The site-based learning of vocational education and training teachers

This Special Issue addresses the site-based learning of vocational education and training (VET) teachers. Site-based learning is an important component of teacher learning across their teaching career: from pre-service practicums to experienced teachers learning to address changing conditions and changing student needs. The articles are written by researchers from Australia, Sweden and England and are based on research undertaken in those countries.

The work of VET teachers requires a broad range and depth of skills and capabilities. Wheelahan notes that ‘The contexts VET teachers work in, the students they teach, and the qualifications they deliver are more diverse than those in higher education or schools’ (Wheelahan, 2010, p. 9) and ‘the demands on VET teachers are more complex than either schools or higher education’ (Wheelahan, 2010, p. 11). VET students are an increasingly diverse group with a broad range of needs (Wheelahan, 2010). Increasing longevity, later retirement ages in many countries, and the need to support refugees and migrants to settle in new countries all impact on VET provision. Further, government policies related to lifelong learning and to increasing the educational level of the population support people to extend their education longer than ever before, and impact on the changing picture of VET learners. VET students include school-age learners, young adults, refugees aiming to create a new life in a new country, and mature-aged adults retraining. VET students could be undertaking VET courses for a broad range of reasons and purposes: for instance, as a part of their initial education; as a result of government-funded unemployment arrangements; to gain practical skills after completing a university degree; to train for a trade; or to retrain for a new occupation in middle age. Additionally, VET students have a variety of prior learning experiences, and skill levels, with some having little or no literacy skills, and others having very strong literacy skills in at least one language. Sometimes students with many of these varying experiences and needs are in the same class being supported by the one teacher.

It is unsurprising then that the learning of VET teachers has been identified as important for the ongoing development of quality teaching (Harris, 2015). The requirement for VET teachers to have completed educational qualifications prior to beginning as a teacher varies between countries. The level of qualification required for being a VET teacher also differs. For instance, in Australia the highest qualification required by VET teachers is a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment to be completed within the first two years of teaching (a Certificate IV is three levels below a Bachelor degree in the Australian Qualifications Framework). While more recent data are not available, in 2011 it was estimated that more than 40% of VET teachers did not hold this qualification (Productivity Commission, 2011, p. xlii). Regulatory changes since that time would suggest that the take-up of the qualification is likely now to be greater. Registered Training Organisations may require higher qualification levels, especially in relation to promotion or salary increases, and Smith (2019) notes that a proportion of VET teachers also have Bachelor level and higher teaching qualifications. In Sweden, the VET teacher education programme, the basis for a VET teacher qualification, consists of 90 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System), which is 1.5 years if undertaken as full-time studies. However, as was shown in a survey in 2013 by the National Education Board, 35% of the VET teachers in Sweden do not have a VET teacher qualification (Skolverket, 2014). In England it is left to each Further Education provider to determine what qualification, if any, their teachers need to hold. As a result of deregulation it is not clear how many Further Education teachers and trainers currently have a Level 5 (equivalent to one year of full-time study at undergraduate level) or higher teaching qualification of 120 credits. The most recent workforce data (2017–18), based on staff records of 197 providers, suggest about 65% of teachers and trainers had a Level 5 or higher teaching qualification, about 25% had qualifications at Levels 3 or 4, and 10% had no teaching qualification (Education and Training Foundation, 2019, p. 53).

Researchers have argued that a large proportion of worker learning occurs in the workplace. For instance, based on extensive research in the UK Eraut (2011) found that ‘over a wide range of professions and workplaces, informal workplace activities provided between 70–90 percent of the learning’ (p. 12). Similarly, the research of Billett et al. (2014) across four different industries in Australia identified workplace learning as the most reported source of worker learning. The workplace has thus become recognised as an important site of learning for VET teachers.

However, there is a lack of research on the site-based learning of VET teachers, and a need for further exploration of this important area of teacher learning in different national contexts. Existing research focuses primarily on continuing professional development (CPD), often with a training perspective. Some work addresses and compares the continuing professional development strategies in the member countries of the European Union, for example, in the Cedefop report from 2009 Modernising vocational education and training. Similarly, Misra (2011) reports on her research in this area and suggests possible ways to enhance training for CPD. Smith (2009) provides a complex picture of the Australian context, problematizing the required competency-based Certificate IV qualification for VET teachers. Also with Australia as context, Billett (2009) accounts for how action learning can be used as a professional development method for VET teachers, and emphasizes the need for expert partners and their guidance. Tyler and Dymock (2017) undertook a broad literature review of research into the CPD of VET teachers, drawing on Australian and international literature. They concluded that ‘the VET sector has yet to arrive at a point where practitioners and training providers are wholeheartedly committed to CPD’ (p. 47). Andersson and Köpsén (2015) report on a national CPD project for VET teachers in Sweden. Their results indicate that participation opportunities are influenced by institutional factors and situational factors. In an English study on trainee teachers in further education (Orr & Simmons, 2011), similar conclusions are drawn about there being a number of institutional constraints on professional development. Given this global picture on the problematic nature of CPD for VET teachers, including the lack of research on the site-based learning of VET teachers, there is a need to identify and analyse particular and current challenges related to VET teachers’ site-based learning in different countries and contexts.

Site-based learning and the theory of practice architectures

The notion of ‘site’ is crucial for studies on site-based learning. Site is generally described as a particular ‘place’, but in regard to practice theories it is a place where things happen. The concept has specific theoretical understandings and implications in different practice theories. Schatzki (2002, 2003)) develops an ontological understanding. For him, ‘human coexistence is inherently tied to a type of context in which it occurs. The contexts involved, sites, are contexts of which some of what exists or occurs within them are inherently parts’ (Schatzki, 2003, p. 176). Nicolini (2011, p. 605), exploring the inherent connected nature of knowing in practice, conceptualizes practice as ‘the site of knowing’ and argues that the nature of knowledge depends on the practice at hand and the site-ness within it. The theory of situated learning as developed by Lave and Wenger (1991) takes its starting point that the site is where identities, knowing and communities are produced and reproduced. In regard to VET and workplace learning, Billett has conducted many studies analyzing the situational contribution to the development of knowledge (Billett, 2001, 2010). In the tradition of cultural-historical activity theory, initiated by Vygotsky and further developed by Leontjiev, learning is also studied as situationally-embedded in specific contexts, with focus on cultural means and collective activity. Kemmis and colleagues (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008; Kemmis et al., 2014) take an ontological approach, following Schatzki. The theory of practice architectures holds that practices are shaped and formed at the sites where they are undertaken – not just in general or in the abstract (Kemmis et al., 2014, p. 12).

The practice turn in contemporary theory (Schatzki, 2001) provides a valuable framework for researching the learning of VET teachers. Practice theories often take a site-based approach, exploring the practices, activities and arrangements at a particular site and at a particular time. Such theories have been identified as valuable for researching learning in the workplace (Hager et al., 2012; Nicolini, 2012), and for researching the learning of professionals such as teachers (Green, 2009; Hager et al., 2012). Practice theories have been used to explore teacher learning at all levels of education (see for instance, Edwards-Groves, 2014; Hardy, 2014; Langelotz, 2017; Sjølie, 2017). The articles in this special issue all use the theory of practice architectures as an important element in the framing of the research and/or the data analysis. The theory of practice architectures holds that practices are enabled and constrained by the arrangements that are in, or brought into, the site. The theory identifies cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements that enable and constrain the practices and the activities in a site (Kemmis et al., 2014; Mahon et al., 2017).

This Special Issue includes articles related to teacher learning in the workplace, including pre-service teachers undertaking practicums, novice teachers and experienced teachers. The articles, in different ways, recognize how VET teaching may take form and be developed during VET teacher education, during the practice of teaching and as continuing professional development. They all draw upon results and analysis of site-based studies, or in-depth interviews explicitly related to site-based learning. The two first articles, David Powell’s in an English context and Ingrid Berglund’s, Ingela Andersson’s and Susanne Gustavsson’s from Sweden, investigate how the learning of VET teaching emerges and develops within VET teacher education. The third article, by Susanne Francisco examines the site-based learning of novice teachers in an Australian context. The final articles, both based in a Swedish context, consider the learning of experienced VET teachers. Gafvel’s article researches the learning of experienced teachers in the fields of hairdressing and floristry, while Ingrid Henning Loeb explores the ongoing development of accomplished teachers.

David Powell reports from a study on how in-service teachers learn how to teach within teacher education classes at a Further Education college, and what site-based conditions shape these in-service teachers’ practice of learning to teach. Participants were in-service teachers already employed to teach and learning to teach ‘on the job’. The article draws on data from focus groups with 35 in-service teachers and ‘teacher-talk’-discussions with six of their teacher educators. The article is rich in data and illustrates how some of the in-service teachers struggled with the language of learning to teach that they encountered at the start of their initial teacher education. The teacher educators’ sayings, doings and relatings modelled to the in-service teachers what they might do, say and how they might relate to their own students, informing the development of their own personal pedagogies. The sayings, doings and relatings of the teacher educators thus constituted a practice architecture for the in-service teachers’ learning to teach. The conditions for these in-service teachers are very different from those for other groups of student teachers. As one of the participants said: ‘ … we’ve all come from a hard day’s work and we’re tired and we’re grouchy and hungry and we want to go home’. A further point that Powell’s article highlights is the importance of the relatings between these teacher educators and their in-service teachers.

The critical reflection of pre-service teachers during practicum placements is the focus of the article by Ingrid Berglund, Ingela Andersson and Susanne Gustavsson. The empirical basis of the study for this article is 78 self-evaluation reports by students in Swedish VET teacher education. These reports are assignments carried out when the students are on practicum placement. There are three practicum placement periods, one in the beginning, one in the middle and one at the end of their teacher education programme, which comprises three years of part-time studies. For many students, the practicum placement is the same as their teaching workplace. By analysing the self-evaluation reports, the study investigates the characteristics of the students’ reflections, with the following two questions: What kinds of reflection are articulated and expressed by the students? What arrangements appear to enable or constrain the students’ ability to critically reflect? The research interest is connected to requirements formulated in the Higher Education Ordinance on teacher students’ development of critical reflection, and to research on reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. With excerpts from the self-evaluation reports and analysis of these, we get a picture of descriptive reflection, comparative reflection and critical reflection in VET teacher education. With concepts from the theory of practice architectures, Berglund, Andersson and Gustavsson discuss how students’ ability to progress towards critical reflection, which involves diverse ways of understanding and relating to their teaching practice, needs to be supported by strong connections between the university-based activities and the activities during practicum. Here, just as in the Powell article, two very important points are highlighted: the role of the VET teacher educator and the valuable role and involvement of the appointed supervisor during the practicum.

The site-based learning of novice VET teachers who begin teaching with no teaching qualifications is the focus of the article by Susanne Francisco. Drawing on a two-year longitudinal multi-case study in Australia across eight teaching areas and four campuses, the article explores what novice teachers learn in the workplace, and what enables and constrains that learning. Francisco identifies the basis of employment as an important condition that impacts on teacher learning and develops the categories of fringe teachers and favela teachers based on those conditions of employment and associated arrangements for supporting teacher learning. The article highlights that what teachers learn is heavily influenced by the practices already present in the site. A range of site-based arrangements are found to impact on teacher learning including the use of industry and VET language, arrangements related to the physical layout of staffrooms, timetabling arrangements, availability of well-developed resources and access to interactions with experienced teachers.

The continuing professional learning of VET teachers in the feminized areas of floristry and hairdressing forms the basis for the article by Camilla Gåfvels. The article addresses the issue of the ways in which experienced floristry and hairdressing teachers are able to influence their own continuing professional learning. The teachers’ relationships with their professional organisation are identified as influential in relation to their professional learning and to their teaching practices. Gåfvels notes that teachers in both groups stress the importance of ongoing learning through interactions with colleagues. She also identifies that for both floristry and hairdressing teachers their employers take little or no role in professional learning arrangements and that both groups of teachers need to direct their own ongoing professional learning related to their vocational field as well as pedagogy.

The study in the final article by Ingrid Henning Loeb identifies and analyses how accomplished VET teachers in Sweden handle current educational challenges and develop their professional practice and support of second language learners in VET. The two overarching research questions that informed the study were: How are educational challenges described by the teachers and what pedagogy and methods are they developing in their teaching practice in order to face the described challenges? What enabling and constraining conditions for continuing professional learning can be identified? The results are organized as four storied narratives which present a rich picture of how the teachers in different ways, but similarly, face new situations, related to site-based conditions. Each of the teachers, in challenging circumstances, generated knowledge of practice by making their classrooms and schools sites for inquiry. They were all deeply involved in creating possibilities for learning for their students. The similarities and differences in the learning conditions that they created and the similarities and differences in the challenging circumstances are compared with the help of concepts from the theory of practice architectures.

These articles taken together provide a picture of various approaches to the site-based learning of VET teachers across the teaching career. We invite you to delve into the Special Issue and explore the area of the site-based learning of VET teachers.