The development of strong career learning environments: the project ‘Career Orientation and Guidance’ in Dutch vocational education

Abstract

Schools are increasingly acknowledging their responsibility to guide students in their career development. However, the guidance that is provided in the Netherlands, as well as in other Western countries, focuses for the most part on helping students towards their academic achievement, and not on helping them to develop competencies to manage their own career. In order to promote this type of career guidance, 37 secondary vocational schools in the Netherlands participated in a project that offered a training programme, aiming to teach teachers how to conduct career dialogues with students. The programme offers expert guidance to integrate a dialogical approach to career guidance and a more enquiry- and practice-based curriculum in the school’s vision and policy. In this article, the results of semi-structured interviews with 50 teachers who participated in the project are presented. These interviews were conducted right after the start of the project, to study how teachers perceive the initial situation regarding career development in their schools, as well as their perception of the initiated plans and ambitions for development, both in their own learning environment and the learning environment of their students.

Keywords:

• VET and development
• teacher training
• curriculum innovation
• vocational & educational guidance
• education & training assessment

Introduction

Schools are increasingly acknowledging that they have a strong responsibility to guide students not only in their academic growth, but also in their career development (Jarvis and Keeley 2003; Gysbers and Henderson 2005). Careers do not always develop within prescribed boundaries anymore and are, therefore, to a large extent unpredictable (Arthur, Khapova, and Wilderom 2005; Pryor and Bright 2011). At the same time, youngsters are expected to be intrinsically motivated to work when they enter the labour market (Sennett 1998; Irving and Malik 2005; Bimrose and Hearne 2012). Realising a sustainable career in today’s labour market is primarily and increasingly the responsibility of individuals themselves (Savickas et al. 2009; Maree 2016). Schools, therefore, embrace the idea of developing different skills that are needed for meeting the demands of the labour market, such as the ability to show flexibility based on commitment to work and commitment to the employer in changing times (Hillage et al. 2002; Lafer 2004; Schulz 2008). This embracing happens, however, without realising that such skills require a different learning environment than when the focus was on traditional technical competencies (Payne 2000; Smith and Comyn 2004). This article describes how the teachers perceive the initial situation of their school regarding the process towards such a non-traditional learning environment, focused on the development of the needed skills in vocational education schools in the Netherlands, and initiated by the national developmental project ‘Career Orientation and Guidance in Secondary Vocational Education’. This project was developed as a consequence of the renewed qualification requirements for vocational education in the Netherlands, and is, therefore, a school external factor that has impact on the internal culture of the school. Accordingly, the focus of the current study is on school internal factors as a response to the school external, societal factors, in the first time period of the project.

Career learning environments

The non-traditional learning environment, required to foster learning motivation, must focus on the development of particular career competencies (Kuijpers, Meijers, and Gundy 2011) and a career identity (Meijers and Lengelle 2012). A dialogue about concrete experiences with work is especially essential (Kuijpers, Meijers, and Gundy 2011; Meijers, Kuijpers, and Gundy 2013). Kuijpers, Meijers, and Gundy (2011) and Meijers, Kuijpers, and Gundy (2013) showed that a learning environment aiming at the development of career competencies and a career identity is practice-based and dialogical, and offers students a growing autonomy regarding the choices they make. This strong career learning environment differs considerably from a traditional learning environment by not primarily focussing on information transfer, and not gearing them towards a standard learning-route (Kuijpers, Meijers, and Gundy 2011).

A strong career learning environment is still to a large extent missing in Dutch education, including vocational schools (Hughes, Meijers, and Kuijpers 2015). Since August 2000, secondary vocational schools in the Netherlands are obliged as part of the EU’s policy on ‘lifelong career guidance’ to offer career guidance services without charging the user (Oomen et al. 2012). In Dutch education, the term that is used for this in school guidance service is ‘career orientation and guidance’. Career guidance in the Dutch education system is provided in ‘career’ lessons and in group and individual conversations with students with a frequency that varies from weekly to once every three months (Meijers, Kuijpers, and Bakker 2006; Oomen et al. 2012). Teachers find it quite difficult to provide career guidance and, more specifically, they find it difficult to conduct reflective career conversations with students (Mittendorff 2010; Winters 2012). Research showed that in conversations about work placements teachers talk to the student 65% of the time, 21% of the time they talk about the student and only 9% of the time with the student (Winters et al. 2009). The main reason seems to be a lack of teachers’ dialogical skills in combination with a professional identity that is focused on transfer of knowledge and providing feedback in a rather monological manner (Winters 2012; Assen et al. 2016a, 2016b). This professional identity is the result of internal and external dialogues, where a dynamic exchange and an ongoing process of construction takes place, that eventually results in a (renewed) professional identity (Lengelle and Meijers 2014).

The majority of career guidance practitioners in the Dutch education system has had little or no special training on career guidance (Oomen et al. 2012). The problems stated above may therefore, in part, be solved by training teachers to become competent and confident in narrative approaches to career guidance, to collectively and through external dialogues transform their professional identity in dialogical terms. This requires teachers to develop new routines in the career conversations with their students, and therefore, a change from a monological to a dialogical school culture.

School reculturing

Creating a dialogical career learning environment requires ‘reculturing’ (Fullan 2007) schools. Peterson and Spencer (1991, 142) describe organisational culture as ‘the deeply embedded patterns of organisational behaviour and the shared values, assumptions, beliefs, or ideologies that members have about their organisation and its work’. Changing the organisational culture of a school therefore means changing these deeply embedded patterns and shared values, which should not be taken lightly (Blood and Thorsborne 2005). All stakeholders must acknowledge the fact that changing the culture of the school happens gradually over a long period of time, and patience is required (Fullan, Cuttress, and Kilcher 2009).

Reculturing is a process of co-creating new meanings in situations of ambiguity and uncertainty in a dialogical way (Fullan 2007; Geijsel, Meijers, and Wardekker 2007; MBO Diensten 2012). Co-creating new and shared meanings implies collective learning and working of teachers (Fullan 2007). Following Lodders’ research (2013, 15), collective learning

refers to the work-related learning processes that arise when the members of a collective collaborate and consciously strive for common learning and/or working outcomes. Such learning may result in long term changes in skills, knowledge attitudes and learning abilities, or changes in work processes or work outcomes, signifying development and change respectively.

Social interaction, an important element of collective learning, contributes to making tacit knowledge explicit (Fullan 2007; Van Woerkom 2003) and therefore, it requires more than learning from others, namely the development of a shared understanding and definition of the learning process and the new knowledge outcome (Gubbins and MacCurtain 2008). The presence of an organisational vision which directs the process of knowledge creation, an abundance of information for those concerned and a creative chaos which stimulates the interaction with the environment, stimulates collective learning (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995).

Building this shared vision is one of the characteristics of a transformational leadership style. Transformational leadership focuses on realising a culture change by creating a work environment in which teachers work together optimally and in which they strongly identify themselves with the commonly created goals of the school (Ten Bruggencate 2009; Lodders 2013). Vision building, or initiating and identifying a vision, refers to the development of goals and priorities, and the direction of change.

Transformational leadership addresses the involvement, capacities and motivation of the members of its organisation. It directs the way leaders influence their employees rather than the results of the student outcomes (Bush and Glover 2014). Besides vision building, transformational leadership is characterised by two other elements: intellectual stimulation and individual support (Geijsel 2015). Intellectual stimulation refers to the support of teacher professional development and the challenge of teachers to readdress their knowledge and daily practice. Individual support refers to attending the feelings and needs of individual teachers (Lodders 2013; Geijsel et al. 2009; Beverborg, Sleegers, and Van Veen 2015).

In her research, Lodders (2013) found that transformational leadership has positive effects on the collective learning process of teachers. Lodders and Meijers (2017) found indications of a direct relationship between transformational leadership and career-oriented innovations in Dutch universities, as well as an indirect relationship through collective learning. Managers’ actions associated with a transformational leadership style stimulate collective learning processes, which are likely to positively influence the innovative behaviour of teams. Furthermore, there is empirical evidence that transformational leadership is positively related to teacher’s engagement in professional learning activities and to teachers’ motivation for practicing their profession (Runhaar, Sanders, and Yang 2010; Thoonen et al. 2011). Many teachers do not see professionalisation as a necessary activity for the teaching profession (Van Eekelen, Vermunt, and Boshuizen 2006). Mostly they find professionalisation only useful if they are actively involved in the development of the programme (Hensel 2010; Kuijpers and Meijers 2017). This emphasises the importance of the first element of transformational leadership, vision building, as a co-constructive process between the leaders and in this case teachers for developing a shared vision for the organisational changes.

Considering that culture change is more effective when transformational in nature (Blood and Thorsborne 2005), we argue that a change in the learning environment for students towards more career development in vocational education requires a collective learning process of the teachers, guided by a transformational leadership style. This style may be exercised by individuals, as well as by groups (distributed leadership; see Bush and Glover 2014; Bolden 2011; Harris 2004).

In conclusion, the creation of a strong career learning environment is needed to enable career dialogues with students. On an organisational level collective learning of teachers is essential to create such a learning environment. On a management level, transformational leadership is necessary to start the collective learning process of teachers.

Project ‘Career Orientation and Guidance’

Financed by the Dutch Department of Education, the project ‘Career Orientation and Guidance in Secondary Vocational Education’ (COG/SVE) was developed to encourage vocational education institutions to initiate and/or continue the creation of a strong career learning environment for their students (MBO Diensten 2012). The project was developed at the request of the ‘MBO Raad’; the national employer’s association for secondary vocational education, and implemented by ‘MBO Diensten’; the project office that carries out different vocational education projects for the Dutch Department of Education.The vocational training in Dutch secondary vocational education (SVE) vary in duration (from 1 year up to 4 years), difficulty (from level 1 to level 4, with level 4 being the most difficult), and study-route (school-based: between 20% and 60% includes practical/workplace training and the remaining time is spent at school; work-based: at least 60% includes practical/workplace training and the remaining time is spent at school) (Ketelaar et al. 2012). The vocational education sector in the Netherlands consists of 65 vocational education colleges comprising multidisciplinary, agricultural and specialised colleges (for more details see www.mboraad.nl/english). Team-oriented working is since 2009 one of the main foci of the Dutch national policy on vocational education. Teams consist of a specific group of teachers who are collectively responsible for designing, executing and improving vocational training, and professionalising its members (Van der Klink and Nieuwenhuis 2017).

In the project, 37 secondary vocational education schools in the Netherlands signed up to participate voluntarily. They received professional guidance from project office MBO Diensten (a) to develop a ‘strong’ (i.e. dialogical) career learning environment by training teachers in conducting dialogical career conversations, and (b) to underpin this strong learning environment by a well-developed vision and policy on career guidance in schools.

The training programme consisted of an off-the-job and on-the-job part. In the two day off-the-job part the emphasis was on explaining theory and putting theory into practice in career conversations. During the following on-the-job part, the emphasis was on the translation of the training to the school environment through two individual and two team sessions, guided by teachers who received an extended training programme as part of the COG/SVE project. The sessions consisted of giving each other feedback on video recorded career guidance conversations with students and practicing the development of the students’ career competencies by asking the right questions. Furthermore, attention was paid to establishing a relationship with students during the conversations. The project aimed for teams of teachers to participate in the training programme together, due to the fact that reculturing happens in co-creating new meaning to situations with others (Geijsel, Meijers, and Wardekker 2007; MBO Diensten 2012). In the COG/SVE project, the creation of the policy and plans was the responsibility of the schools themselves, but they received professional guidance from experienced policy-makers of the project, if requested. This guidance of the project leaders focused on offering students more freedom of choice and real life work experiences, for example, by formulating new guidelines for curricula and make room for more work placements. The development of this new vision and policy on COG was less determined by the project than the training in conducting career dialogues; schools were encouraged to concentrate on their own necessities and priorities, since every school had a different starting situation regarding career guidance. Managers of the participating schools were expected to invest in the learning processes on career guidance and focus on the formulation of long-term policy and school investment plans, but the project focused primarily on the teachers and project leaders. Therefore, the directors and managers were not explicitly involved (additional information on the COG/SVE project; see Kuijpers and Meijers 2017).

Research aim and questions

This study is designed to gain theoretical and practical insight into the influence of the project ‘Career Orientation and Guidance in Secondary Vocational Education’ on the creation of a strong career learning environment. Over a time period of three years and using four measurements we plan to investigate in a longitudinal manner to what extent the COG/SVE is an impulse for structural and cultural changes in vocational education. The current study provides a description of how 50 teachers of the participating schools perceive the initial situation in their schools regarding career development, as well as their perception of the initiated plans and ambitions for development in their own learning environment and the learning environment of their students. As Han and Weiss (2005) conclude in their review on sustainability of teacher’s programme implementation, it is important to consider preimplementation factors during the initial phase of the programme (e.g. correctness of the understanding of the programme), since these factors that are specific to the school system and its teachers can affect the potential success of the programme within a particular school and with a given teacher. Furthermore, their review concludes that ‘If the programme’s impact is successful but teachers do not perceive any positive impact of the programme early on, their use of the programme is likely to diminish.’ (675).

The first measurement immediately after the start of the project provides insight into the first effects of the project. Three research questions will be investigated:

(1)	How and to what extent does the project COG/SVE succeed in starting a process towards strong career learning environments that are dialogical, practice- and enquiry based?
(2)	To what extent does the project stimulate collective learning of the teachers?
(3)	Is transformational leadership present to promote the development of a strong career learning environment?

Because of the exploratory nature of this study and the lack of prior research in this specific context, we are particularly interested in the teachers’ stories about their experiences at the start of the COG/SVE project.

Method

Sample and selection

As part of the COG/SVE project, 2 central training days were organised for 238 teachers from 20 of the 37 participating schools in 6 different regions during the period of September to December 2013. The schools were spread throughout the Netherlands, and included inner-city schools as well as those in rural regions.

The teachers of the 17 other schools received their training at a different time. During the period of October 2013 to January 2014, all 238 participating teachers were approached for a semi-structured interview at a place and time of their choice. At the start of their first training day, the teachers completed a questionnaire on their personal motivation and aspirations regarding the project, and on the existence of their schools’ policy and vision on career orientation and guidance. Through these questionnaires it became apparent that most teachers did not participate with their teams as a whole, as intended by the COG/SVE project, but they were signed up or sent individually. Furthermore, teachers with contrasting scores on the questionnaire were personally approached, to realise maximum variation sampling (Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2014) and to avoid distorted results. Eventually, 52 teachers from 18 different schools agreed to participate. Of two schools, no teachers agreed to participate. Two of the arranged interviews were cancelled, due to long-lasting illness of the teachers concerned. Of the interviewed teachers 33 are female; 46 teach specific subjects, and four work as student guides or career counsellors. All 50 interviewed teachers participated on a voluntary basis and their anonymity was guaranteed.

Semi-structured interviews

The data were collected by conducting individual interviews with the50 participating teachers. The interviews were semi-structured, and therefore, open for the topics the teachers wanted to discuss. The researchers monitored a list of topics that had to be covered: descriptions of the career learning environment and any experienced changes, views on the (collective) progress in the COG/SVE project, and desires, plans and ambitions for the future in the area of COG. Example questions of the semi-structured interviews are: ‘What are the results of career orientation and guidance at this moment?’, ‘What changes do you see?’ and ‘What dilemmas or obstacles do you experience?’. Considering that the training programme of the 50 teachers was just (38) or not yet (12) finished, caution with asking questions that could be interpreted as testing the teachers skills or knowledge regarding COG was required, as these could influence the established openness and ease. Therefore, we did not ask direct questions like ‘What are your future plans regarding a practice-based curriculum?’, and ‘Can you tell us about your possible involvement in the on-the-job part of the programme?’. Additionally, the teachers were invited to share their ideas and opinions on the present and future situation of the career learning environments at their schools. Since we were interested in deep understanding of the process that teachers experience, this narrative interview-method contributes to the validity of the study (Boeije 2010; Bimrose and Hearne 2012; Smith and Sparkes 2006; Stake 2005). Therefore, the interviews differ in duration, as the content of the stories of the teachers differ as well.

Twelve of the 50 interviews took place at or just before the second off-the-job training day. Twenty-one interviews took place within a month (1–4 weeks) after the second off-the-job training day, and 17 interviews took place more than a month after the second training day. The shortest interview took 12 min, the longest 56 min. Most interviews took place in the schools where the teachers worked, and some took place at the location of the off-the-job training. Forty-seven interviews were recorded with a video camera, where the camera was placed at the desk or table where the interview took place with the permission of the interviewed teacher and after securing that the recordings would only be used for verbally transcribing the interviews. One interview was conducted via Skype (and also recorded), one interview was conducted through a non-recorded telephone conversation, and one teacher answered the questions in writing. The first author conducted 36 of the 50 interviews, a second researcher conducted the remaining 14 interviews.

Analyses

Except for one non-recorded telephone interview and one written interview, all conducted interviews were recorded with the consent of the respondents. The recordings of the interviews were verbally transcribed. The interview transcripts were analysed with the qualitative data analysis programme Nvivo10, by use of a bottom-up, iterative, and inductive coding approach (Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2014; Mortelmans 2011), following the grounded theory method (Corbin and Strauss 2014). Categories and relationships between the categories were formulated by observations of the data, and descriptive codes and sub codes were given to different categories, for example: ‘Changes regarding COG at schools – Spreading among colleagues’ and ‘Leadership and role management – Goal or priority unclear’ (see Appendix 1 for the coding scheme). This adding of codes continued until saturation took place. Strongly overlapping codes were merged. After the coding and data condensation process we conducted a variable-oriented cross case analysis in order to detect themes that cut across cases and to explore differences and similarities between the cases (Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2014).

To determine the inter-rater reliability of the coding scheme Cohen’s Kappa, the measurement for the agreement between two raters with measures occurring by chance taken into account, was calculated. For this purpose, a second analyst was trained to use the framework and five interviews (10%) were selected for recoding. Cohen’s Kappa appeared to be 0.82. This is considered acceptable (Lombard, Snyder-Duch, and Campanella Bracken 2002) to almost perfect (Landis and Koch 1977).

Results

Career learning environment

At the time of the interviews, the interviewed teachers had finished participating in the two day off-the-job training of the project, or were participating in the second training day (12 teachers). Therefore, they had received at least one training day on how to conduct career dialogues with their students regarding concrete (work) experiences. When we asked about their perception of the training as a learning process, the response of 17 of the 50 teachers was that they felt increasingly equipped with skills to conduct meaningful career dialogues.

Well, I do notice that I find it very nice to have done this course. I now practice the skills I might already had, but maybe not quite good, but I feel that I am refining them. I try more and more to stand back, to let calm come into the conversation, time to think. Making the steps smaller.

However, half of the 38 participants that finished the two day off-the-job part desired additional training or feedback on conducting career dialogues with students for themselves and for their colleagues, since they found the training programme instructive, but not sufficient to stimulate a dialogical learning environment. This indicates an absence of the on-the-job part that was supposed to be provided for these 38 teachers by their schools at the time of the interviews, according to the timeline of the project.

Yes, I think it is important that the training continues, as I have just indicated. And especially for people who, not just for myself, but especially for people who are not so skilled in that area.

The other 12 teachers were interviewed during their second training day and, therefore, could not have reached the phase of the on-the-job part yet.

When we asked the teachers who finished the off-the-job training (38) what results of their newly gained dialogical skills they witnessed, not all of them were able to provide us with a clear answer. Seventeen believed that it was too early in the process to see any results. Nine other teachers stated that by letting the students do the talking and by asking the right questions, students see more possibilities for action and feel like they are the ones that should ‘do the work’, instead of their teachers.

What I hear is that there are students who say, especially fourth years, to colleagues: ‘This is what we need. There never was such a conversation. Good that we are going to do this.’ I also heard someone say: ‘The next day I got an email back, saying: hey, teacher, I did this and this.’

Four other teachers saw the content of the dialogues with their students cautiously shifting from academic achievement and (non)attendance to career wishes and goals. Two participants mentioned increasing clarity for the students; since the teachers started participating in the training programme, they felt more approachable for their students when needed. During the training programme, using concrete (work) experiences as a starting point for the career dialogue was an important emphasis. However, this use of a real experience in the career dialogue was seldom referred to during the interviews.

Work placements as part of the practice based curriculum was discussed variously. Many of the 50 interviewed teachers underlined the importance of real life work experiences for the study programme and for the career development of the students. However, all their comments on work placements focused on the way it was at the present state. None of the teachers mentioned ambitions for change in the curriculum towards a more practice-based environment, nor did they mention a more enquiry-based curriculum with more autonomy for the students, even though we asked for their future plans and wishes regarding career guidance.

It appears that the creation of the dialogical aspect of the learning environment had started, but plans or ambitions of the school for the possible development of a practice- and enquiry-based curriculum were neither experienced by the teachers who finished the two days off-the-job part (38), nor by the teachers who thus far finished one of the two days (12).

Collective learning of teachers

As part of the COG/SVE project, 2 central training days were organised for the participating teams of teachers. The project intended to train complete teacher teams, since career guidance (as well as the vocational training) is the responsibility of the teachers of one team collectively (MBO Diensten 2012). However, from the questionnaires and interviews it became clear that most teachers participated with colleagues from different teams of their schools, instead of their own teacher team as a whole.

After this off-the-job part of the training programme, where teams of teachers received training in conducting career dialogues, the responsibility of the on-the-job part of the programme lay with the school, and should consisted of individual training, feedback on recorded dialogues with students and other forms of peer-to-peer coaching. However, the on-the-job part and the way this was organised at the schools were rather infrequently referred to; only by nine teachers. This means that, at the time of the interviews, a considerable number of the teachers (29), who were supposed to engage in the on-the-job part collectively, did not talk about their involvement in this part when discussing the experienced changes since the start of the project and their learning process. Only seven teachers told us about how they were recording videos of their own dialogues with students, and receiving feedback on these recordings from their colleagues to find out where they could improve.

We have [COG] peer-consultation moments here at our school, that we planned ourselves, where we debate together, where we practice, where we record videos.

However, as stated previously, half of the participants desired additional training and further improvement of their skills regarding career guidance for themselves and their colleagues, without mentioning their schools’ plans to organise this. This shows their lack of awareness of this on-the-job part of the training programme, designed for the teachers to learn with and from each other.

And once again, but that is not just the case with this course, that is the case with every course we’ve had: it is never completed. Steps are made, and then it dilutes. That is a waste of the time you have put in it. (…) Well, completed in the sense that it is not fully trained, practiced, it is not implemented, it doesn’t have a follow-up.

Five teachers told us that they started the distribution of their newly gained skills and knowledge on career guidance within their schools by, for example, organising training days for teams of teachers or planning meetings with their managers to discuss COG. However, after being asked about their wishes and ambitions in the area of career orientation and guidance, seven participants told us they desired spreading of their own school’s renewed vision and/or policy on career orientation and guidance among their colleagues. A school wide distribution of the new skills and knowledge on career guidance was also a frequently indicated wish (12), as well as the distribution of the newly gained skills and knowledge by the participants to their own team of teachers (4).

Actually it is just like: we are doing our own things, but for this sort of thing you just have to make space. Maybe in the team meeting, to draw attention to it. If not, there is a transition that everybody is going to do in his own way. So that might be helpful, more uniformity as a whole.

The ambitions within our team are that we all will conduct the dialogues with the student in the same way. The skills that I gain now as school coach must work as a snowball effect within our team and to other teams and departments within our school.

The differences between the perceptions of the priority and ideal forms of career orientation and guidance of the teachers and their colleagues became clear as we asked about dilemmas or obstacles experienced since the start of the project. Sixteen participants told us that the priorities of their colleagues lay with teaching their subject-specific classes instead of guiding career development, and that some colleagues did not have the abilities to be an empathic and patient guide for their students. Apparently there was no shared understanding of or shared vision regarding teachers’ role in guiding students, among the interviewed teachers and their colleagues.

Many people in secondary vocational education (..) teach their subject as part of the future profession. And yes, they think: if they [the students] don’t want to do it, they don’t. Well, I think quite differently about it, and fortunately a lot of other people think differently.

It seems that the collective learning process, as designed by the project, was at this point limited to the two-day off-the-job training. However, most teachers participated with colleagues from different teams of their schools, instead of the intended teacher team as a whole. The on-the-job part of the training programme, designed for the teachers to learn with and from each other at their own work place, had mostly not taken place (yet), despite their specific wish for a follow-up training and a school wide implementation.

Transformational leadership

According to the timeline of the project every participating school should have been in possession of a newly developed vision and policy on career guidance or at least working on the realisation of such by the time of the conducted interviews. This vision and policy development was the responsibility of the project leaders. During the interviews seven teachers talked about the existence of their schools’ renewed vision and policy on career guidance, and how they were involved in the designing of this vision. However, a very large amount of the teachers did not discuss the existence nor the development of their schools’ renewed vision on career guidance, which should provide the students with stronger career learning environments. Therefore, most teachers did not mention the existence of a shared vision on career orientation and guidance by the school leaders or managers. Furthermore, when asked about their ambitions or aspirations with regard to career guidance, 13 participants stated that they had a wish for clarity regarding the school’s vision and policy on career guidance. Some of them (4) specifically desired explanation of the school’s vision on career orientation and guidance when asked about ambitions and aspirations, and others (6) wished for elucidation for teachers as well as students on the school’s policy and structure regarding career guidance. Three teachers wanted clarity on both the vision as well as the structure.

The thing I missed since the moment I started career guiding (…), in policy terms I have always missed thinking and discussing together about: what goals do we want to achieve as a school, and how are we going to do that?

Nine teachers told us they participated in the project because they signed up themselves. However, 32 teachers told us they were asked or sent to participate by their managers, mostly without a dialogue beforehand on the subject of their expectations and mutual consent.

I think, yes well fine, but what does the school want with this? How important is it to our team leaders? What kind of place will it get? Now we are sent there and yes, I find it pretty vague.

You send me to a course, what is the intention? Because there was a pilot, for three years. That pilot ended, a few people are trained there, and now you send another non-trained person to a training. What do you want with me exactly? I have asked that question within our team, a team meeting, and the team leader said: ‘Yes, no, I understand your question but I can’t answer it.’

More than half of the interviewed teachers (27) discussed their unawareness of the form, goal and priority of the project. They spoke about the lack of introduction surrounding the programme by their managers beforehand, even when they directly requested more information. The term ‘top-down’ was often used by the interviewed teachers. Furthermore, they appeared to be unaware of the training programme being a part of a bigger project.

On the one hand: pleasant, always interesting, I am open to professionalisation. On the other hand, I think: yes, if they find it important they at least could have sent us an email about it or something. Or a memo or a short conversation with your manager about the background of it.

The most important and consistently mentioned obstacle for implementing COG at the schools is the perceived lack of adequate facilitation in the form of time and money. Thirty-two teachers feel that teaching their classes and everything that comes with it takes all of their time, and there is little room for development and change. Or, as one participant put it:

You can organise anything, but organise time as well. And I also know that more and more in less time needs to be done. But let’s be honest, educating students is our core business.

Apparently, the teachers were insufficiently informed about the COG/SVE project, the consequences the project had on their schools’ vision and policy on career guidance and the reason why they were participating in the training programme. They explicitly wished for a clear vision, more facilitation and support; responsibilities of the higher and middle (transformational) managers.

Conclusion & discussion

The aim of this study was to research the influence of the project ‘Career Orientation and Guidance in Secondary Vocational Education’ on the creation of strong career learning environments in secondary vocational education. Stimulating students to gain real life (work) experiences, enabling dialogues about these experiences and allowing them to make choices helps students to develop career competencies and prepares them for their lifelong careers. The COG/SVE project aims to create such a strong career learning environment at the participating schools, by offering both a training programme for teachers and professional guidance regarding the development of a renewed vision and policy for the schools. According to the literature, reculturing within the schools demands a collective learning process of the teachers, the key figures in strong career learning environments, guided and enabled by a transformational leadership style.

The results, as discussed in this paper, indicate that a process towards a strong career learning environment has started, on the level of the career dialogues between teachers and students. However, the potential for reculturing is not (yet) developed or being utilised. Since the start of the training programme most teachers felt more confident about their skills to conduct a career dialogue with their students, even though more training for themselves and their colleagues would still be highly appreciated. However, the teachers did not mention the other part of the project, namely the development of a renewed vision and policy on career guidance for each school for a more practice- or enquiry-based curriculum. It seems that the teachers are mostly not involved in, and more so, are not aware of this development, and therefore, uninformed about the training programme being part of a bigger, school wide project.

Furthermore, the interviewed teachers hardly spoke about the follow-up phase of the training programme, which in many cases was supposed to take place at the schools by the time of the interviews. Some teachers even specifically expressed their wish for a follow up phase. The plans and activities for the spreading and embedding of COG within the educational institutions appeared to be largely unknown amongst the interviewed teachers. The intended collective learning process was apparently limited, during the off the job as well as the on the job part of the training programme, which is a possible explanation for the frequently differing priorities and vision concerning students’ career development, amongst the interviewed teachers and their colleagues. Moreover, remarks on the phase of collectively developing a shared vision by the teachers and their colleagues was often brought up by the teachers themselves during the interviews. However, they mostly spoke about the absence of a clear vision regarding career guidance. In fact, an explicit wish for a clear vision on the renewed strategy for career orientation and guidance was often discussed. A lack of clarity about the project was recurrently evident as many teachers did not quite know why he or she was asked or sent by their managers to participate in the training programme. Therefore, it appears that the managers did not stimulate the teachers to participate and professionalise. Support in the form of individual explanation on the reason for participation was non-existent. This lack of developing a shared vision and individual support indicates the absence of a transformational leadership style at the participating schools of the COG/SVE project. Moreover, practicing and distributing the skills and knowledge gained from the training programme (the on-the-job part), as well as involvement in the development of a renewed vision and strategy on COG was not organised for the teachers. This too shows the absence of engaged leadership in the innovation, and the need for involvement of the directors and managers, in a transformational manner, to stimulate developing and spreading of a renewed vision on COG.

Based on the assumption that reculturing within the schools demands a collective learning process of the teachers guided and enabled by a transformational leadership style (Lodders 2013; Lodders and Meijers 2017), we conclude that the absence of both conditions results in a stagnation of a possible culture change towards strong career learning environments in vocational education. These findings correspond to the work of Fullan (2007) and Lodders (2013) who argued that co-creating new and shared meanings implies collective learning of teachers, who strive together for common learning and/or working outcomes. The building of an organisational vision which directs this process is one of the characteristics of a transformational leadership style (Ten Bruggencate 2009; Lodders 2013). The results of this study indicate that both collective learning as well as a transformational leadership style is not experienced by the teachers, which expectedly leads to confusion and obscurity. Transparent and clear leadership is needed and specifically wished for. Therefore, the goal and strategy of the reculturing must be transparent and clear, for all those involved.

Implications, limitations and future research

The practical implications derived from this study focus on the importance of creating a working environment in which teachers can learn together, and create a collaborative culture where a shared vision on career guidance is developed. This can take place on a team level; facilitating and guiding teams of teachers of certain sectors or subjects in articulating their common vision and goals is a first step towards the new culture. Therefore, clear communication between the teachers and their managers on the COG/SVE project and the school’s goals and strategy for constructing a career learning environment is essential. Furthermore, the project COG/SVE purposely did not directly involve the managers and school leaders in the innovation process, to let teacher teams autonomously develop their vision and tactics regarding career guidance. However, this mostly resulted in a lack of facilitation, organisation and direction. Therefore, more involvement of the managers and school leaders in the innovation process aimed by the project is highly advisable.

Due to a limited topic list used in the interviews and encouraging teachers to speak freely, the interviews differ in terms of discussed topics, length and depth. Although this causes difficulties with comparison, we believe this is simultaneously strength of the study since the teachers were able to talk about topics they felt to be of importance. Another methodological limitation is that all of the teachers participated voluntarily, which could be grounds for a bias in the results. We tried to partly overcome this bias by personally inviting teachers with varied and extraordinary answers on a previously completed questionnaire concerning motivation for the training, to participate in our sample. Furthermore, 12 of the 50 interviews took place at or just before the second off-the-job training day, 21 interviews within a month (1–4 weeks), and 17 interviews took place more than a month after the second training day. Presumably, for at least 12 teachers this is too early in the process of the COG/SVE project to experience any visible results and speak of actual changes in the learning environment. However, we measured immediate (changes in) plans and ambitions regarding career development, initiated by the project. Furthermore, we explored topics and concepts important to the teachers participating in the project and, therefore, investigation of these concepts in a longitudinal manner is highly advisable. Since the project had not ended before the interviews were conducted, we expect that the on-the-job part of the project on the participating schools will take place after the interviews were conducted, as well as the formulation and spreading of a renewed vision and policy on career guidance, as these steps are part of the project that the participating schools committed to. It would be interesting to further investigate to what extent these processes and increased clarity on goals and strategies for the teachers would eventually lead to successful creating strong career learning environments. Moreover, longitudinal research with within person analyses could gain insight into the relationships between involvement in vision building, experienced support and stimulation by the managers and school leaders, and engaging in collective learning.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Birgitta Knol for conducting and transcribing 14 interviews, Joost Jansen in de Wal for coding 5 interviews to calculate the inter-rater reliability and Mieke Haemers for transcribing a great number of the interviews.

Appendix 1.

^{Table 1}

Table 1. Coding scheme.

Codes	Subcodes 1	Subcodes 2
1. Changes regarding COG at schools
	Spreading among colleagues
	Follow up after off the job
	Content of dialogues (more) COG
	COG pilots
	Scheduled COG-lessons
	Vision document COG
2. Utility of COG
3. Skills for COG
	Important skills
	Training days were desirable
	Improved dialogical skills
4. Results of COG
	Action lies with student
	Clarity for student
	Still too early to see
	Flow back drop outs
5. Wishes or ambitions for COG
	Continuity PVE-SVE
	Clarity
		Clear structure
		Clear vision
		Clear distinction COG and study counselling
	Facilitation and time
	Career oriented intake
	More autonomy for students
	Methods and instruments COG
	Involvement parents in COG
	Scheduled lessons COG
	Training and improvement dialogical skills
	Embedding of COG
	Distributing of COG
	Follow up on COH
6. Dilemma’s and obstacles for COG
	Other priorities of colleagues
	Lack of facilitation and time
	School size
	Tired of training / innovations
7. Professionalising and teachers’ own career
8. Leadership and role of management
	Signed in by who and how?
		Asked to participate by manager
		Signed in by manager
		Signed in by self
	Goal or priority unclear
9. General comments on project