Preparing VET Students in Vocational Education for Affective Involvement in a Value Conflict: Practicing Affective Perceptual Awareness

ABSTRACT

Students in vocational education and training (VET) need to be prepared for coping with value conflicts they will face in their professional lives. Development of awareness of one’s feelings is an essential aspect in this regard. Students need to be aware of their own inner feelings to decrease the unconscious influence of inner feelings on their actions in a value conflict. The purpose of this study is to contribute to a theoretical and practical basis for the design of affective learning experiences aimed to elicit VET students’ receptivity to inner self-exploration of their feelings and values. Students were put in an affective learning experience. Three groups of first- and second-year VET students (N = 36) participated in the affective learning experience. Most students did start to self-explore their feelings. However, our findings showed that they did not arrive at affective perceptual awareness. According to the students, deepening inner self-exploration into one’s own feelings and values can be stimulated by paying explicit attention to inner feelings, concrete instructions, room for reciprocal exchanges between students and the teacher’s participation in sharing inner feelings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

Pamela den Heijer reviewed the literature, designed the research, developed the intervention and the instruments, conducted and coded the observations and group interviews, and analyzed the data. Ton Zondervan and Joke Voogt supervised Pamela den Heijer during this process and provided feedback. Outcomes and interpretations were extensively discussed in the research team. Pamela was the first author of the manuscript. Ton Zondervan and Joke Voogt read the manuscript and provided extensive feedback. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.