The article examines the ways students in the school-based part of the vocational education and training (VET) in Sales begin to make sense of the world of work they are about to enter. Drawing on a qualitative study of upper-secondary Sales VET students in Norway, a four-fold typology of orientations to retail work is analysed: first, the…

This article calls attention to the difficulty of institutionalising vocational education and training (VET) in the service sector in Norway, despite the growing importance of this sector for national economic performance. Drawing on interviews with apprentices, employers, stakeholders, representatives of trade unions and employer organisations,…

The paper investigates how learning and processes of becoming are shaped and enacted in retail apprenticeship in Norway. The analysis draws upon a qualitative study of managers and apprentices in different retail sub-sectors. The empirical point of departure is managers who, more or less deliberately, throw apprentices into tasks from day one.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare, and identify both similarities and differences in, affordances for vocational learning in two contrasting education systems, for construction worker and shop salesperson apprentices, in Swedish contexts. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected through interviews and observations in two…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to use teaching and learning units specially devised for development of self-competencies and social competencies in the retail sector to explore how learners assess these units in relation to acceptance, quality and self-assessment of improvement in their own performance. Design/methodology/approach: The…

This paper examines whether the subjective beliefs on their competences of 409 trainees in machinery, sales, and logistics constitute a reliable and valid way to measure transferable competences. The analysis of results attributes satisfactory to good reliability values to the assessment procedure. Furthermore, it could be shown that young people…

This article explores the effect that the use of e-portfolios initiated and organized by apprenticeship training offices has had on the learning processes and assessment practices of apprentices in Norwegian vocational education and training. Although these intermediate structures have the potential to bridge the gap between work and education,…

This article explores the effect that the use of e-portfolios initiated and organized by apprenticeship training offices has had on the learning processes and assessment practices of apprentices in Norwegian vocational education and training. Although these intermediate structures have the potential to bridge the gap between work and education,…

This article explores teachers and trainers didactical practices in different contexts in Norwegian VET: schools and workplaces. With the introduction of e-resources and e-portfolios in VET, learners as well as teachers and trainers experience a more hybrid learning-arena, which claims for a re-contextualization of vocational didactics as well as…

Most learning in the workplace occurs while pursuing working rather than learning goals. The studies at hand aimed to identify task characteristics that foster learning in the workplace. Task characteristics are supposed to exert a major effect on the learning potential. However, the fact that learning is more often than not a rather unconscious…

This paper reports on an ethnographically based study of entry level supermarket work. The study, carried out in a large suburban supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand, focused on the literacy and numeracy practices of supermarket assistants, all who had English as an additional language. It found that skills such as oral communication, personal…

The primary focus of this research is the impact of wages on the decision not to continue with an apprenticeship or traineeship. The approach taken is to model three wages relevant to apprentices and trainees: the wage during training; the expected wage in alternative employment; and, the expected wage on completion. The results of these models…

This publication presents experimental estimates of completion and attrition rates for the latest commencing apprentice and trainee cohorts. Such up-to-date estimates are possible by applying a "life tables" methodology to simple cross tabulations of commencements, completions and cancellations/withdrawals. The resultant cross-sectional…

For recent high school graduates, life is tough. In the past year, one in four young high school graduates was unemployed and over half were underemployed. In the past decade, recent high school graduates' wages have fallen by 12 percent to just $19,400 annually in 2011, below the poverty threshold for a family of four. The downward plight of high…

This annual publication provides a summary of training activity in apprenticeships and traineeships in Australia, including information on training rates, completion rates, attrition rates, training within the trades and duration of training. The figures in this publication are derived from the National Apprentice and Trainee Collection no.63…