A study was conducted at the Thames Polytechnic's research and development unit at Garnett, England, to: (1) investigate the views of respondents regarding their educational approach to prevocationalism and staff development; and (2) identify viewpoints that were shared both within and between the provider and the client groups (and by implication, those which were not). Four perspectives derived from the literature of prevocationalism were used to guide the study. These were provisionally labeled the prevocational, the liberal educational, the radical, and the training perspective. The research sought to assess and refine this framework as a way of describing understandings of prevocationalism. Fifty providers of staff development opportunities located in colleges, universities, accredited training centers, polytechnics and local education authorities were interviewed. At a later stage, prevocational coordinators based in schools and colleges--clients of the staff development providers--were invited to complete a questionnaire. The major findings of the study indicated that providers strongly support prevocationalism, seeing it as an extension of, rather than an enemy to, liberal education. However, the degree of agreement among all providers on a broadly liberal-vocational standpoint was considerable. The client group as a whole supported many of the views taken by the majority of providers. However, in general they were less happy to see their teaching subject as a prevocational staff development starting point, less interested in the certification of staff development, and more likely to see the arts as marginalized in prevocational education. (NLL)