In Switzerland, access to non-academic occupations requires the completion of a vocational education and training (VET) program. Over two-thirds of adolescents choose to start a dual VET program after compulsory education. However, this path from school to work is not always linear, and changes can be a means of adjusting wrong career choices. In…

The dual system of vocational education and training (VET) and its quality have recently been receiving scientific attention, partly due to high drop-out rates and to politically-motivated efforts to increase participation in the system (Le Mouillour, 2018). However, it remains controversial as to how quality within training companies should be…

Initial vocational training (VT) in high school consists of short-term programs leading to employment in a skilled trade. To better align training with employment opportunities and to encourage students to stay in the programs until they graduate, most programs include traineeship. Since traineeships involve acquiring skills directly on the job,…

The transition from occupational practitioner to vocational educator means moving from the logic of production to the logic of teaching; the purpose of knowledge changes from enhancing production to enhancing learning. This process touches issues of transmitting vocational knowledge from a workplace context to a school context; it has been…

The aim of this paper is to clarify the relationship between the pedagogical ethos of vocational in-company trainers as perceived by apprentices and the apprentices' identification with their vocation and their company from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. It is argued that the trainers' pedagogical ethos is a relational…

This study examines Finnish apprenticeship training stakeholders' perceptions of vocational expertise and experiences of workplace learning and guidance. The semi-structured interview data was collected in 2015 in two vocational fields: the social and health care services sector (five workplaces) and the technology sector (five workplaces). The…

This article examines a new training design for continuing professional development that aims to support the learning of the novel knowledge and skills needed in emerging professional fields by interconnecting academic and workplace settings. The training design is based on using two advisors, one from working life and the other from an academic…

This article examines the work-based placements of trainee architects in the United Kingdom to examine how trainees become architects. The trainee architects in this study experienced varying levels of participation and responsibility during their yearlong placements. Despite this diversity, developing the trainees on placement was found to be…

The aim of this study was to examine the differential effects of specific types of supervisor support on transfer of training, taking into account established trainee characteristics, such as trainees' motivation to learn, motivation to transfer, and training self-efficacy. More specifically, nine types of supervisor support were examined…

In this paper, we explore the relationship between differing conceptualisations of competence, and the implications of these differences for the enacted workplace curriculum and its pedagogical epistemologies. We argue that when competence is understood as a set of stand-alone attributes that reside within an individual, it limits and over…

This longitudinal study examined the multidimensionality of motivation to transfer training. Based on self-determination theory, expectancy theory, and the theory of planned behaviour, motivation to transfer was conceptualized in three dimensions: autonomous motivation to transfer, controlled motivation to transfer, and intention to transfer.…

Most learning in the workplace occurs while pursuing working rather than learning goals. The studies at hand aimed to identify task characteristics that foster learning in the workplace. Task characteristics are supposed to exert a major effect on the learning potential. However, the fact that learning is more often than not a rather unconscious…