One aim of vocational education is educating students for occupations by fostering the development of students' capacities to become successful practitioners. During their education students are usually afforded work experience. When this is the case, students learn both at school and at the workplace. Learning at the workplace requires…

With the desire to expand work-integrated learning opportunities for Canadian postsecondary students, it is timely to consider how pre-existing student work positions may be transformed to achieve the educational criteria and benefits of work-integrated learning. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of structured learning support on…

This study explores the challenges of assessing student workplace performance during work-integrated learning. It highlights the need for, yet difficulties with, combining positivist and constructivist assessments where workplace supervisors make evaluative judgements on performance yet students are also agents in their own assessment. It examines…

Graduate attributes and course learning outcomes are an integral part of higher education in Australia. Testing the performance of graduates in the workplace with regard to graduate attributes and course learning outcomes is a not a common occurrence. This study has road tested the graduate attributes and course learning outcomes of a bachelor…

Assessment in work integrated learning (WIL) programs typically involves workplace supervisors rating student performance against criteria based on employability skills. Yet investigations of differences in employer ratings that may impact on student outcomes are rare. This paper reports on a pilot study that examined supervisor evaluations of the…

This paper investigates how student-workers' performance can be assessed through the notion of work-role performance, on the basis of three behavioral-related dimensions (proficiency, adaptivity, and proactivity), and proposes a definition of performance prior to graduation. By taking into account the accumulation of work experience, this article…

In a sample of nearly 1,800 adolescents in work experience programs, job quality had the greatest positive impact on work attitudes and job satisfaction and was associated with negative job behaviors. Good supervisory relationships were linked to positive attitudes and behaviors. However, school supervision of work did not appear to influence…

The Core Skills Project has developed in the "core skills" an instrument that can be used in the analysis of occupational competence. Any development of accreditation of work-based learning entails assessment of learning in the workplace. The success of such assessment depends on identifying the outcomes of experience in terms of…

Assessment of student achievement in the workplace identifies workplace skills students may not demonstrate in course work. It also induces a continuous sensitivity to industry needs. On-job training tends to have sufficient formality to encourage organized assessment and off-job learning can involve assessment to the point of excess. However,…

Job performance of disabled students can be monitored through: (1) student job reports (which emphasize self-analysis of on-the-job performance) and (2) job support groups (which focus on problem solving for employment situations). Both activities help students perceive the connection between work experience and school and help teachers intervene…

This document is intended to promote understanding of performance standards in Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) and Employment Service (ES) applications; to promote more appropriate use of performance standards in managing and overseeing job training and job placement programs at the state and local levels; and to foster the integration of the…

This self-instructional module, the fourteenth in a series of 16 on techniques for coordinating work experience programs, deals with vocational assessment. Addressed in the module are the purposes of vocational assessment, the types of information that are gathered in the vocational assessment process, and available vocational assessment…

This document, the third of five volumes that comprise the final report of the National Assessment of Vocational Education focuses on program improvement. Chapter 1 describes the education reform movement and assesses its effects on vocational education. It discusses current reforms that states are undertaking to improve preparation of students…

A longitudinal study examined the college and career transitions of graduates of the Lansing Area Manufacturing Partnership (LAMP) program, which is a school-to-career (STC) program sponsored by the United Auto Workers, General Motors Corporation, and Michigan's Ingham County Intermediate School District. The progress of three cohorts of LAMP…

This book examines the rhetoric surrounding the notion of informal learning in order to expand debate about the uses of informal learning in workplaces and about attempts to "recognize" it through competency-based standards. The following topics are among those discussed in the book's eight chapters: (1) the nature of informal learning…