Do the qualifications of vocational teachers make a difference to their teaching?

ABSTRACT

A survey of over 500 teachers and trainers in the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector was carried out to examine whether their teaching practices and approaches varied with their qualification levels. The survey, carried out with teachers and trainers from different types of training providers – public and private – formed a major part of a larger research project on the topic. The project was carried out because of an overall decline in the qualification levels of the VET teaching workforce over a 20-year period, and national debate on the appropriate qualification level. Analysis of the survey results showed that those with pedagogical qualifications above the regulatory minimum were more confident overall, and were more able to deal with the demands of different teaching contexts and of diverse learner groups. Teachers with higher level qualifications also reported, in qualitative questions, specific gains from their qualifications. They were also more likely to undertake professional development, challenging an often-cited view that professional development activities can compensate for lower qualification levels. The findings have implications for policy development in Australia and elsewhere.

KEYWORDS:

• VET teaching
• VET teacher qualifications
• VET teachers’ professional development

Introduction

The article reports on a major national survey of over 500 Australian VET teachers, examining their teaching approaches and practices, with a view to analysing the results by teachers’ qualification levels. This was one element of a major multi-method research project, ‘VET teachers and quality’. At the time of the survey, 2016, there were serious quality concerns about aspects of the system. These ranged from concerns about assessment practices (e.g. Halliday-Wynes and Misko 2013) to concerns about the unethical or illegal use of public funding (Zoellner 2016). Hence there was interest in finding out whether and how higher-level qualifications for vocational education and training (VET) teachers/trainers would improve quality in the Australian VET system.

While one would expect that a more highly qualified VET teaching workforce would lead to improvements in quality, there had hitherto been little firm evidence either to establish, or to disprove, such a link, as an Australian Productivity Commission report on the VET workforce pointed out (2011). Thus, the project set out to establish whether there was a link, with a view to effecting change in policy and practice. While the research is over five years old, it continues to be significant. Recently, there has been broad recognition in policy and scholarly communities alike, both nationally and internationally, of the importance of VET teacher-education to the VET sector. International efforts in the area are documented in a major scholarly work on VET teacher-education (Bünning, Spöttl, and Stolte 2022), containing chapters on VET teacher-education in 19 individual countries as well as several comparative studies. In Australia, a national government initiative on the VET workforce, part of a multi-stream programme of VET reform, was instituted in 2020 although interrupted firstly by the COVID pandemic and then by a 2022 change of government. The second phase of this initiative, originally planned for 2023, was intended, among other matters, to encourage higher levels of qualifications among VET teachers (Commonwealth of Australia 2021, 7–9). Internationally, the OECD recently carried out a major international comparative study on VET teachers and managers (OECD 2021), focusing on teacher education and professional development, stating that ‘teachers and institution leaders are at the heart of high-quality VET.’ (OECD 2021, 3)

The article makes a contribution by providing evidence for the effects of higher-level pedagogical qualifications for VET teachers upon their practice. While countries’ qualification regimes vary considerably, the findings about differences among teachers at different qualification levels can be applied elsewhere regardless of the levels which are utilised in the different countries.

In Australia VET teachers are required to have industry or discipline qualifications at least at the level at which they are teaching. Therefore the study also compared teaching approaches and practices among teachers with differing levels of industry or discipline qualifications and practices and across different industry areas of teaching. This article confines itself, however, primarily to the differences among teachers with differing pedagogical qualification levels.

The research project was funded by the Australian Research Council (LP1401000440), and a number of partnering organisations from the VET sector. The national associations for TAFE (the public provider), private training providers, enterprise VET providers,¹ and adult education/community colleges (some of which deliver VET qualifications), all supported the research, either as formal partners or in other ways.

Background and literature

Qualifications for VET teachers vary considerably around the world. Generally, VET itself is undervalued (e.g. Cedefop 2017), and hence the esteem in which VET teaching is held is likely to be low. VET teachers’ jobs are often viewed as simply showing learners how to do tasks, despite the fact that they ‘have more to impart than skills’ (Spöttl and Stolte 2022, 14). The undervaluing of both VET and VET teachers tends to result in lower qualification requirements for the occupation compared with teaching in other education sectors. But the qualification levels are also affected by whether VET is generally delivered as part of secondary schooling (OECD 2021). In countries where it is, qualifications for VET teachers may align with those of teachers of academic subjects in schools. For example, in Germany, VET teachers in vocational colleges are required to have a Masters level qualification (Bünning 2020).

The scope of the research project is VET teaching in the VET sector itself. In Australia, most VET is undertaken post-secondary school. Thus, there has not been an imperative to align the teaching qualification with schoolteachers’ qualifications. VET is, however, an option within the senior secondary school system (the final two years of schooling), having been introduced into the school curriculum in the late 20^th century (Polesel et al. 2004). Sometimes schools send their students to VET providers for these VET subjects where they are taught by VET teachers within the VET system, and less often the subjects are taught within the school by teachers of VET employed in the school system. The latter ‘VET in Schools’ teachers were not included in the project, as they have a different qualification regime.

In Australia, VET teachers usually come to the occupation with qualifications and a prior career in an industry, or less commonly, in other discipline areas. VET teachers in the public sector (TAFE – Technical and Further Education) are employed by State governments (Smith and Keating 2003, 229). In the second half of the last century higher-level pedagogical qualifications for full-time TAFE teachers was the norm (Goozee 2013; Harris 2020), with university qualifications being undertaken part-time after commencing work as a TAFE teacher, i.e., as an ‘in-service’ model (AWPA 2013). University fees were subsidised by State governments, and time off for study was given. State governments provided short courses for part-time and casual teachers, such as a 30-hour course called ‘Basic Methods of Instruction’ in New South Wales (Smith and Keating 2003, 38).

This situation was disrupted when a new national competency-based qualification was introduced from 1998, a Certificate IV level (sub-Diploma) qualification, delivered by and in the VET sector (Smith and Keating 2003, 239–241). This level of qualification rapidly became the norm, rather than just a baseline qualification as had been intended (Harris 2020), because it was all that was required by new VET-sector regulatory arrangements which had been introduced at the same time. One by one, over the following decade, State governments removed the requirement for university VET-teacher education and the support for teachers undertaking higher-level studies. A VET-sector Diploma level qualification was introduced in 2004, although it was not until a revision of the Diploma content in 2010 that the qualification became focused on pedagogy rather than administration.

Despite the lack of government support, some VET teachers still chose, and continue to choose, to undertake a Diploma level (VET sector) qualification and/or a university VET teacher-education qualification, although enrolments in the latter have declined (ACDEVEG 2020). As there are still reasonably substantial proportions of teachers at each of the three pedagogical qualification levels: Certificate IV, Diploma and university qualifications at Associate Degree and above, it was relatively straightforward to undertake a study comparing teachers at different levels to examine differences in their teaching practices and conceptions.

The differences in teaching approaches and practices among VET teachers at different qualification levels has not previously been investigated, beyond self-reports of teachers enrolled in higher-level qualifications (Smith, Hodge, and Yasukawa 2015). However, an early research project on competency-based training found that teachers holding only the Certificate IV qualification had a different, and less informed, approach to teaching from teachers with degree level qualifications (Lowrie, Smith, and Hill 1999). Many subsequent pieces of research have established that the Certificate IV qualification, as well as being pitched at too low a level for the complex job of VET teaching (Robertson 2008), is also lacking in necessary content (Simons and Smith 2008), and is only sufficient for people who already know how to teach (Clayton et al. 2010). The Certificate IV qualification has also been notorious as one of the most poorly-delivered qualifications in Australian VET (Smith and Keating 2003) thus exemplifying the quality problems in VET. Moreover, lower levels of qualifications means that VET teachers require more induction and professional development, particularly to cope with increasing challenges and complexities in VET teachers’ work (Francisco 2020). The COVID pandemic underscored these deficiencies, with most VET teachers needing to move to online teaching, but teachers reporting feeling very unprepared for this mode of delivery (Smith and South 2022).

The current situation in Australia

While it is a limitation that the data are over six years old, it is, in fact, the case that little has changed in the Australian VET workforce landscape since the project was carried out The available qualifications remain at the same levels, although there have been changes to the detail of the Certificate IV and Diploma level qualifications (Smith 2020). A recent study by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, based on extrapolation from a survey of Registered Training Organisations (RTOs- the term covering all training providers including TAFE), found that in 2019 77.1% of VET teachers had the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment as their highest pedagogical qualification, compared with 6.0% reported as having the VET-sector Diploma and only 8.2% a university qualification (Knight, White, and Granfield 2020). The remainder had less than the Certificate IV, as people without the qualification are allowed to teach under supervision if they hold a specified ‘skill set’. Moreover, the number of available higher-level qualifications is shrinking. The number of university courses in VET pedagogy decreased during the 2010s (ACDEVEG 2018), with 20 universities involved in 2011 (Guthrie, McNaughton, and Gamlin 2011) but only seven in 2020.²

While becoming qualified to a higher level is now the individual VET teacher’s choice, some State TAFE systems encourage the attainment of higher-level qualifications through industrial relations agreements which provide access to higher salary scales (Yasukawa and Malloch 2020). For example, a recent agreement in the state of Victoria, the second-most populous state, has considerably increased demand for qualifications at Associate Degree level and above (Smith 2022b) and some Victorian TAFE Institutes now require newly appointed teachers to undertake higher-level qualifications within a specified period of time. Without such initiatives the qualification levels of VET teachers may be expected to decline further, as older teachers with degree level qualifications retire from the occupation. The proportionate decline is exacerbated by the fact that, like most countries, Australia has an ageing VET teaching workforce (OECD 2021).

However, as the Productivity Commission (2020, 13) points out, ’Some participants believe that the current minimum requirement for teachers – the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment – is too restrictive while others believe it is too lax.’ There is, in some quarters, stubborn resistance to the notion of VET teachers being well qualified. This seems curious for a sector whose purpose is itself the delivery of qualifications, but it is nevertheless well entrenched.

Smith (2022a) attributes the resistance to three factors: the low status of the VET sector, the emphasis on industry voice, which some take to mean that pedagogy is not important, and the rivalry that is perceived between the VET and higher education sectors. As part of this ‘anti-intellectualism’, and as a legacy of the early competency-based training discourse in Australia, the VET sector, for a number of years in the early 21^st century, often referred to its teaching staff as ‘trainers and assessors’. This term was even used in government documents. A fourth reason for opposition to higher level pedagogical qualifications is an ongoing shortage of VET teachers, noted more than a decade ago (Productivity Commission 2011) and recently exacerbated by the tight post-COVID labour market. In this discourse, qualifications for VET teachers are portrayed as a barrier to entry to the profession, or as a barrier to people working primarily in industry who might want to teach part-time in VET. While it has never been proposed that higher-level qualifications for VET teachers would need to be gained before entry, and moreover there are ‘skill set’ provisions for part-time industry-based teachers, these concerns fuel the opposition to higher-level qualifications, or even to lower-level qualifications, as noted by the Productivity Commission (2020, 13, 95).

Research method

Two research questions from the project as a whole were partially addressed by the survey. These were:

1. What differences do VET teachers’ levels of qualification (both pedagogical and discipline-based) make to their teaching concepts, approaches and practice?

2. How do levels of qualification affect VET teachers’ engagement in further professional development (PD) activities (pedagogical and industry-related)?

Because of the opposition of some VET sector personnel to the concept of a more highly qualified VET workforce, as discussed earlier, it was important to develop rigorous and comprehensive research methods. The larger project therefore included seven phases, including a final validation via a three-stage Delphi survey administered to 55 experts within the VET sector (Table 1).

Table 1. Research method and participants, 2015–17.

Phase	Activity	No. of research participants
(1)	Stakeholder interviews.	11
(2)	11 focus groups of teacher/trainers (29 people) and students (40).	60
(3)	Case studies about the effects of teacher qualifications on teaching quality, at four TAFE and four non-TAFE RTOs. Interviews with managers, teachers and students.	128
(4)	National Teacher/Trainer Survey administered through eight TAFE and 48 non-TAFE RTOs.	574
(5)	Professional Development Survey of teachers, administered through three external professional development providers.	368
(6)	Professional development case studies at three TAFE and three non-TAFE RTOs. Interviews with managers and teachers.	50
(7)	Expert validation process – three stage on-line ‘Delphi’ survey.	55
Total		1255

This article reports on analysis of data from Phase 4, the ‘National Teacher/Trainer Survey’. For reasons explained earlier, we used the word ‘trainer’ as well as ‘teacher’ throughout the project’s public documents, but in this article we use the term ‘teacher survey’.

The online survey was carried out in 2016, through seven TAFE institutes, 26 non-TAFE RTOs – private and community-based – and 12 enterprise RTOs. These training providers were recruited via each of the associations for the different provider types. Other surveys of VET teachers around this period invited general response via web advertisement, but we chose a targeted recruitment method as we wished to have some certainty over the representativeness of responses. A problem for research on this topic is that it has been notoriously difficult, especially since private providers began to proliferate during the 1980s, to establish the size of the VET workforce (Mlotkowski and Guthrie 2010); many people teach part-time while working in industry, and/or teach part-time across several training providers, and many training providers do not keep accurate records of their part-time staff. Hence we needed a defensible and stratified way of recruiting participants.

The survey instrument was piloted, before finalisation and administration, with 16 respondents in four TAFE Institutes. The instrument was quite lengthy, but it was well-completed, indicating that the topic area was of interest to the participants. We estimated that a 5% response using such a sample would provide a target of around 2500 teachers. Based on an estimated response rate of 30% for web-based surveys (Cook, Heath, and Thompson 2000), a response of 500 − 1000 teachers was expected to provide sufficient statistical power for a robust analysis. This was achieved, with 574 responses.

All teachers in the collaborating training providers were contacted by email by their human resource department, with advance information about the research project, followed by an invitation to participate in the survey via a link to the web-based survey site.

The five sections of the survey were as follows:

1. Background information about you (20 questions);

2. Your current employment as VET teacher/trainer (responding for their job at the RTO which sent them the survey) (30 questions);

3. About your teaching/training approaches (based around the Queensland College of Teachers [QCT] VET professional standards) (15 questions, some quite complex);

4. About your professional development (14 questions)

5. General questions about VET teacher qualifications and VET quality (31 questions).

For this article, we analysed responses to questions from Sections 3, 4 and 5. Section 3 examined VET teachers’ approaches to teaching and their self-confidence using questions based on a set of VET practitioner standards, to see how they varied by teacher pedagogical qualification level. Teachers’ own views were sought about whether and how higher-level qualifications added to their teaching expertise (Section 5). Together, these sections provided us with data for the first research question. We also analysed participation in professional development (Section 4) by teacher qualification level, to address the second research question.

At the time of the survey, several sets of VET teacher standards (Smith 2020) had been developed, by national or State bodies, and by particular training providers, generally large TAFE Institutes. We used the QCT Professional Standards for Vocational Education and Training Practitioners because these standards had been developed with wide national consultation, and of the available sets of standards, they were the most teaching-focused. The QCT standards, developed in 2015 but never actually implemented due to a change in government in Queensland, and no longer publicly available, contained seven standards under three domains.

We selected the five of the QCT standards that were most relevant to the project research questions. A series of quantitative and qualitative questions were based on these. A full list of the selected standards and their constituent items is provided as Appendix 1. Only those respondents (n = 404) who provided answers for every standard in this section were included in the analysis of the Section 3 questions. We analysed differences among teachers having the three pedagogical qualification levels listed earlier (Certificate IV, VET-sector Diploma, and Degree), as well as differences by discipline/industry qualification levels, using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and also examined the pairwise differences between groups of respondents based on qualification levels of both types. Multiple regression analysis was also performed, to examine the relative importance of pedagogical qualifications compared with other factors which might affect teaching, such as years of experience, discipline area and types of training provider. However, because most of the variables were ‘categorical’ and not numerical, this analysis was somewhat problematic.

The research did not examine teaching quality through student outcomes. As VET is almost always competency-based, student outcomes cannot be differentiated by grades. Neither can course completion rates be used as a reliable proxy for student outcomes, because a substantial proportion of VET students do not intend to complete a full qualification, instead wishing to gain ‘skill sets’. Hence, we needed to explore teaching quality primarily via teaching approaches and practices; however, we did interview students in Phases 2 and 3 of the larger research project.

Findings

The nature of the respondents

Sections 1 and 2 of the survey asked respondents about themselves and their VET teaching roles. There were 574 valid responses, -displaying the following characteristics

• Mainly mature-aged (only 16% were less than 40 years); 52% female, 48% male.

• With a variety of years of experience as a VET teacher – 50% had more than 10 years.

• 57% were permanently employed, 18% on fixed-term contracts and 9% in casual or contractor arrangements.

• Spread across all eight States/Territories of Australia.

• Distributed among the following RTO types: 57.8% TAFE, 29.7% private RTO, 10.0% enterprise RTO, 2.1% community RTO.

• Taught at a range of Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) levels, the most common being Certificate III (28.8%) – the usual level for apprenticeships – and Diploma level (35.9%).

• The most common industry areas of teaching, by ‘Training Package’, were Community services (77), Business services (62), Health (62), and Tourism, travel and hospitality (32).³

The sample was well distributed across industry/discipline areas and across the most common AQF levels of teaching. The four most common respondent groups by Training Packages were the three most often-studied Training Packages and the seventh most common (Health).⁴ The age of the respondents reflects the age composition of the VET workforce, as far as it is known. The only limitation of the sample is that casual teachers were under-represented, but given that qualification regimes in VET teaching apply primarily to permanent teachers, this is not a major limitation in terms of policy implications.

Qualification level of the respondents

Figures 1a,b, based on questions in Section 1 of the survey, show the proportions of the highest qualifications held by respondents in VET pedagogy and in their industry/discipline area.

Figure 1a. Highest qualification in VET or adult education teaching/training (Q1.14 of survey).Note: ‘Cert IV TAE’ (from the 2010 or later TAE Training Package) also includes ‘or earlier equivalent, or skill set’.

Figure 1b. Highest qualification in the main industry/discipline area taught (Q.1.10 of survey).Note: ‘Dip/Adv Dip’ also includes VET sector Grad Cert/Grad Dip.

Of the 345 people (61% of the sample) with ‘Degree or above’ as their highest overall qualification, 92 had Masters degrees and 9 had PhDs. Teachers tended to have higher level qualifications in their industry areas, or in other areas, than in VET pedagogy. In VET pedagogy, only just over one-third of the sample were qualified beyond the Certificate IV level. A surprising finding was that 122 of the teachers had higher-level qualification levels that were neither in VET pedagogy nor in the industry area in which they taught. 122 were in this category; 102 with degrees, and 20 with Diplomas or Advanced Diplomas, as their highest qualifications.

From these responses, the sample appears to be rather more senior and well-qualified than the average for VET teachers at the time, but due to the lack of definitive data available nationally, we cannot be sure. Importantly, there were enough respondents in each pedagogical qualification group to be able to analyse the findings of the survey by qualification level.

Overall findings about teaching and training approaches

As noted earlier, in Section 3 of the survey, we asked for responses against five of the Queensland College of Teacher VET Practitioner standards (Appendix 1), which we called ‘domains’ in our analysis. The domains were:

1. Know learners, their context and how they learn;

2. Know the content and how it can be taught;

3. Plan, design and deliver effective teaching/training experiences;

4. Assess, provide feedback and report on learning; and

5. Engage with industry, colleagues, community, regulatory and professional bodies.

Each of the selected standards (Appendix 1) contained between 3 and 6 items, with 23 included altogether in the selection. For example, the five items for Standard 1 were as follows:

• Item 1.1 – Understand adult learning principles, frameworks and theories that underpin effective practice in teaching/ training, learning and assessment.

• Item 1.2 – Understand the demands of different learning contexts including classrooms, workplace, virtual and community education locations.

• Item 1.3 – Recognise and value the diversity of social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds of learners.

• Item 1.4 – Understand effective teaching/ training strategies that are responsive to the community, cultural setting, linguistic back-ground and histories of learners.

• Item 1.5 – Understand a range of inclusive learning strategies that support the participation of all learners.

Teachers were asked to respond, for each of the 23 items, on a scale of 1 to 5, for how important they thought each item was for VET teachers/trainers in general; and what their personal level of confidence was in that activity or knowledge area. As there were 23 items overall, each with a possible maximum of 5 as an answer, the maximum score possible for both ‘Attribution of importance’ and ‘Personal level of confidence’ was 115, and the minimum was 23.

The responses were highly skewed, being bunched at the upper end. Out of a possible maximum score of 115, the mean of all the total scores was 104.0 for ‘Attribution of importance’, with 90% of respondents scoring above 88; and 97.1 for ‘Personal level of confidence’, with 90% scoring above 80. Very few teachers gave responses below 3 for any of the items, although a small number of people provided consistently low scores and a few reported low scores in one or two domains. The skewness of the data means that small differences in scores were more important than might seem apparent at first glance.

Differences among the domains of practice

Figure 2 below shows the mean scores for each of the five domains, for attribution of importance and for confidence.

Figure 2. Average (mean) scores by domain for 'attribution of importance' and 'personal confidence'Note: Mean scores are normalised to a maximum of 25 per domain, because some domains had different numbers of items (see Appendix 1)

Teachers’ confidence was highest in Domain 2 (‘the content and how to teach it’) followed closely by Domain 4 (‘assessment’). These were also the domains which teachers thought were most important, although there was more variation in the ‘confidence’ scores. In all domains, VET teachers’ personal confidence was lower than the extent to which they thought the domain was important. The discrepancy was greatest in domains 1, 3 and 5.

Teaching and training approaches, analysed by teachers’ qualification levels

We then analysed total ‘confidence’ scores by the following qualification levels:

• Three levels of VET pedagogy qualification: Cert IV, Dip VET or equivalent; Degree or above.

• Three levels of industry qualification: Cert III; Cert IV; Dip/Adv. Dip/Degree and above.

For both types of qualification, the possession of a degree or above made a statistically significant contribution to overall confidence. For highest VET pedagogy level, the mean ‘personal confidence’ was as follows: Certificate IV: 95.59, Diploma of VET: 97.10 and Degree or above: 102.02. (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Total 'personal confidence' by highest VET pedagogy qualificationNotes:

(i) The data are presented showing ± one standard deviation

(ii) * Denotes significant difference between this group (the ‘Degree or above ‘group) and all other groups (P < 0.05); there were also additional significant differences for individual items

(iii) Number of respondents at each qualification level: Certificate IV (n = 255), Diploma (n = 70), Degree or above (n = 79)

We also divided the groups into six groups or ‘pairings’ of ‘highest qualification’ (i.e. combinations of VET pedagogy and industry qualifications) (Table 2). Our statistical modelling showed that these groups provided good differentiation. There were sufficient numbers in each of the six groups to make the analysis possible: the lowest number in a group was 26, and the highest number was 172.

Table 2. ‘Attribution of importance’ and ‘personal confidence’: overall averages for the people in each of six qualification ‘pairings’.

Highest VET pedagogy qual Highest industry qualification	Cert. IV TAE		Diploma		Degree or above
	Attribution of importance	Personal confidence	Attribution of importance	Personal confidence	Attribution of importance	Personal confidence
Certs. III, IV, Dip, Adv. Dip.	103.02	94.96	101.86	95.14	104.24	100.15
Degree or above	105.73	96.90	103.73	100.42	106.61	103.37

The average total score was 104.0 for ‘Attribution of importance’ and 97.1 for ‘Personal confidence’.

Table 2 shows clear differences among the qualification levels when individual teachers’ overall qualifications are considered. Those with high levels of qualification in both VET teaching and industry area had the highest ‘scores’ for both the importance which they attributed to aspects of VET teaching, and their personal confidence level, with those with a degree in both areas scoring highest, on average (i.e. the shaded cells in Table 2).

ANOVA significance testing (‘t-tests’) was undertaken for the individual five domains for levels of both highest VET pedagogy qualification and highest industry qualification. Table 3 shows which variables were significant.

Table 3. Statistically significant differences among teachers with different levels of highest qualification for each of the domains.

	Highest VET pedagogy qualification		Highest industry qualification
	Attribution of importance	Personal confidence	Attribution of importance	Personal confidence
Domain 1: Know learners, their context and how they learn.	–	✓	✓	✓
Domain 2: Know the content and how it can be taught.	–	✓	–	✓
Domain 3: Plan, design and deliver effective teaching/training experiences.	✓	✓	✓	✓
Domain 4: Assess, provide feedback and report on learning.	–	✓	✓	–
Domain 5: Engage with industry, colleagues, community, regulatory & professional bodies.	–	✓	✓	✓

(i) The significant differences always indicated increases in mean scores of ‘attribution of importance’ or ‘personal confidence’ as the highest qualification level increased.

(ii) Whether there were overall significant differences among teachers in the domain or not, there may have been significant ‘pairwise’ differences between individual groups.

As Table 3 shows, teachers with higher level qualifications of any type were significantly more confident in almost all of the individual domains, with only one exception in one domain (Domain 4 – assessment, for ‘highest industry qualification’). There was less differentiation for ‘attribution of importance’, but the ‘pair-wise’ testing of industry and pedagogical qualifications combined (see Table 2) showed some differentiation by level, always tending towards the higher-level qualification.

In a series of questions, we also asked people to select one item in each domain and say how they implemented the relevant skills. While there is not space to analyse the results for this paper, one clear finding was that teachers at higher level of pedagogical qualifications submitted lengthier responses to these questions.

We expected that other factors might also affect the teachers’ responses to the questions, and particularly their confidence. Accordingly, we analysed by the following three factors as well as the pedagogical and industry qualifications: years of experience as a VET teacher, industry area (we grouped responses by Training Package into 11 ‘training domains’ for this purpose), and type of RTO.

Analysis showed that these factors also made a difference: newer teachers were less confident, teachers in the traditional trades were least confident, and staff in enterprise RTOs were significantly lower against two of the domains. Interestingly, casual teachers were the most confident, but as the numbers of casual respondents were so small, conclusions cannot be drawn. The multiple regression analysis, with the methodological reservation noted earlier, indicated that the largest (positive) influence on teachers’ confidence was years of experience as a VET teacher, followed by highest pedagogical qualification and then highest industry qualification.

What VET teachers said that they gained from their higher-level qualifications

Another way to find out what difference higher-level qualifications made to VET teachers was to ask them directly; we did this with some questions in Section 5 of the survey. Those who had higher-level qualifications than the regulatory minimum were asked how much each of these higher-level qualifications added to the skills and knowledge learned in the mandated qualification, and the responses were analysed by qualification level. Figure 4 shows the results for pedagogical qualifications, for the 114 respondents with above Certificate IV qualifications.

Figure 4. Extent that the higher level VET teaching qualification(s) added to the skills and knowledge learned in the certificate IV TAE.

Note: 52 of these people had the Dip VET as their highest VET teaching qualification; 62 people had a degree or above

69% answered 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 5 (Figure 4), and those with degrees or above in VET teaching were much more likely to report gaining ‘a great deal’ from their higher-level studies than those with Diplomas as their highest VET teaching qualification.

These 114 respondents were also asked, in qualitative questions, to specify, one example of skills and one example of knowledge added by the higher-level qualification; and also how the qualification had impacted on the way they taught. All respondents with higher-level pedagogical qualifications answered these questions. We analysed responses by the qualification level.

Skills

The ‘degree and above’ respondents tended to identify broader skills areas such as teaching, management, communication, critical analysis, leadership; the Diploma of VET respondents tended to identify more specific skills, for example, assessment moderation, e-learning, summative assessment, and assessment writing and development. Four ‘Degree or above’ and ‘13 Diploma of VET’ respondents said that nothing had been added.

Knowledge

Most of the ‘degree or above’ respondents talked about theoretical knowledge or understanding about learners. Only three of the Diploma of VET respondents identified theoretical knowledge; most of these respondents identified more specific knowledge gains, for example, assessment validation, use of technologies, VET compliance matters, e-learning.

Impact on their teaching

An impact of a higher qualification on teaching was recorded by all but two of the ‘Degree or above’ respondents but only two-thirds of the Diploma of VET respondents. People in both groups commonly identified increased confidence in teaching and better understanding of VET, teaching or learners. Examples include: ‘It changed my perceptions on how people learn and allowed me to develop the skills to adjust teaching approaches on an individual basis when and where required.’ (Degree or above respondent) and ‘Made me more confident in my teaching.’ (Diploma of VET respondent).

Professional development findings

To address the second research question, we analysed several questions from Section 4 of the teacher survey. We report firstly on the findings about respondents’ engagement with various types of formal and informal professional development (PD) activities, and secondly, on some findings about propensity to initiate engagement in professional development, both analysed by participants’ qualification levels.

Engagement in professional development

Teachers were asked about their participation in each of a number of types of formal PD and informal PD activities in the previous 12 months. The list of activities related both to their industry/discipline area and to VET teaching, and were derived from the literature on professional development for VET practitioners. Interestingly, in general the responses showed more engagement in professional development that was industry-related compared with VET-related topics.

Tables 4 and 5 show the proportions who engaged ‘sometimes’ or ‘regularly’ in such development activities, for VET pedagogy (Table 4) and industry/discipline (Table 5), across the qualification levels. Teachers were asked to respond for each activity.

Table 4. Professional development in VET teaching/training ‘sometimes’ or ‘regularly’, by pedagogical qualification level. (n = 402).

Highest pedagogical qualification Type of PD activity	Cert IV TAE n = 253	Dip VET n = 70	Degree or above n = 79	All
Formal Activities Conferences	47.0%	60.0%	64.6%	52.7%
Short courses, seminars or workshops within the RTO	68.8%	72.9%	79.7%	71.6%
Short courses, seminars or workshops outside the RTO	57.7%	68.6%	68.4%	61.7%
Formally constituted community of practice	33.2%	41.4%	48.1%	37.1%
Informal Activities RTO electronic or non-electronic newsletters or noticeboards	79.1%	84.3%	86.1%	81.3%
Email lists, blogs or similar	72.7%	84.3%	84.8%	77.1%
Own reading	83.0%	88.6%	92.4%	85.8%

Table 5. Professional development in industry/discipline area ‘sometimes’ or ‘regularly’, by pedagogical qualification level.

Highest pedagogical qualification Type of PD activity	Cert IV TAE n = 253	Dip VET n = 70	Degree or above n = 79	All
Formal Activities Industry/discipline conferences	73.1%	80.0%	78.5%	75.4%
Short courses, seminars or workshops within the RTO	70.4%	75.7%	78.5%	72.9%
Short courses, seminars or workshops outside the RTO	75.1%	82.9%	83.5%	78.1%
Network of teachers/trainers	70.0%	75.7%	84.8%	73.9%
Membership of employer/industry professional association	64.4%	74.3%	72.2%	67.7%
Informal Activities Email lists, blogs or similar	88.1%	94.3%	87.3%	89.1%
Own reading	94.9%	95.7%	98.7%	95.8%
Informal liaison with employers	87.0%	91.4%	86.1%	87.6%

Tables 4 and 5 show a general trend of increased participation with higher levels of qualifications in both types of professional development. Generally, but not for all types of activity, there was greater participation by degree-educated teachers than diploma-educated teachers.

Propensity to initiate engagement in professional development

Common indicators of highly-engaged professionals are their willingness to seek out professional development and to undertake it in their own time. Accordingly, respondents were asked who generally influenced or motivated them to undertake PD activities (‘yourself’, ‘your manager’ or ‘someone else’). A VET pedagogy qualification above Certificate IV TAE was found to increase self-motivation to undertake PD activities, with reported self-motivation of 79.8% for the Certificate IV TAE group compared to 92.9% for the diploma group and 92.4% for the degree or above group.

Participants were asked whether PD was undertaken wholly in work time, mainly in work time, about half and half, or wholly in own time. Nearly all participants in the survey undertook at least some PD activities in their own time, with only 6% reporting that all PD activities were undertaken wholly in work time. By qualification level, 38% of those with a degree or above were undertaking PD ‘mainly’ or ‘wholly’ in their own time, compared to 33% of the diploma in VET group and 30% of the Certificate IV TAE group.

Analysis

In this section, the findings are analysed by the two research questions for the article.

What differences do VET teachers’ levels of qualification (both pedagogical and discipline-based) make to their teaching concepts, approaches and practice?

The survey results provided firm statistical evidence that higher-level qualifications, in any discipline, improved VET teachers’ confidence and also their understanding of the importance of almost all aspects of VET teaching. The numbers of respondents at all qualification levels were sufficient for the analysis to be valid. The findings about confidence and about the importance of providing effective teaching experiences, were all statistically significant, particularly at degree level (Table 3). The findings are not surprising, considering the well-reported deficiencies of the Certificate IV qualification (Robertson 2008; Simons and Smith 2008)

A degree in VET pedagogy together with a degree in an industry or discipline area provided the highest overall scores, indicating that further qualifications in industry areas are also important (Table 2). The advantages of higher level industry or discipline qualifications is a new finding, not previously reported in the literature. The availability of higher-level qualifications is not uniform across industry areas; for example higher level occupational (as opposed to management) qualifications are often not available in trade areas, such as carpentry, as they are, for example, in nursing. This fact could potentially account for the lower level of confidence of trade teachers that we found. These matters add nuance to the importance of qualifications overall, and belie the arguments from some lobbyists (reported in Productivity Commission 2020) that all that is required of VET teachers is industry experience.

When asked directly about their higher-level qualifications in VET pedagogy, teachers reported considerable gains from those qualifications. The gains reported from degrees as opposed to diploma qualifications were much greater (Figure 3). This reflects previous research undertaken with VET teachers undertaking further pedagogical study (Smith, Hodge, and Yasukawa 2015).

The relatively high extent of confidence in assessment is interesting, considering the expressed concerns about quality in VET assessment practices noted earlier (Halliday-Wynes and Misko 2013). A potential interpretation for the higher confidence that we found in assessment, and also in ‘content’, is the hegemony of competency based training in Australian VET (Smith 2023) and particularly the current system of Training Packages (Smith and Keating 2003), which prescribe the content to be taught and provide detailed advice on assessment. This lack of flexibility reduces teacher agency and room for innovation, but on the other hand perhaps reduces anxiety over what to teach and how to assess it.

How do levels of qualification affect VET teachers’ engagement in further professional development (PD) activities (pedagogical and industry-related)?

It is often claimed that low levels of pedagogical qualifications are acceptable in Australian VET, as any deficiencies can be made up through professional development (Tyler and Dymock 2017). But the research showed that participation in formal and informal professional development was also linked to teachers’ qualification level (Tables 4 and 5), with a clear increase in PD engagement, particularly in VET pedagogy, with levels of qualification. The increase in participation in industry/discipline area was not so clear, but still people with pedagogical Diplomas or degrees undertook more industry professional development, particularly formal PD and professional reading. Thus, professional development cannot compensate for low levels of initial qualification, as people with lower level qualifications are less likely to undertake it. An inference from these data is that higher level qualifications instil the value of, and a predilection for, further professional development, although we did not specifically ask about this.

Conclusion

While this paper has focused necessarily on just the teacher survey phase of the research project as a whole, the other phases of the project came to the same conclusions about the value of higher-level qualifications for VET teachers and the low level of professional development engagement for teachers with lower-level qualifications. The project as a whole concluded with a validation phase involving all major stakeholder bodies, and almost all of the 55 participants agreed that the results reflected their own understandings of the situation.

When the results of this project are set alongside the recent OECD policy recommendations for teachers and leaders in VET (OECD 2021), it is apparent that the Australian VET teacher-training regime is under-performing, yet has most of the frameworks in place for improvement. Historically the VET system has attracted industry professionals and has flexible pathways into the VET system (OECD 2021 recommendations on ‘VET teacher supply’). There are also flexible teacher-training programmes available, with higher-level qualifications delivered in-service while already teaching, and professional development programs (OECD 2021 recommendations on ‘VET teacher training’). The problem is that most VET teachers in Australia now stop their pedagogical development after the Certificate IV qualification, rather than proceeding to a degree in VET pedagogy, either directly or via a Diploma in VET. Thus the VET system is unable to deliver the OECD’s recommendations for capacity for innovative pedagogy and use of new technology. As VET teachers with the lowest level of qualification were less confident, and showed less understanding of the VET system, they were likely to be ill-equipped to address new developments. Moreover, they did not undertake professional development to the same extent as more highly-qualified teachers.

The Australian VET teacher development system is at risk at the moment on several fronts. The provision of higher-level qualifications has diminished due to falling demand, with some universities having decided to discontinue under-subscribed programs (ACDEVEG 2020). This has reduced not only the VET teacher-training workforce, but also the research workforce in VET. The technological and pedagogical demands on VET teachers are increasing, requiring greater not lesser expertise. Finally, the current shortage of VET teachers provides a surface rationale for decreasing, not increasing, qualification requirements, since lobbyists ignore, or are unaware of, the in-service nature of higher level qualifications.

The research reported here will provide a sound basis for decision-making, both at policy levels and in training providers, about required qualifications. The Victorian initiative of offering higher levels of teacher salary for more highly qualified teachers sets a sound precedent. More research is needed, however, into the topic. Some new aspects of the research findings such as the relationship between industry and pedagogical teacher qualifications, and the reasons why less-qualified teachers undertake less professional development, also deserve research attention.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge Patrick Korbel, who provided assistance on behalf of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research; also Dr Keiko Yasukawa and Professor Roger Harris, who assisted with the early stages of the research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Enterprise RTOs are companies or other organisations which are registered as training providers, primarily to provide qualification-based training for their own staff (Smith et al. 2019, 171).

2. Internal document produced by the Australian Council of Deans of Education Vocational Education Group (ACDEVEG).

3. Training Packages are the national curriculum documents in Australian VET, consisting of industry-developed competency standards and assessment advice (Smith and Keating 2003).

4. Based on data for the year 2017 from National Centre for Vocational Education Research ‘DataBuilder’ at https://www.ncver.edu.au/research-and-statistics/data/databuilder

Appendix 1.

Selected standards used in the Teacher Survey, drawn from the Queensland College of Teachers VET practitioner standards

Five standards were chosen for the research, and were renumbered for the project’s purposes, as below.

Table

Standard	Item
Standard 1 – ‘Know learners, their context and how they learn’	Item 1.1 – Understand adult learning principles, frameworks and theories that underpin effective practice in teaching/ training, learning and assessment.
	Item 1.2 – Understand the demands of different learning contexts including classrooms, workplace, virtual and community education locations.
	Item 1.3 – Recognise and value the diversity of social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds of learners.
	Item 1.4 – Understand effective teaching/ training strategies that are responsive to the community, cultural setting, linguistic back-ground and histories of learners.
	Item 1.5 – Understand a range of inclusive learning strategies that support the participation of all learners.
Standard 2 – ‘Know the content and how it can be taught’	Item 2.1 – Demonstrate current industry knowledge and skills in your vocational area.
	Item 2.2 – Understand the content of the learning program.
	Item 2.3 – Know how to communicate effectively with learners.
	Item 2.4 – Understand the application of strategies for flexible, applied and supported learning appropriate to the vocational area.
	Item 2.5 – Understand a variety of effective strategies to support the learners’ language, literacy and numeracy requirements.
	Item 2.6 – Understand the use of a range of quality resources including technology to support teaching/training, learning and assessment in different environments.
Standard 3 – ‘Plan, design and deliver effective teaching/training experiences’	Item 3.1 – Plan, design and deliver engaging and inclusive learning experiences.
	Item 3.2 – Select, develop and use a range of teaching/training strategies and resources including new and emerging technologies.
	Item 3.3 – Utilise local, national and global content through real and/or virtual environments for learning experiences.
	Item 3.4 – Reflect on your practice to improve the learning experience.
Standard 4 – ‘Assess, provide feedback and report on learning’	Item 4.1 – Select, develop and/or customise a range of assessment tools that meet the principles of assessment and the rules of evidence.
	Item 4.2 – Use a range of assessment methods and tools.
	Item 4.3 – Use a variety of formative and summative assessment processes.
	Item 4.4 – Understand and participate in assessment validation.
	Item 4.5 – Provide timely feedback and results of assessment to learners and approved stakeholders.
Standard 5 – ‘Engage with industry, colleagues, community, regulatory and professional bodies’	Item 5.1 – Liaise with stakeholders to ensure that learning programs and the learning environment are industry relevant.
	Item 5.2 – Engage with educational, professional, industry and vocational networks/associations in order to keep abreast of contemporary vocational education and training issues, research and practice.
	Item 5.3 – Understand the implications of and comply with relevant legislative, administrative, organisational and professional requirements, policies and processes.