“What’s going on?” An overview of current research on vocational pedagogy

Dr Kevin Orr

Context

The Nuffield Review (Pring et al 2009: 6) found that the long-term history of education in England had left a legacy which they summarise in five points:

1. “Persistent ‘tri-partite mentality’ that constantly threatens to revert to seeing young people as ‘academic’, ‘technical/vocational’ and, to be brutal, all the rest.”

2. “Continuing failure to obtain parity of esteem between ‘academic’ and ‘vocational’ qualifications except by distorting the very aims of the new courses.”

Context

3. “Ambivalence towards what is meant by ‘vocational’.”

4. “Inability to get the necessary recognition of new qualifications from employers and higher education.”

5. “Transient nature of new qualifications”

Growing interest in vocational pedagogy

• Edge Foundation (2010) Mind the gap: Research and reality in practical and vocational education

• Review Vocational Education –The Wolf Report (2011)

• Learning and Skills Network (2011) Effective teaching and learning in vocational education

UK Commission for

Employment and Skills

UK Commission forEmployment and Skills

“The current system has over 19,000 regulated vocational qualifications available through 176 awarding organisations. Many of these have limited take-up: 1,780 vocational qualifications account for over 90% of achievement.”

Adult Qualifications Review (2012: 11; my emphasis)

How to teach vocational education: A theory of vocational pedagogy

(2012)

Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning (2013)

Reclaim pedagogy

“The evidence suggests that serious consideration of pedagogy is largely missing in vocational education and … vocational learners are the losers as a result of this omission.”

Lucas et al (2012: 13)

A matter of policy, not accident

“…the knowledge and theory which actually underpins professional performance is acquired in a somewhat ad hoc manner, largely through experience, when the individuals encounter real problems in practising the profession or doing a job.”

Gilbert Jessup (1991:126)

Don’t frighten the horses…

“Can we use the term pedagogy?

A robust vocational teaching and learning system must be underpinned by a serious focus on vocational pedagogy. And yet, as we have gone round the country visiting sites of vocational teaching and learning and in our seminars, of all the terms we have discussed the one that gets people most agitated is ‘pedagogy’.”

(CAVTL report 2013: 13)

Why does VET pedagogy matter

“Given the complexity of skill it is not sufficient from a pedagogical perspective merely to practise as a means to improve.”

(Winch 2010: 45)

CAVTL: two salient ideas

“A clear line of sight to work is critical because vocational learners must be able to see why they are learning what they are learning, understand what the development of occupational expertise is all about, and experience the job in its context. The real work context should inform the practice of vocational teaching and learning for learners, teachers and trainers.”

(p7)

CAVTL: two salient ideas

“The key enabling factor is the VET system working as a two-way street, not further education and skills operating as a separate ‘sector’. The two-way street is about genuine collaboration between colleges and training providers, and employers.”

(p7)

CAVTL

“The best vocational teaching and learning combines theoretical knowledge from the underpinning disciplines (for example, maths, psychology, human sciences, economics) with the occupational knowledge of practice (for example, how to cut hair, build circuit boards, administer medicines). To do this, teachers, trainers and learners have to recontextualise theoretical and occupational knowledge to suit specific situations.” (p15)

What is understood by vocational pedagogy?

“vocational education needs to be taught in the context of practical problem-solving”

  “the best vocational education is broadly hands-on, practical, experiential, real-world as well as, and often at the same time as, something which involves feedback, questioning, application and reflection and, when required, theoretical models and explanations.”

Lucas et al (2012: 9)

“The best vocational teaching and learning combines theoretical knowledge from the underpinning disciplines (for example, maths, psychology, human sciences, economics) with the occupational knowledge of practice (for example, how to cut hair, build circuit boards, administer medicines).”

(CAVTL Report 2013: 15)

Knowledge and pedagogy

Reductive risks

“phrases such as ‘learning by doing’, ‘hands on learning’ and ‘practical learning’ can perpetuate the unhelpful dualism of mind as separate from body and suggest that vocational learning needn’t bother itself with the acquisition of underpinning knowledge (a problem that some NVQs still wrestle with).”

(CAVTL Report 2013: 34)

Knowledge and pedagogy

Daniels (2012: 8) makes the distinction between

“theoretical or context-independent knowledge and everyday or context-bound knowledge [which] have different structures and different purposes.”

The former can provide the “capacity for generalization.”

Knowledge and pedagogy

“If vocational education qualifications are to enable people to gain valuable knowledge and skills, and are to open up opportunities rather than constrain and limit futures, then questions of knowledge in these qualifications, and how these questions are decided, are crucial.”

Bathmaker (2013: 88)

Who is vocational pedagogy for?

“The privileged access of the powerful to theoretical abstract knowledge provides them with the ability to mobilize knowledge to think the unthinkable and the not-yet-thought.”

Wheelahan (2010: 9).

“powerful knowledge”

Powerful knowledge

To enable “access to the knowledge [people] need to participate in society’s debates and controversies…[and] to participate in ‘society’s conversation’”

(Wheelahan 2010: 1)

References

Bathmaker, A. (2013) Defining ‘knowledge’ in vocational educational qualifications in England: an analysis of key stakeholders and their constructions of knowledge, purpose and content, Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 65 (1), 87-107.

Claxton, G., B. Lucas, and R. Webster (2010) Bodies of knowledge. How the learning sciences could transform practical and vocational education. London: Edge Foundation.

Daniels, H. (2012) Vygotsky and Sociology, London: Routledge 

Faraday, S., Overton, C. & Cooper, S. (2011) Effective teaching and learning in vocational education, London: LSN

Lucas, B., Claxton, G. & Webster, R. (2010) Mind the gap. Research and reality in practical and vocational education. London: Edge Foundation.

Lucas, B., Spencer, E & Claxton, G. (2012) How to teach vocational education: A theory of vocational pedagogy, London: City and Guilds.

 

References

McLaughlin, F. (2013) CAVTL Report:It’s about work…Excellent adult vocational teaching and learning, London: Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS).

Shulman, L. (2005) Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedelus, 134, 52-59

Pring, R., Hayward, G., Hodgson, A., Johnson, J., Keep, E., Oancea, A., Rees, G., Spours, K. & Wilde, S. (2009) Education for All: The future of education and training for 14-19 year olds, London: Routledge.

Wheelahan, L. 2010. Why knowledge matters in curriculum. A social realist argument, London: Routledge.

Winch, C. (2010) Dimension of Expertise, London: Continuum

Wolf, A. (2011) Review of vocational education. London: Department of Education.

Young, M. (2008) Bringing knowledge back in. From social constructivism to social realism in the sociology of education. London: Routledge.