an increase in competence and knowledge are – as discussed in 5.4.4.1 – not replicated. Overall, the quantification of pedagogic effects of output, transfer and outcome are significantly underestimated.
Three Basic Functions of Educational Controlling Objectives, functions and tasks but also the methods and instruments of educational controlling are not clearly defined in literature. Therefore, no definite functional, process-related and instrumental coherent classification into specially banished institutional areas of responsibility is conducted. Nonetheless, there is still consensus that educational controlling should take over the task of improving rational decision making processes for the optimisation of educational investments and to contribute to a stringent adjustment of the realised investments of education and qualification. Following this argumentation, educational controlling can be understood as a strategy to counteract the often-observed phenomena of “muddlingthrough” and also to improve ↑ efficiency systematically – mainly evaluation focussed (“muddlingthrough” phenomena in behavioural, managerial approaches cf. e.g. BINMORE 1995). Despite the indicated different approaches three central func-
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tions of controlling can be presented: the functions of coordination, of information as well as of control and regulation (cf. e.g. HORVÁTH 1996, 142).
The Function of Coordination of ↑ Educational Controlling: The function of coordination reaches various subsystems of a company, an educational institution etc. such as the system of planning, control and information as well as other subsystems of management (cf. e.g. KÜPPER 1997). Under a strategic, tactical and operative perspective, processes of educational planning relate to the target system of the company, to the system of measures as well as on the structural and resource system. This applies primarily to the field of the development of personnel, yet partially also to prospective recruitment of the latter.
The Function of Information of Educational Controlling: This function deals with systematic collecting, preparation and the analysis of data of educational issues. A differentiation between primarily valuerelated and factual aspects is possible. Analogue to business controlling, the value-related instruments of acquisition and analysis are borrowed from extern reporting, from accounting as well as from performance analysis (cf. BANK 1997, 221 ff.). Under the perspective of (occupational) education research, this cost and return related data is yet insufficient to interfere effectively in procedures of education and qualification (cf. also TIMMERMANN 2001). A systematically planned and controlled economic success of these measures requires empirical research of ↑ educational processes (cf. e.g. VAN BUER 2000) for evaluation-focussed control as well as of preliminary and downstream processes and their interdependencies. This view leads to an integrative model of educational controlling (cf. e.g. SEEBER /VAN BUER 2003).
The Function of Control and Regulation of Educational Controlling: The controlling and regulating function of educational controlling is even enforced by the tight cou-
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pling of the functions of information and coordination. It is intensified especially by the variance analysis. Thereby the following is again obvious: Educational controlling centrally depends on systematic, evaluative data of processes of education and qualification as well as of effects of changes in competence and attitude in the working process itself (transfer controlling; cf. e.g. PATRY 2000) and of the changes in yield optimisation (cf. e.g. WALDEN 2000). These findings also serve the purpose to draw conclusions for future planning and design (cf. e.g. EICHENBERGER 1992, 29 ff.). The discussion about managerial controlling, hitherto mainly related to factual objectives, which is meant to reveal and minimise internal malfunctionality by the means of economic data, takes two things hardly into consideration: Firstly, the specific character of processes of education and qualification. Secondly, the new trends in the acquisition of competence structures and its changes etc. as well as in the modelling of optimising strategies for ↑ educational processes. 5.4.4.3 Educational Controlling on a Occupational Everyday Basis The increasing cost sensitisation of companies, the observable intensification on capital markets, the resulting merely short-term orientated yield expectations and the increasing importance of human capital in and for the development of the company cause enormous pressure to adopt company objectives fast and reality-related as well as to implement it in internal cycles of realization. Therefore, educational controlling becomes even more important as an instrument of the achievement of objectives and for yield optimisation. Previous research and studies on the implementation of educational controlling in a company, however, draw a different picture which includes the field of educational and qualification investments only conditionally, sometimes marginal into the planning structure (cf. BEICHT /K REKEL 1999; K AILER / EDER / MAYRHOFER 2000). It is remarkable that systematic measurement of target achievement as well as transfer controlling on an everyday basis hardly ever takes place. Especially the issue of transfer plays a key role for the perpetuation of the cycle of controlling. Hitherto, it must be charac-
Research Methods
terised as an investive “blank space” (cf. K AILER / EDER / MAYRHOFER 2000). Of all the elements of ↑educational controlling, the most precisely acquired ones are the costs of further training, yet small businesses are still far behind bigger companies. The measurement of utility as well as the controlling of costs, utility and yield also represent a far reaching blank space (cf. BEICHT /K REKEL 1999, 50 ff.). The question why educational controlling has yet been implemented so rarely is often answered by a pointer to a lack of resources, to problems regarding the methodical competence as well as to problems in the execution of the relevant instruments (cf. GNAHS /K REKEL 2000, 220). Furthermore, examples in the sense of “best-practise” can be named (cf. e.g. KÜSTER / LIEBCHEN / LEUTHOLD 2000). 5.4.4.4
Educational Controlling of Education and Qualification – Areas of Overlapping and Development
The relevant literature on educational controlling reveals that a theoretic basis and empirical examination of existing models and sub-models rarely exist. It is also hardly taken into consideration that the matter implies high ↑ interdisciplinarity as well as requirements of the modelling resulting out of it. Given these facts, the systematic linking of managerial modelling and model analysis with empirical educational and vocational research is especially desirable. Regarding the question, what the development of educational controlling as a field of scientific research will be like, the following can finally be stated: The actions of evaluation on different systemic levels of the educational systems are enforced as a reaction to the findings of the school ↑ performance studies. Due to a stronger focus on the extended autonomy of the single school (cf. e.g. BILDUNGSKOMMISSION DER LÄNDER BERLIN UND BRANDENBURG 2003, 235 ff.) as well as to the stronger necessity to control the effects of autonomy with regard to the assurance of the productivity of the whole system, a stronger, empirical-based focus on this particular field, put by the educational research institutions, is therefore expected.
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5.4.5
Benchmarking in Vocational Education and Training Susan Seeber
5.4.5.1
Scope
The development of information societies, which corresponds to ever more comprehensive economic ↑ globalisation and growing competition within national and international ↑ labour markets, increases the significance of education for mastering the future. It is one of the greatest challenges for the entire educational sector to assure and, if possible, improve ↑ quality standards under changing social and economic conditions (compare WEISS 2000, 16; for the so-called Lisbon Strategy, see PRESIDENCY CONCLUSION 2000). These international developments show that the ↑ performance of educational systems is generally under scrutiny (compare COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 2005a; BAETHGE / BUSS / LANFER 2003; RYCHEN / SALGANIK 2001). At the same time, new approaches to quality improvement are under investigation (for Finland, see RÄKKÖLÄINEN / ECCLESTONE 2005; for Great Britain, cf. e. g. WHETTON / TWIST/ SAINSBURY 1999). Given this antagonism of scarce resources and simultaneously growing expectations and demands with regard to the outcomes of education and training, models of management and optimization that have been developed in other contexts are becoming increasingly attractive. This is true both for the training and qualifying sectors of economic enterprises as well as for private and public institutions offering vocational education and training. ↑ Quality management, ↑ educational controlling, evaluation and ↑ benchmarking represent theoretical concepts and practical approaches to the enhancement of the ↑ effectiveness and the ↑ efficiency of ↑ educational processes. The present article is intended to provide a brief introduction to benchmarking as a means of increasing the ↑ effectiveness and ↑ efficiency of educational investments. In addition to conceptual considerations and a short history of benchmarking as a methodology, the potential of benchmarking in the field of vocational education and training will be investigated here.
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5.4.5.2
Handbook of TVET Research
Conceptual Considerations – General Characteristics and Structure of Benchmarking
General Characteristics As a conceptual approach to dealing with the aforementioned management and optimization tasks, benchmarking did not originate from ↑ scientific theory-building, but, rather, in the context of entrepreneurial interests. It is this context where its ramifications have been spelled out. Support for rational decision-making is, indeed, at the centre of the concept of benchmarking, accompanied by the need for the justification of concrete actions on the basis of information which is readily available and can be obtained at reasonable costs. The concept of benchmarking has been developed in the context of the North American industry as a management tool intended to strengthen the company’s competitiveness. Thus, benchmarking is generally understood as a continuous systematic monitoring of the quality of products, services, internal processes and methods in selected segments of the organisation, drawing comparisons with other companies known to excel in the particular area under investigation (cf. PUSCHMANN 2002; K ARLOF 1999; K EEHLEY/ MEDLIN / LONGMIRE / MACBRIDE 1996; CAMP 1994). The following characteristics are distinctive of benchmarking activities: – Benchmarking is typically embedded in a concept or framework of controlling (for more detail, see SEEBER 2000b) or in a comprehensive scheme of quality management. – It entails aspects of measurement, comparison, evaluation and policy formation. – It also has the function of identifying alternative problem solutions and promising new ones (cf. PIESKE 1995, 14 ff.). Thus, the concept of benchmarking implies not only the collection and analysis of data, but also the identification and obtainment of target and attainment figures – of ‘↑ Benchmarks’ in the proper sense of the word. Similarly, superior and innovative methods and technologies, the so-called ‘best practices’, are sought. Comparisons with other companies are preceded by thorough stock-taking activities within one’s own organisation. This
is equivalent to a series of investigations, resulting in the selection and computation of corresponding measures and parameters for the areas and segments under scrutiny (products, services, structures, processes).
The Structure of Benchmarking ↑ Benchmarking activities can involve the whole organisation or selected segments; it can occur in a strategic perspective or focus on immediately alterable processes. Correspondingly, benchmarking schemes can be distinguished according to the selection of objects, partners and attainment indicators (see Fig. 1; cf. P IESKE 1995, 41; K ARLOF 1999).
Fig. 1:
Structure of Benchmarking schemes
Benchmarking partners: Internal benchmarking studies relate products or processes occurring within an enterprise or institution to others within the same institution. In this case, the partners are divisions or segments of the organisation itself. In the case of external benchmarking, products and processes occurring in other institutions are being compared, which can happen – competitively – across suppliers within a particular domain or – neutrally – across organisations which serve different markets and clienteles. Benchmarking objects: When enterprises or other organisations are considered from the perspective of production theory, the objects of benchmarking can be situated in the domains of input, process
Research Methods
or product. Formally, these objects of comparison can refer to the structural characteristics of the organisation (e. g. divisions, branches) or to the management of production procedures. Target categories for benchmarking: A crucial role is to be attributed to the selection, definition and operationalisation of comparative categories against which to assess the quality and achievement of the benchmarking objects. Due to the fact that benchmarking has developed out of the need for rational economic management, both the emerging theoretical concepts and the practical implementation have been centred so far around aspects of cost-↑ effectiveness, or the use of economic indicators and indicator systems, respectively. By implication, these refer to monetary and output figures, to time as an essential economic variable, as well as to other factors which are known to influence the ↑ effectiveness of institutional actions and processes (cf. TINTELNOT 1996, 24; HORVÁTH 1996, 396). Phases of the Benchmarking Process Publicly available documentations and concepts of concrete benchmarking exercises are based on a multi-phased schema (see Fig. 2).
Fig. 2: Phases of the Benchmarking process
During the preparatory phase, the objects of comparison are determined, the benchmarking team is composed and relevant characteristics for the description and evaluation of the benchmarking objects are defined and operationalised. In addition, the benchmarking partners are to be selected. According to expert advice from benchmarking participants in commercial firms, the success of benchmarking exercises depends largely on a thorough conduct of the preparatory activities (WEBER / WERTZ 1999, 21). The analytical phase comprises the exploitation of available sources of information and, as the case may be, the conduct of additional data collections (for benchmarking information and communication systems, see, e. g. GRUNDMANN 2003).
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The variables upon which comparisons are to be based have to be selected and/or derived, and analyses suited to explaining differences between the superior “↑ benchmarks” (in the narrowly defined sense) and the inferior partner in the comparison have to be designed and conducted. This phase also includes the preparation of a report on the results of the ↑ benchmarking exercise. The intervention phase concerns the implementation of strategies to achieve the benchmarks, including the monitoring of steps initiated in the pursuit of the defined goals (cf. BRETTEL 2000, 151 ff.; K REKEL / BARDELEBEN 2000, 117). In the economic domain, benchmarking is primarily considered at the level of the individual enterprise, even so, entire national economies are compared in terms of the respective fundamental indicators, and the data are used for the purpose of economic policy-making. As far as the actual use of benchmarking in the economy is concerned, there is very little information available. Taking as evidence relevant articles in management journals and related internet sources which provide information on the topic, support the search for adequate benchmarking partners and offer services for conducting benchmarking studies, this management tool appears to attain rising levels of attention, especially among those enterprises which have to adjust to change and increasing competition. If benchmarking is to meet the expectations attached to this concept, it clearly presupposes the existence of a fully differentiated monitoring or ↑ controlling scheme, which incorporates the respective information systems. It also requires permanent development, subject to the implementation of strategies for change. 5.4.5.3 Benchmarking in Vocational Education and Training
Levels of Benchmarking in Education In the educational domain, benchmarking can be conceived and implemented at two levels: firstly, at the system level, namely in the context of international or interregional comparisons on the basis of certain achievement indicators as well as analyses of ↑ effectiveness and ↑ efficiency (for TIMSS see
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MULLIS / MARTIN / GONZALEZ / CHROSTOWSKI 2004; for TIMSS 1999 Benchmarking, see, e. g. MULLIS / MARTIN / GONZALEZ ET AL. 2001; for PIRLS see MULLIS / MARTIN / GONZALEZ /K ENNEDY 2003; for PISA 2003 see OECD 2004b), and secondly at the level of the individual institution, to be evaluated in the light of inter-differences. At both levels, educational benchmarking can hardly be considered universal and well-established. Apart from acknowledging the annually published educational indicators produced by ↑ OECD and the more recent categorisations of ↑ educational attainment by the European Union (see COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 2005a), educational benchmarks and the concomitant international and inter-institutional comparisons have only very recently received some attention, at least in some European countries. In the German case, this somewhat sudden rise of interest is likely to be related to the undeniable evidence of nationwide shortcomings in terms of achievement, derived from international comparisons (BAUMERT / BOS / LEHMANN 2000; OECD 2004b). Evidence of unsatisfactory ↑ performance levels in key school subjects has also been produced by several regional studies (see, e. g. LEHMANN / HUNGER / IVANOV/ GÄNSFUSS 2004; HELMKE /JÄGER 2002; for vocational education and training, see, e. g. LEHMANN / IVANOV/ HUNGER / GÄNSFUSS 2005; LEHMANN / SEEBER / HUNGER 2006). As was to be expected, the international comparisons had been focussed on phenomena at the system level, whereas the regional studies placed more emphasis on the inter-institutional differences. The sub-systems of vocational education and training are particularly affected by such lack of comparative information: internationally, for the most part structural and achievement data coexist without any linkage (see WERNER / FLÜTER-HOFFMANN / ZEDLER 2003, 296). In the national context, the situation is not much different.
Benchmarking at the System Level International assessments provide an excellent base for gaining multiple perspectives on educational issues and for examining a variety of possible reasons behind the observed achievement differences. The international and regional assessments, which so far have primarily focussed on general school-
Handbook of TVET Research
ing or academic tracks, have led to the definition of the respective ↑ benchmarks. Thereby, they have rendered necessary, though not sufficient, conditions for effective strategies for change. In conducting such comparative analyses, in education, as in other fields, the theory of productivity has prevailed, especially in the context of concerns about ↑ efficiency. These studies are in line with the school ↑ effectiveness paradigm, which has been developed and widely applied in Englishspeaking and Western European countries. In the analysis of education, it distinguishes between input, process and output (and/or outcome) variables (see REYNOLDS / TEDDLIE 2000, 4 ff.); for its application to the study of school quality, see STRINGFIELD / SLAVIN 1992; for Germany, adaptations have been published by DITTON 2000). Quality-relevant indicators selected from these groups – input, process and output/outcome variables – facilitate comparisons between and making ranking lists of educational systems. The analysis published by Klein/ Hüchtermann (2003, 87 ff.) derives the explicit strengths and weaknesses of the German system of education from such comparisons. Apart from the well-established ↑ OECD indicators, evidence from international achievement studies (IEA, PISA) is built into the respective database. This is compiled in order to arrive at comprehensively underpinned judgements as to the ↑ effectiveness of the German system. Thus, a careful scrutiny of the indicators of vocational education and training used by OECD reveals that in this domain of education, Germany demonstrates a relatively high level of respective attainment in the adult, economically active population. Similarly, Germany is characterized by comparatively high rates of young people who have successfully completed a programme in vocational education or, more generally speaking, any programme at the upper secondary level. Further strong points are to be seen in a relatively high rate of polyvalent programme certificates, a low rate of youth unemployment and a high ↑ participation rate in the field of vocationally oriented ↑ further education. Against these strengths, weaknesses are identified. These refer to the comparatively late average transition at the first and second thresholds of vocational training, the comparative-
Research Methods
ly low participation rates in vocationally oriented further education among persons with little or no educational qualifications as well as a diminishing supply of trained manpower in the foreseeable future (cf. WERNER / FLÜTER-HOFFMANN / ZEDLER 2003, 302 ff.). However, international comparisons in the domain of vocational education are plagued by differences in the attributions of different structures and functions to particular programmes. The situation is aggravated in the case of the so-called “↑ dual system”, which in its combination of firmbased and school-based education and training is typical of some Central European countries. This is because, in this case, the institutions involved (schools, firms) pursue different goals and thus follow different principles of governance. At the very least one can say that this dramatically increases the effort involved in the collection and analysis of respective data for the purpose of international comparisons. The Lisbon strategy radically changed the European policy of co-operation in the area of education and training. Ever since, the discussion has taken place at the European level within a coherent policy framework, embedded in a systematic monitoring of system ↑ performance and change. Indicators and benchmarks were set up to assess progress towards the objectives and to identify models of successful policy practice. Nevertheless, there is a need to improve the quality and comparability of existing indicators, above all in the field of initial and further vocational education and training, and with regard to the increasing heterogeneity of programmes, goals and institutions offering vocational education and training in European countries (cf. COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 2005a). The relative richness of structural information is contrasted by a manifest lack of information as to the ↑ effectiveness of particular training systems. Also, there is a blatant deficit of data regarding the flow of trainees, both within the vocational training programmes and at the transition points between training institutions, ↑ labour market and career trajectory (cf. BAETHGE 2005). An example for ↑ benchmarking at the system level: Among others, the input factor “time” is considered as a crucial criterion of ↑ efficiency, both
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under an economic and an educational perspective. International comparisons of educational achievement have established that learning time is used to rather different degrees across countries: at any one grade level, between-country achievement differences equivalent to more than three years of schooling have been observed. Similarly, interstate comparisons within Germany have produced rather dramatic differences in various achievement indicators (reading comprehension, mathematics, science), also amounting to up to two-and-one half years of schooling (see, e. g. BAUMERT / LEHMANN / LEHRKE / SCHMITZ 1997). When comparing two systems of education, the one with the higher mean achievement level at a given grade, for a given output indicator is considered to be the more efficient one. Years of schooling and vocational education and training have an impact on the input variable “costs”. “Costs” as considered here consist of direct expenditure and opportunity costs which are borne by the individual or the firms, depending on the specific educational options available in a society. Once again, international comparisons are helpful: Analyses of years of education in relationship to job entry show that school leavers in Germany are considerably older than those in other countries when entering vocational education and training. It is true that the educational ↑ statistics for Germany record mean enrolment times for the upper secondary level (3.0 years), which are below the international average. However, this appears to be due to several peculiar effects, which have influenced these statistics. One of these factors is the comparatively low ↑ participation rate in academic tracks geared to higher education entry. Others refer to the fact that those who participate in more than one programme at the upper secondary level are recorded only once, in their first programme, which may refer to a short-term unspecific preparatory course, for instance. In fact, the mean age for leaving the first upper secondary programme (19 years) is above the international average (18 years), largely due to belated school entry and grade repetition. Thus, the comparatively late age at which German school leavers enter vocational training and eventually the ↑ labour market is indicative of the low ↑ efficiency of this sys-
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tem with regard to the factor of time (see WERNER / FLÜTER-HOFFMANN / ZEDLER 2003, 344 ff.). These examples show that the implementation and perfection of internationally comparative indicator systems can provide important data on educational achievement and the relative ↑ effectiveness of systems of education. The respective information is not suitable, however, for deducing strategies of change and improvement without taking the specific constraints on the respective educational sites into account. The recently created programme entitled “Educational ↑ Benchmarking Germany” (compare K LÖS / WEISS 2003) represents a first approach towards combining comparative data on the German system of education with independently compiled internal indicators, the intention being to articulate and justify recommendations for ↑ educational policy-making and reforms.
Benchmarking at the Level of Individual Institutions Even if the central motive of benchmarking – “to learn from the best” – appears to be rather simple, its implementation in education is a complex process that requires some preliminary considerations: (1) Collection of variables relevant for educational achievement As became clear in the previous section of this article, benchmarking presupposes the existence of a well-articulated system of ↑ controlling, information handling and ↑ quality management. This is because clearly defined, comparable concepts of achievement are necessary conditions for any form of benchmarking (for the constituents of controlling schemes, see SEEBER 2000a, 37). In particular, the various opportunities for vocational education and training are characterized by a certain lack of systematically collected, clearly structured cross-referenced and well-documented information which pays respect to the relevant input, process and output concepts (for in-firm programmes of ↑ further education, see GNAHS /K REKEL 2000; for initial vocational training, see ACHTENHAGEN 2005). Thus, one of the major problems in this domain is to identify conceptually valid ↑ benchmarks (goals and respective achievement characteristics), as well as indicators pertinent to the
Handbook of TVET Research
↑ effectiveness and cost-↑ efficiency of the respective programmes. However, the position affirmed here is that economic indicators alone (for ↑ statistics on in-firm programmes of further education, see, e. g. SCHULTE 1995, 266 ff.), are insufficient to manage and govern educational practices, processes and policies. Terms of comparison which are alien to the core activities of education are either “of secondary importance or superfluous“ (OELKERS 2003, 59 ff.). (2) Definition of a system of criteria of ↑ efficiency As for the sector of general education, it appears to be true for vocational education and training (cf. the documentation on the state of ↑ educational controlling in training firms provided by GNAHS /K REKEL 2000) that the system management so far has been dominated by input factors. Educational expenditure has rarely been analysed in terms of its cost-↑ effectiveness. Consequently, there is, as of now, no coherent system of criteria by which to judge ↑ educational processes (K LEIN / HÜCHTERMANN 2003). In other words: Much work remains to be done along these lines. (3) Limits to influencing achievement-relevant concepts Under the perspective of managing and governing input and process variables in education, the distinction between manipulable and non-manipulable variables becomes significant (cf. WEISS 1982, 53). As, in the final analysis, ↑ benchmarking serves the purpose of providing policy-makers and administrators with information and comparative data useful for making decisions, it is presupposed that ways exist of influencing and changing the respective conditions. These, in turn, define the frame for the goals and reference points of benchmarking exercises. In this respect, there are considerable differences between the individual institutions offering vocational education and training, as well as between the courses offered by any one institution (for more detail, see SEEBER 2000b, 136 ff.). (4) Potential risks in benchmarking exercises As an instrument for managing qualification processes in vocational education and training, benchmarking serves to establish solid positions for in-
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dividual institutions in the respective markets. In principle, it implies opportunities for institutions to reduce their deficits with respect to better performing ones. There is some risk implied by the transparent use of benchmarking, however, namely that enterprises with negative deviations from the ↑ benchmarks lose market shares, or that high-performing enterprises lose their market advantage when successful processes are adopted or adapted by their competitors. This is particularly true for commercial organisations offering vocational education and training. Undesired side effects for institutions in the public sector of education may entail unintended influences on the flow of students through the educational system, including the possibility of an increase of its social selectivity. In order to have at least some control over this, the input conditions of schools need to be considered. With respect to comparisons between individuals, classes and schools, this implies that ‘expected values’ ought to be computed as a function of known external characteristics (e. g. nonverbal intelligence, SES and migrant status) and that the benchmarking criterion to be evaluated is given by the difference between these expected and the observed levels of educational achievement. For the purpose of providing ‘benchmarked feedback’ to teachers and schools, this approach was used, for instance, in a statewide census of educational achievement in the City of Hamburg (see LEHMANN 2001, 68 ff.). (5) Complexity and costs As indicated before, many of the existing data on educational achievement are poorly structured and represent measurement standards, which are somewhat below the desired level. This is in contrast with the complexities inherent in the output specifications expressed in the respective models of educational benchmarking. Consequently, restrictions as to the selection of output characteristics are unavoidable in benchmarking studies. This implies, however, that the information base available for rational decision-making is by far less than ideal. Therefore, any strategy implemented on that basis requires some concomitant systematic ↑ controlling. If the existing data are poorly coordinated and incommensurate, the effort for data collection, cross-validation and analysis is increased.
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5.4.5.4
On the Current Significance of Benchmarking for Vocational Education and Training
Although ↑ benchmarking goes back to the origins and traditions of industrial production, in particular as implemented in large corporations, an increased interest in this approach is noticeable also in education settings. Here, it is primarily considered as a tool for managing systems of education and is consequently referring to the system level (cf. K LÖS / WEISS 2003). There is a growing tendency, however, to also apply it to the management of processes within educational institutions, namely in the context of ↑ educational controlling (see BÖTEL /K REKEL 2000) and ↑ quality management (see DUBS 1998). At the system level, benchmarking may be considered as a well-established instrument for managing educational systems. Comparisons are largely restricted, however, to the first two stages in the benchmarking process, namely the preparatory and the analytical phase. These allow for problem definitions and consecutive investigations. For the design and implementation of reforms in educational systems and the constituent institutions, additional investigative effort is required, however (ARBEITSGRUPPE INTERNATIONALE VERGLEICHSSTUDIE 2003). The extent to which educational benchmarking is likely to be accepted in the future is currently difficult to assess. This is because the improvement of educational opportunities is primarily discussed in terms of new approaches to quality management, New Public Management, Educational Governance, assessment and evaluation. At the same time, the existing data referring to educational quality are very limited and fragmented. The introduction and perfection of indicator systems for the assessment and evaluation of the ↑ effectiveness and ↑ efficiency of systems and institutions catering to vocational education and training allows one to expect, however, that this tool will, indeed, be utilized to initiate and manage beneficial reforms in the domain of vocational education and training.
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5.4.6
Handbook of TVET Research
Programme Evaluation Ludger Deitmer
In many areas of society, e. g. the school and education system, health services, the economy and the ↑ labour market and employment policy areas, public support programmes are undertaken in an effort to kick-start incremental or fundamental changes (innovations). These programmes pool various projects with different goals (such as the introduction of new curricula or health education drives). Using extra material and human resources (e. g. time, premises and materials), the people active in the programmes (e. g. teachers, scientists) work for various target groups (e. g. pupils, patients) with the joint goal of preparing, developing and trying out changes. If a project is successful, it is frequently followed by an attempt to transfer the results to other institutions (DEITMER 2004a, 166; FISCHER / PRZYGODDA 2002, 167). Programme evaluation seeks to make reform processes in VET more effective, to increase the output and ensure the sustained ↑ effectiveness of programmes. Programme ↑ evaluation represents one of the major elements of programme management. It provides a better basis for decisions for the improved ↑ utilisation of professional and material resources, but also for future activities, both on the programme and on the project level. Compared to project evaluation, programme evaluation features a greater degree of complexity and faces a wide array of methods and designs and also is characterised by a multi-actor and multi-measure structure (FAHRENKROOG / POLT/ ROJO ET AL. 2002). 5.4.6.1
Definitions and Perspectives of Programme Evaluation
An early definition by Weiss (1974) emphasises the interaction of theory and practice: evaluation examines the ↑ effectiveness of social interventions using different ↑ research methods. Following the evaluation feedback cycle it forms a link between theory and practice and between people and institutions. Wottawa and Thierau (1998) discuss, among other things, the many and varied attempts to define evaluation, e. g. the definition by Scriven (1991), according to which evaluation serves to judge the value of a product, a process
or a programme. Ultimately, Wottawa and Thierau reach the conclusion that evaluation activities are subject to a particular interest in knowledge and application of programmes. Therefore evaluations have the primary purpose of checking practical measures, either deciding or improving upon them. Ultimately, by applying a range of social-scientific methods, programme evaluation attempts to come up with meaningful ↑ research designs. These methods are used to evaluate the approach, design, implementation and the benefits of programmes of social intervention (SHADISH / COOK / LEVITON 1991; K ROMREY 1995, 109; ROSSI / FREEMANN / LIPSEY 1999). According to the literature we can make a distinction between three general perspectives: – Planning: in the programme planning phase, the need for personal and financial resources during implementation of the programme is examined. This examination may be called “ex-ante evaluations” or “pro-active” evaluations (HELLSTERN / WOLLMANN 1984; OWEN / ROGERS 1999). They can include e. g. the selection procedure for suitable applications for funding (PROGRAMMTRÄGER ITB/ ISB 2004, 71) – Implementation: during programme implementation, programme evaluation has above all an optimisation function. These evaluations are also allocated to “accompanying research” (or “formative evaluation”). Information on the course and interim results of a programme is collected and evaluated to allow early corrections and/or improvements to the programme. This also will give the actors decision aids for the further development of their project measures. In the implementation phase, participatory and/or interactive evaluation approaches may be used. They can have a certain affinity to ↑ quality management (PROGRAMMTRÄGER ITB/ISB 2004, 85; DEITMER 2004a, 114). – Conclusion and Diffusion: after programme completion phase, the programme effects are examined. This evaluation sums up the results achieved in a so-called summative evaluation. It involves adopting an ex-post analysis perspective (SCRIVEN 1991; WOTTAWA / THIERAU 1998). Unlike ↑ quality assurance systems and ↑ educational controlling (→ 5.4.3; → 5.4.4), programme evaluation should be considered in its
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temporary nature, simply for the reason that programmes run for a limited time and that they have a project focus and not so much an institutional focus. To summarize, programme evaluation focuses either on ongoing improvements of the ↑ performance, or more on assessing the ↑ effectiveness of the programme. 5.4.6.2
The Design of Criteria for Programme Evaluations
According to Kromrey (1995), four general elements of programme evaluation must be defined during preparation: (1) The description of the evaluation subject, at the centre of which are the goals, programme elements and project forms of a programme. (2) The ↑ evaluation design will determine the principles of data collation and how data is collected. It tells us, too, how data processing is done and by whom. (3) The identification of the ↑ evaluation actors, especially those who are qualified to prepare, direct or carry out the evaluation can be selected by means of an application process performed by the evaluation paymaster (e. g. programme funding bodies). The actors or users of the programme evaluation can participate in the evaluation process. The degree of the project actors’ contribution can range from the role of an “interviewee” right up to full co-production within a participative evaluation. This means that the project actors carry out part of the evaluation themselves under the guidance of a moderator or facilitator (↑ selfevaluation). Thus the role of the professional evaluator can range from that of an external evaluator assessing evaluation outcomes right up to a facilitator for self evaluation (DEITMER / DAVOINE / FLOREN ET AL. 2003, 130–133). (4) ↑ Evaluation criteria are defined, which form the basis for the evaluation design and therefore create the “yardstick” by which the evaluators look at the programme of the project. The criteria can be defined in advance of the evaluation. Alternatively, they can be jointly developed and determined in communication with actors or other stakeholders involved in programme measures (MANSKE / MOON / RUTH / DEITMER 2002).
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With the help of programme evaluation, the evaluators obtain a wealth of data that must be systematically processed in such a way that well-founded evaluations results emerge. It is possible, on this basis, to derive corresponding recommendations both for programme guidance as well as for the project development perspectives. It is important to ensure that the evaluation results are practically applicable and/or realistic for the programme and project actors so that they can be matched to the resources available for programme development. “Findings that are very interesting in themselves, but that make no difference to decision making one way or another are irrelevant, and a waste of evaluation resources” (K ROMREY 2001, 110).
This statement underlines the practical nature of programme evaluation, which is geared to applicability. Standards have been developed by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation to guarantee the quality of evaluations. These standards define rules and principles of programme evaluation based on four basic characteristics: utility, feasibility, propriety and accuracy (WIDMER / ROTHMAYR / SERDÜLT 1996). 5.4.6.3
Purposes of Programme Evaluation
The evaluation can be geared to the following purposes and grouped according to the following ↑ evaluation types (WILL / WINTELER /K RAPP 1987a; K ROMREY 2001, 114; STOCKMANN 2002, 221): Type 1: Evaluations performed for legitimation purposes: The evaluation focuses mainly on examining the contribution of a programme to the ↑ efficiency and ↑ effectiveness of the measures, projects and planning goals. It often centres on output measurements based on figures. Input/output comparisons are used to examine the return on investment and the degree to which the programme requirements have been met. Questions that can be at the heart of the examination are e. g. whether the programme was worth the financial outlay and whether the measures undertaken have proved to be cost-effective. Another variation is a target-hitting check, i.e. whether and to what extent the programme’s defined targets have been achieved so far. The results of the programme application are
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usually finally analysed and its success evaluated by external evaluators. Type 2: Evaluations to broaden the ↑ knowledge base: This kind of evaluation serves scientific interests above all by examining the ↑ effectiveness of social interventions in the form of research using scientific methods (e. g. by formulating and checking a hypothesis model). Here designs are realised that allow effects to be allocated to programme elements by ↑ controlling the relevant framework conditions, using methods that are uncontested. Methods of empirical social research dominate here and the evaluator must be seen as an external social researcher. A typical question to be examined here would be whether e. g. the measures carried out during a programme were the cause behind achievement of the goals (examples: SIMMIE 1997; DEITMER 2004a). Type 3: Evaluations geared to development and promoting dialogue. This kind of evaluation must be seen as a fundamentally different type, because it has above all a programme-shaping effect. The evaluation represents a major integral part of the development process. Evaluations of this type have above all a formative and supportive approach and are designed to strengthen the ↑ quality development and ↑ quality assurance within the ↑ innovation process. In the ↑ US evaluation community the range of ↑ participation-based evaluation approaches has expanded to include types with names such as “Empowerment Evaluation”, “Fourth Generation Evaluation” or “Participatory Evaluation” (GUBA / LINCOLN 1989; FETTERMANN /K AFTARIAN / WANDERSMAN 1996; PATTON 1997). In contrast to scientifically distanced and/or external evaluation (see Type 2), this kind of evaluation is above all characterised by a broad participation of the “affected parties” in the programme evaluation. Accordingly, the evaluation is designed as a process of structured presentation and confrontation of (partly conflicting) perspectives of the various actors. The evaluator or the evaluation team acts among other things as a moderator and supports the discussion process between the actors within the framework of the changes supported by the programme (examples: EHRLICH 1995; DEITMER / ENDRES / MANSKE / RIEDEL 1997).
Handbook of TVET Research
5.4.6.4
The Methodological Development of the Instruments for Programme Evaluation
In the course of programme evaluation, the methods and approaches of empirical social research are applied. The focus here is not on “the logic of a science geared towards gaining knowledge, generalisation and transferability”, but “the logic of a practical project geared to the ‘success’ of its activity, often as part of a state-administrative intervention programme or an intervention programme funded by social organisations” (K ROMREY 1995, 315).
Therefore this type of evaluation cannot be equated with basic scientific research, but is applicationoriented and places the applicability and utility of the evaluation results in the foreground. Evaluation is thus a form of practice research or action research. However, it demands professional work and the observance of scientific principles from the evaluators. The processes of change in a programme are seen as a social process, which favours an ↑ evaluation design that is qualitative, process-oriented and process-accompanying and therefore to a certain extent open. Increasingly, the dominant view is that evaluations must more strongly reflect the perspectives and needs of the stakeholders, and that qualitative and quantitative methods can usefully be combined (multi-method approaches). In the last two decades, this has led to a change in the theory and practice of evaluations of publicly funded programmes (→ 5.4.1). This demands above all that both the people directly affected by the programme as well as the people responsible for the programme must be able to use the evaluation results. Consequently, Stockmann states: “The quality of evaluations can therefore not be measured by one criterion alone. Not only the scientific quality of the result is important, but also the fact that evaluations are useful, because only then can they have an impact on political and social processes of change” (STOCKMANN 2002, 22).
So the utility criterion has gained broad recognition alongside the scientific quality criterion. This has been a focus of evaluation discussions for many years. Or as Chemlinsky (1995, 6) describes the more recent development of ↑ evaluation research:
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“We think less about absolute merits of one method versus another, and more about whether and how using them in concert could result in more conclusive findings”.
5.4.6.5
Extending the Practice of Programme Evaluation: Evaluation as a Medium and as a Development Platform for Learning Processes
The following evaluation concept is used to improve or support self-guidance by the participants and providers of programmes. Those people are directly or indirectly involved in the programme/ project activities. This evaluation concept meets an action research orientation, because the evaluator’s role is shifting and they become partners to focus and directly take part in an interaction with the people directly involved in and affected by the evaluation. In this understanding, which is also followed by Kuhlmann (1998, 109), ↑ evaluation is seen as a medium for self-organised learning. The ↑ quality criteria for this evaluation are no longer primarily ↑ objectivity, reliability and validity, but communication, intervention, transparency and relevance (STOCKMANN 2000, 21; DEITMER 2004a, 126) in which the participants demand clear judgements from the evaluation.
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This approach includes quantitative and qualitative methods and the evaluation results should have an impact on the ↑ innovation process by defining strength and weaknesses. 5.4.6.6
The Programme Evaluation Concept of the Programme “New Learning Strategies in Dual Vocational Education”
Since 1997, the topic of programme evaluation has attracted a great deal of attention also in the German ↑ pilot project research. Nowadays pilot projects in vocational education (technical colleges) and training (industry) are being pooled to a larger extent in educational programmes (PROGRAMMTRÄGER ITB/ISB 2004). The main focus of the programme evaluation of the programme “New ↑ learning strategies in dual vocational education” was on how the pilot projects contributed to the programme goals. Thus, programme evaluation is integrated in the ongoing activities at project level and is therefore designed to be formative. This intervention helps shape the programme because it makes the profile of the project clear and allows its contribution to the programme to be examined (DEITMER 2004a, 159 ff.).
Fig. 1: Evaluation Cycle of an Actor-Oriented Programme Evaluation (EE)
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Therefore, the programme evaluation concept for this programme (PROGRAMMTRÄGER ITB/ISB 2000) is adapted on the basis of the EE-Tool (DEITMER / DAVOINE / FLOREN ET AL. 2003) in order to aim at – Improving the self-reflection of the project participants and their project management strategy, – Achieving an collective understanding of project achievements, and by – Evaluating the contribution of the projects to the underlying programme goals, and – Communicating this to the programme stakeholders. The evaluation process (see picture below) consists of a preliminary clarification of the ↑ evaluation criteria to be applied, an evaluation workshop with the weighting and evaluation of the criteria by the pilot project actors, an internal evaluation by the external evaluation team and a perspective meeting that provides feedback on the course and results of the evaluation to the people involved. During the evaluation process, the project actors are encouraged to undertake criteria-based ↑ self-evaluation in order to assess how well the project goals are achieved. The various viewpoints of the actors are made clear during these discussions. This can lead to conclusions for further action. Finally, the process is documented in a project management report (DEITMER 2004a, 103) which can detail newly agreed goals. A final survey among the more than 200 evaluation participants confirmed the ↑ effectiveness of the process and actor-oriented evaluation process (PROGRAMMTRÄGER ITB/ISB 2004, 97). In the more than 40 evaluation meetings, the team succeeded in identifying the critical points in the pilot projects. It was possible using the actors’ own assessments to make the strengths and weaknesses of the pilot projects clear to them. This is how one participant put it at the end of the evaluation meeting: “What is positive is that we drew up a balance sheet – where are we now, where do we want to get to, and what do we have to do next” (P ROGRAMMTRÄGER ITB/ ISB 2004, 98).
lot projects, programme evaluation is still a rather young topic within the German ↑ educational research arena (PROGRAMMTRÄGER ITB/ISB 2004, 60; DEITMER 2002, 215). Evaluation efforts are being undertaken by people, and even very systematic and standard based evaluations can rest on false data. Not least due to actors’ interests, errors in the method tend to creep into the programme evaluation. Sometimes programme evaluations are used in political debates. This makes such evaluations vulnerable which can lead to rejection of uncomfortable results and not to a change in behaviour, because they can be used either as a ↑ controlling instrument of a hierarchical system or as an instrument of reflection for an innovation-friendly organisation (WIDMER / ROTHMAYR / SERDÜLT 1996; HOLZINGER 2001). Many programme evaluations have contributed to improving both target achievement and the management of programmes. The right mix of methods in programme evaluation may be based on different values systems and actors involved in a programme. To do this is still a big challenge and remains as an open question in interventions how ↑ distance and proximity in subject-related approaches should be addressed (→ 5.1.1; → 5.1.3). Also, it is important to look at how programme evaluation differs from ↑ quality management and assurance and/or what links are possible between evaluation and quality management (STOCKMANN 2002, 238). Certainly, programme evaluation from different viewpoints can be an effective learning medium. If programme evaluation activities encourage learning, then they have done a great deal to reach better ↑ efficiency in the way public resources are spent to support innovation in education.
5.4.7
Michael Dick and Theo Wehner 5.4.7.1
5.4.6.7
Prospects
Despite extensive experience with the accompanying research (“Begleitforschung”) of individual pi-
Knowledge Management
Definition
While ↑ organisational learning (→ 3.6.3) describes a development theory of the organisation, ↑ knowledge management (KM) has its basis in a structur-
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al theory of the organisation, which understands knowledge as a characteristic trait and a formative principle of organisations. KM comprises the conception, planning, and use of strategies, processes and instruments that build, localise, and transform knowledge in organisations in order to ensure the organisation’s permanent development. Thus, it departs from attributing knowledge to individuals or even to their “minds“, and assumes a collective, historically based, and representational composition of knowledge. No standard works or standard definitions exist yet. Early, ↑ interdisciplinary collected editions have been established by Spender/ Grant (1996) and Schreyögg/ Conrad (1996). Monographs that introduce the topic in an easy to understand manner, are written from a macro socio-economic perspective (DRUCKER 1993; OECD 2000b from an educational point of view), from the perspective of the organisation with an emphasis on implementing KM (DAVENPORT / PRUSAK 1998), and on the basis of ↑ knowledge creation (NONAKA / TAKEUCHI 1995). The latest overviews are presented by Holsapple (2003), EasterbySmith (2003), Tsoukas/ Mylonopoulos (2003) and Dierkes/ Berthoin Antal/ Child (2001) as well as by Dick/ Wehner (2003) for the German work and organisational psychology. KM is a transdisciplinary topic where the economic, information, and social sciences can form constituent disciplines (WEHNER / CLASES 2002; ROEHL 2000). In management research, the topic is promoted especially by focussing on internal resources. Thus, the competitiveness of a company derives from its unique and inimitable core competences (→ 3.4.2). The central objective is the enhancement and continuous renewal of the organisational knowledge basis. All company processes align with this objective. Information science focuses on adjusting information sources and demands. This includes the documentation, processing, and acquiring of information in order to present it at the right time at the right place, as well as platforms and tools for communication and cooperation processes. Social scientists called attention to the characteristics of the knowledge phenomenon, and developed its historical, socio-economical, and cultural roots under the various key words: knowledge organisation, ↑ knowledge society or ↑ knowledge work.
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Psychology contributes to basic knowledge about the connection of knowledge processing with cognitive, motivational and emotional processes. The educational goal of KM is the implementation of a continuous learning and changing process in and between organisations. In general it is about supporting a professional (deliberate, effective as well as a personality and community-promoting) way of handling knowledge and its transformation into ↑ organisational learning processes. 5.4.7.2
The Subject Matter: Knowledge
The main question of KM is determining what must be managed: knowledge. A fundamental, ↑ interdisciplinary-accessible difference (but certainly not the only reasonable one) is the differentiation between data, information and knowledge. This approach, which is borrowed from information theory, puts signs, data, information and knowledge into a concept hierarchy (K RCMAR 2003). According to this hierarchy, knowledge would be obtained from data and information by combining and analysing them. It would also create a continuously increasing supply of knowledge. This increase and the branching of knowledge as well as the possibilities of its presentation and distribution are one reason for the oft-lamented information overload. Subsequently, information and data are not only prerequisites for knowledge, but also its results. This already clarifies the fact that a KM, which is only based on data and information, amplifies the “overload” of information rather than reducing it. For social sciences, the appropriate model is a continuous cycle of data, information and knowledge instead of a hierarchy of processing (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Relation Between Data, Information, Knowledge (from: DICK / WEHNER 2002)
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Data depend on the possibility of observation and coding. Coding means that according to certain criteria two observed units can be distinguished from each other, for example in size, colour, width, elapsed time. Data allow a distinction. Information, however, requires an additional relevance criterion. It gives the data a meaning and allows the evaluation and arrangement of them. What is the difference between knowledge and information? Here is where the opinions split. Some authors make a distinction, like Willke (2001), who assumes that knowledge develops by implementing information into contexts of experience. However, when processing data to information, the relevant criteria are based on experience as well. So other authors assume that there is a continuum between information and knowledge: “Instead of a hierarchy, we found that the understanding of a continuum ranging from data via information to knowledge proved to be the most practical scheme for knowledge management” (MERTINS / HEISIG / VORBECK 2001b, 10).
The relation between signs, data and information cannot be extended to the category of knowledge without problems. Knowledge is bound to consciousness. There is a direct connection between the subject and the environment: on the one hand, the subjective certainty, and on the other, evidence as an obvious self-presence of the phenomenon. The opportunity to evaluate a piece of data or information as true or false does not lie in the piece of data or information itself, and also not in an unlimited combination with other pieces of information. A subjective certainty about the alternative “true or false” can only be reached in relation to the experienced world. Knowledge is based on empirical observation and experience, while information exists as a detachment from both. Another fundamental conceptual distinction is the difference between knowledge and experience. It goes back to the pragmatic knowledge concept and influences the Anglo-American discussion. According to this concept, knowledge does not know any reference points outside human experience. It explains phenomena and leads to routines of action. Davenport/ Prusak define: “Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new expe-
Handbook of TVET Research
riences and information. It originates and is applied in the mind of knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents and repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms” (1998, 5).
To summarise, three characteristics of knowledge, in contrast to information, can be identified (WAIBEL / DICK / WEHNER 2004): – Knowledge is not a static copy of real life phenomena but includes dynamic structures that support the personal mastery of action demands. In a pragmatic sense, this means a preference of action and experience over cognitive representation; – Knowledge is not limited to individual memory but is also embedded in the physical and social conditions of a field of action. In this situated perspective, knowledge or knowing cannot be analysed purely as a structure independent of any contextual influence; – Individual knowledge is developed through ↑ participation in a socio-cultural practice. This concept of learning implies an interaction between individuals, between people and artefacts, and between individuals and the values, rules and institutions of social life. In brief one can say: Knowledge is the meaningful integration of experience, obtained through action, via the construction of meaning and making sense, and serves to anticipate actions and events. 5.4.7.3
The Context: Knowledge Society and Knowledge Work
That KM is more than a quick trend can be seen from the fact that knowledge has become a leading topic of many scientific disciplines. Knowledge sociology and cognitive psychology have been constituent disciplines over several generations. The characteristic of the current development is, on the one hand, that knowledge-based questions become increasingly relevant in practice, respectively that more attempts to resolve the common problems in organisations occur on this level. On the other hand, you can see that the triad, knowledge – work – organisation, is dealt with as a transdisciplinary subject. No single discipline can claim the sole competence for its processing. Knowledge has become a significant characteristic of work, organisation, society, and products. It
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is central in developing ↑ professions and the biographical reflection process of professionals (→ 3.6.9). The mutual relation of reproduction between knowledge and societal practise is becoming closer and more binding. It is interesting that this development comes together with the theoreticalscientific admission that the knowledge produced by science does not exist as an indisputable asset anymore, but as a momentary state of error. This opens ways for a more reflected and emancipated practise, but, due to the perceived complexity of options, also creates discomfort (STEHR 1994). The role of knowledge in our society changes in quantity (it increases), in quality (it becomes more doubtful) and in structure (it gets more important for the functioning of our socio-technical systems). The exponential growth rate of knowledge in post-industrial societies was determined by the number of books in the Yale library (R IDER 1944) or by the number of scientific articles in the Physic Abstracts (PRICE 1961, both cit. from BELL 1973). The large amount of knowledge forces us to handle and understand it in other ways. Each resolved problem carries with it a number of unsolved questions, the answers of which bring up the same result: the more knowledge, the more questions. A better dealing with the amount of information is an oft-mentioned expectation of KM. The progressive branching and specialisation of knowledge is part of this development. It leads to an alienation of the disciplines from each other and from the everyday world. Mutual communication between those who know becomes a main problem in handling and ↑ controlling complex technological systems; integration of generalists and specialists becomes a challenge. Another motive for KM is to explore and design conditions and possibilities of the cooperation between cultures and systems. Knowledge is a condition and object of work (SCHULTZE 2003; WILLKE 1998). Creation, administration and application of knowledge works become works significant feature. This applies not only to academic professions, but more and more for services, other client-related occupations, or industrial production with its increasing variations. The evaluation, revision, and innovation of working processes are becoming necessary due to the
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fast change of environmental conditions. Wehner/ Clases (2002) describe it as a steady toppling of a figure – ground – relation: previously, knowledge was classified as the basis of action, whereas now, action is also seen as the basis of knowledge. Besides ground, work and capital, knowledge is becoming a societal, economical and legal factor of importance (SPINNER 1994). However, while knowledge is becoming a structural principle, it is no longer an additional task of leadership and management, but is at their core. The relevant knowledge-based theory of the firm has already been spelled out (QUINN 1992; GRANT 1996; TSOUKAS 1996). The roles, instruments, and work share in ↑ knowledge work and its organisation have, however, so far been only slightly elaborated (BLACKLER 1995). 5.4.7.4
Concepts of Knowledge Management
KM as a Commom Learning Process According to Polanyi (1966) or Ryle (1949) constructs like “↑ tacit knowledge” or “know-how” are often applied to individuals. The imagination that is connected with this is that knowledge is kept in the minds – probably also in the hands – and would need to be taken out and brought to speak from there. In organisations, stories about ↑ performances, best practices, or lessons learned are accredited to individuals. However, knowledge is incorporated into common structures, practices, rules and tools that, for their part, maintain and transfer this knowledge in an objective way, detached from the author. Accordingly, Collins (1993) distinguishes between embrained, embodied, encultured, embedded and encoded knowledge – the knowledge that is embedded into the mind, body, social practise, lived culture, processes, routines, tools as well as symbols and figures. Geertz (1983) introduces the term ‘↑ local knowledge’. Logically, the community in and with which those who have knowledge act professionally, also comes into play as a carrier of knowledge. This point of view is supported by the cultural-anthropological learning theory, which describes learning as a culturally based, commonly organised process situated in the real world (LAVE / WENGER 1991; BROWN / DUGUID 1996; SUCH-
866 MAN 1987). Through the distribution of tasks and roles, ↑ communities of practice enable their members to integrate according to their status and their abilities (→ 5.1.2). The concept is increasingly used, and often means just a group of experts in a company who work separately from each other but communicate on-line with each other (BOGENRIEDER / NOOTEBOOM 2004). An elaborate, descriptive model for communities of practice is the activity system that Engeström (1987) calls the primary unit of analysis for human behaviour. The basis of an activity system comprises of a subject, an object and a medium that communicates between them (tool). This triad is embedded into a community structure, which can be portrayed and analysed alongside their rules and work sharing. Development, progress, and innovation as expansive, i.e. structure changing, learning are produced through contradictions within or between activity systems. Any transformation of knowledge, as well as its management, can only be understood and arranged by including the complete activity system. The individual as central category is preserved, but it is seen in a representative, social, and cultural light.
Knowledge Transformation In vocational education, management or work design, ↑ tacit knowledge as a resource for quality, innovation or failure management is becoming more and more important (→ 5.1.5). Core competences (PRAHALAD / HAMEL 1990; → 3.4.2), organisational routines (PENTLAND / RUETER 1994), local knowledge (WAIBEL / DICK / WEHNER 2004), ↑ work process knowledge (→ 3.6.4), skills and expertise (ERICSSON 1996; SONNENTAG / SCHMIDT-BRASSE 1998), etc. will expand, partly substitute or re-establish the planning knowledge presented systematically and abstracted from concrete practice. This includes the idea that, first of all, the planning knowledge has to be made visible and communicable. From a psychological-educational perspective, these transformations present the fundamental challenge to educational work in companies and to a functioning KM. Nonaka/ Takeuchi (1995) take the distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge as the starting point of their theory of ↑ knowledge creation.
Handbook of TVET Research
They place both kinds of knowledge at the levels of the individual, the group, the company, and the interaction between companies. Transformations between these levels in ascending order, i.e. from the individual to the collective, create knowledge. One can distinguish between four transformations: (1) In socialisation ↑ tacit knowledge is transformed silently and absorbed as tacit knowledge; (2) In externalisation tacit knowledge is explicated; (3) When explicit assets maintain, something new evolves by combination; (4) By internalisation explicit knowledge becomes tacit knowledge (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2: Theory of ↑ knowledge creation (according to NONAKA / TAKEUCHI 1995)
Dick/ Wehner (2002) describe this transformation on three levels: (1) On the level of action, experience-based knowledge must be transformed into situation-independent information, information, conversely, must be made accessible; (2) On the level of representation, knowledge must be transformed from one kind to another, e. g. implicit, explicit, verbal, visual; (3) On the level of social structures, culturally accessible competence must be acquired individually, and individual achievements must be made culturally usable.
Core Processes of KM According to a prominent model of Probst/ Raub/ Romhardt (1997), which has not been empirically validated yet, the development, acquisition, identification, preservation, use, and distribution of knowledge make up a cycle with knowledge-related objectives and knowledge evaluation. Psycho-
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logically examined categories are, above all, the acquisition (ANDERSON 1981; ENGESTRÖM 1999a) and representation (ANDERSON / LEBIERE 1998; K LIX / HAGENDORF 1986) of knowledge, and, the more application-related social construction of knowledge (TSOUKAS / MYLONOPOULOS 2004). Producing, recording, distributing, and applying knowledge are also the central categories of KM with business-oriented approaches that originate from Business Process Re-engineering (HEISIG 2001). Here it is about the close connection of KM to the value-adding core processes in businesses, for example product development, logistics, ↑ information technology, leadership, ↑ personnel development, ↑ controlling or project management. “Corporate culture” is also mentioned as a field of application (MERTINS / HEISIG / VORBECK 2001b). Pawlowsky (1998) derives his integrative model of KM from ↑ organisational learning processes (→ 3.6.3). By doing so, he distinguishes between the learning phases of identification, generation, diffusion, integration, modification as well as the usage of knowledge, and brings them in as organisational approaches to KM. For him KM is the well-directed extension of the core competence of an organisation via exchange relations inside and outside. This is why the abilities of innovating and learning have to be promoted on all functional and hierarchical levels. On the basis of case studies in several industrial sectors, Clases/ Wehner (2002) complete the known core processes with sensitisation, initiation, knowledge-based cooperation as well as knowledge protection.
Intellectual Capital The concept of ‘↑ intellectual capital’ – also ‘knowledge capital’ – has its roots in the ↑ human capital approach (BECKER 1964). The central theme of this approach is that formation and education fundamentally contribute to the economic productivity and the capital of a society. It is noted that people are willing to accept income losses in order to acquire their education. Innovation theorists also emphasised the special meaning of knowledge for economical development and technical progress (for the roots of the approach see DUCHARME 1998).
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The current discussion tries to companies reliably portray the market value of indicators other than just financial ones (STEWART 1997; PETTY/ GUTHRIE 2000). The reason for this is the observation that the market and stock value of a company does not comply with its book value, i.e. its accounted material and financial capital. Indicators like the employees’ level of education, their ↑ commitment and motivation, their relationship to the clients, competitors or suppliers, the number of patents, licenses, brand products or intellectual property rights, copyright protected recipes and processes, etc., play an important role. Since they build the counterpart to the tangible assets, these indicators are also called intangible assets. One example for an operationalisation is the Index of Consumer Sentiment having an impact on the price movements in the global stock markets (CURTIN 2002). Roos/ Roos/ Dragonetti/ Edvinsson (1997) presented one classification that orientates towards the ↑ Intellectual Capital Report, which was developed by the Swedish insurance company Skandia (1994) in the early 90s and was part of the company’s annual report. Here it was distinguished between ↑ human and structural capital (EDVINSSON / MALONE 1997; OECD 1999b). Reinhardt (1998) further differentiates this model into competence, willingness, and flexibility as components of human capital, as well as relations, organisation, and innovation as components of structural capital. Further applications are the Intangible Asset Monitor (SVEIBY 2000) and the Balanced Scorecard (K APLAN / NORTON 1996), which portray procedural financial, customer, and employee oriented criteria in a balance, and is opened up to KM (HORVÁTH 2001). A qualitative process from a narrative basis is the Intellectual Capital Statement (MOURITSEN / BUKH / LARSEN /JOHANSEN 2002). Heisig/ Vorbeck/ Niebuhr (2001) and Reinhardt et al. (2001) also present an overview about the concepts and methods of the Intellectual Capital Approach. 5.4.7.5
State of Empirical Science
Surveys Early surveys attempted to prove the importance of KM and to communicate it to a broader audience (BULLINGER / PRIETO 1998). However, one can-
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not talk of well-founded empirical evidence. The keywords of the early publications were neither formulated in hypotheses nor translated into empirical conceptions. In the meantime, the significance of the topic is not questioned anymore in science and practice, although the first euphoria subsided due to disappointing short-term profit expectations (SCHNEIDER 2001). Literature studies prove that a too technical-centred point of view was granted and social as well as cultural aspects were neglected (K ATENKAMP / GRÜNEBERG / NIEHAUS ET AL. 2002; SCHOLL / HEISIG 2003). Today, communicative and human resources are emphasised more. Besides the creation of ↑ communities of practice or knowledge, networking, the project-based organisation (SYDOW/ LINDKVIST/ DEFILLIPPI 2004) and the organisation of external relations (WAGNER 2003) moved further to the top of the agenda. Going back to Weick (1969), ‘sensemaking’ is proposed as a strategy of KM in connection with narration and in dissociation with the traditional decision theory of management actions (BOLAND / YOO 2003). Scholl/ Heisig (2003) assess in their ↑ Delphi study that the ‘human shift’ in KM is seen as the most important theoretical progress of KM. Besides integration into business processes, the adjustment of technical and social aspects of KM is one of the most urgent challenges. This is confirmed by a broadly arranged international study, the result of which shows a strong relationship between KM and organisational-structural factors. These factors are more important for realising KM than macro-economic and other environmental factors (MOFFETT / MCADAM / PARKINSON 2003). According to another survey (H EISIG /VORBECK 2001), in which 129 of the largest German and European companies participated, KM is important for the development of products and services, for their production and distribution, for the analysis of markets and clients as well as for information management. The most important success factor by far is the business culture. If one looks at how companies evaluate their own knowledge about the processes of KM, it is remarkable that only 17.4 % of them are familiar with explicating ↑ tacit knowledge – but 62.3 % with databases about objects of knowledge. According to this self-
Handbook of TVET Research
assessment, with 33 % the level of maturity of the projects is so far that they are implemented into the daily business processes. More than 75 % report that they develop or plan ↑ pilot projects. Since 1200 companies received questionnaires (more than 1000 did not answer), the conclusion that KM still has novelty status and is not diffused yet, is appropriate.
Case Studies The biggest part of empirical collections about KM is presented by means of case studies. Normally, these refer to KM projects in a company and tell their history from the reason or initial problem via the strategy and implementation up to the conclusion. Sometimes they are presentations of companies (SHELL INTERNATIONAL 2001; SKANDIA 1998; PROBST/ DAVENPORT 2001). Other case studies are based on interviews of scientists with employees of companies (MERTINS / HEISIG / VORBECK 2001a; SCHULZE 2002). These are mostly labelled as ↑ benchmarks, but often do not allow a direct comparison, since the initial conditions, measures, and reported effects of the companies are too heterogeneous. Instead, these case studies are reconstructions of single cases that can serve as an example of good practice. Furthermore, there are studies where the scientists themselves are involved in implementing the project or were present in the field over a long period. The processing of the studies occurs alongside comparable analytical categories (EPPLER / SUKOWSKI 2000; LÜTHY/ VOIT /WEHNER 2002). Case studies where the knowledge-based work of entire branches is presented can be found (WILLKE 2001; OECD 2000b). From the perspective of the employees, it becomes obvious which difficulties KM faces in the organisational commonplace and how fundamental the questions which have arisen (WEHNER / DICK 2001).
Theory-Driven Research The kinds of transdisciplinary communication, which are reached by programmatic metaphors like organisational mind or ↑ intellectual capital, can hardly be transformed to the methods of empirical science. The contributions of business management are almost exclusively based on case stud-
Research Methods
ies that, due to the different contextual conditions, cannot be compared systematically. However, a few social-↑ scientific theory traces that can be extended into the young field of KM are noticeable. In knowledge-psychological works about mental representations, complex problem solutions, or ↑ artificial intelligence, there is mostly no relation to concrete real-life fields of application. This is why these works are only minimally revealed. Concepts like procedural (OSWALD / GADENNE 1984), implicit (BROADBENT / FITZGERALD / BROADBENT 1986; BERRY 1987), or ↑ inert knowledge (RENKL / MANDL / GRUBER 1996) were adapted. Works dealing with the creation, application, and contribution of knowledge, and accordingly ability, stem from the research on expertise (BROMME 1992; DREYFUS / DREYFUS 1986; H ACKER 1992; SCRIBNER 1984). For distributing and exchanging knowledge, the communication of experts with laymen and novices is important (BROMME /JUCKS / RAMBOW 2003; WEHNER / WAIBEL 1996; DICK / WEHNER 2007). Studies about the conditions and possibilities of cooperative actions in working systems also deal with knowledge exchange. Differences in knowledge between the cooperation partners will not be seen as obstacles, but can be encouraging on a strategic and operative level (PLEISS / OESTERREICH 2003). One model that understands cooperation and coordination as mutual and fundamentally structural characteristics of work-sharing organisations emanates from the research of inter-business relationships (WEHNER / CLASES / BACHMANN 2000). Finally, there are a number of ethnographical studies that reconstruct the creation and distribution of knowledge alongside concrete fields of action (SUCHMAN 1987; ORR 1996; → 5.2.8). The result that this knowledge is often valid only within local borders and can become an obstacle outside the closed working systems is significant (SCRIBNER / DI BELLO /K INDRED / ZAZANIS 1991; WAIBEL / DICK / WEHNER 2004). 5.4.7.6
Tools for Implementation
Apart from informational techniques, which constantly generate current developments, methods applied to ↑ knowledge management have been adopted from other fields. Knowledge circles,
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for instance, derive from participatory work design and ↑ quality management (DERBOVEN / DICK / WEHNER 2002). The Repertory Grid to elicit personal constructs was originally a psychotherapeutic method (JANKOWICZ 2001). Qualitative social research essentially deals with explaining subjective and collective experience assets (DICK 2003; K LEINER / ROTH 1997; DICK / WEHNER 2007). Frequently, methods of ↑ knowledge management are described along with the explained core processes (EPPLER 1999). The main focus is still on electronic applications even though it has been pointed out that knowledge should be the result of interaction between information and experience: knowledge repositories, intranet, groupware, document management, information retrieval tools, workflow management, data analysis, ↑ computerbased training among others (HOFFMANN 2001, 76). Roehl (2000) includes methods such as role-play, dialogue, training, coaching, mission statement or quality circle. He distinguishes between individual related, work related and problem solving-oriented tools as well as tools of technological and spatial organisational infrastructure. Davenport/ Prusak (1998) favour coaching and tutoring. The individual roles within knowledge management have been recently differentiated into a typology and methodically developed within the approach of knowledge promotion (PETERS / DENGLER 2004). 5.4.7.7
KM for Vocational Education
The importance of the topic of KM for vocational and business education is to be indicated at the end. Considering waning job security, employees want especially to secure their employment capability and also to qualify for work outside of the respective current company. Within the companies, the relation between experienced reproduction and innovative adaptation has been shifted in favour of the latter. Temporary projects are important opportunities of learning, which, until now, have been seldom used (SCARBROUGH / SWAN / LAURENT ET AL. 2004; SYDOW/ LINDKVIST/ DEFILLIPPI 2004). Additionally, the accumulation of experience within the ↑ work process is an important learning process in order to overcome the isolated domination of partial steps in a strong division of labour for a cross-functional and holistic knowledge about the
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production processes and technologies (FISCHER / RAUNER 2002a; FISCHER 2005). All in all, the proportions of learning have been increasing during ↑ performance of work (ENGESTRÖM 1999a) so that the ability of learning and knowledge communication as meta and ↑ key competences not only need to be imparted in a compensatory way but also anticipatorily. It is crucial not only to understand them as individual, but also as common and organised acquirements.
Handbook of TVET Research
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