Women remain severely under-represented in engineering in Australia as in all Western countries. This limits the pool of talent, standpoints and approaches within the profession. Furthermore, this under-representation equates to restriction of the benefits of being an engineer mainly to men. Gendered workplace experiences have been found to…

National systems of vocational education and training around the globe are facing reform driven by quality, international mobility, and equity. Evidence suggests that there are qualitatively distinctive challenges in providing and sustaining workplace learning experiences to international students. However, despite growing conceptual and empirical…

This paper explores the impact of a learning culture on organisational change in small to medium-sized regional manufacturing enterprises following a review of the related literature, and a qualitative study of 10 manufacturing SMEs in the Riverina region of New South Wales. The research confirmed that key learning culture factors as identified in…

Purpose: This paper aims to provide an account of learning and change in the redesign of a primary health-care initiative in a large metropolitan city in Australia. Design/Methodology/ Approach: The paper is based on research exploring the place and role of learning in the re-making of health professional practices in a major New South Wales…

The quality of curriculum connectivity and integration across educational institutions and authentic practice settings, such as workplaces, is influenced by the conceptions of the different agents. Connectivity is about mediating connections between different situations to meet demands arising from educational institution-based knowledge and the…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the factors that employees perceived were important in creating a supportive learning environment in a recently merged organisation. The study provides rich qualitative data from the employees' perspective. Design/methodology/approach: This case study used a qualitative phenomenological constructivist…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate workplace learning in the context of the rail industry, specifically for the type of learning required to become a train driver. It examines the impact of changes to the traditional learning model, and explores the potential of mentoring in the learning/training model.…

In considering the blurring of boundaries between vocational education and school education since the introduction of Vocational Education and Training in Schools (VETiS) in the senior secondary school system in Australia, it could be argued that the key figures in practice are the VET teachers in schools. The focus in this paper is 12…

The role of work-integrated learning (WIL) is a popular focus at many universities, including among academics in the business disciplines in Australia. This article explores whether a mentoring programme provided for female business and law students results in similar benefits as those reported for WIL activities and, hence, provides career- and…

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is increasingly identified as essential to helping creative arts students' transition from university into the creative industries workplace. Off-campus activities, such as work placements, play a major role in educating work-ready graduates. At the same time, increasing enrolment numbers in creative arts education…

One of the strategies being advocated in response to climate change is the need to transition to a low carbon economy. Current projections show that within this transition, new jobs will be created, some eliminated and most others subjected to change. This article reports findings from interviews with a selection of twenty participants who are…

Purpose: Mentoring as a tool for the support and development of novices in many organisations has been considered a putative success. Nevertheless, the literature reveals a paucity of reporting of the mentoring strategies used within the policing profession within Australia. This paper aims to focus on what mentoring is and how it is deployed from…

The paper explores ways that vocational education and training (VET) might become involved in the development of moral "know-how", ready for workplace practice. The primary concern here is the transformation of earlier-learnt ethical principles to their applied moral behaviour, essential for appropriate practice within workplace…

Continuing education and training is an emerging priority for the nation's tertiary education and training system. Changing work, new work requirements, an ageing workforce and lengthening working lives are some of the factors now influencing this priority. Yet, many of the purposes and processes of the Australian tertiary education and training…

This paper reports on research into the learning aspects of adopting integrated parasite management practices for sheep (IPM-s) applying a workplace learning framework. An analysis of four primary data sources was conducted; a postal survey of Australian wool producers, a Delphi process with IPM-s researchers, focus groups and interviews with wool…