Derived from an ethnography of working cultures and practices at a bike shop in the North of England, this paper rests on a critical application of social practice theories of literacy (Literacy Studies) in order to explore the complex and heterogeneous literacy practices of cycle technicians. Drawing on a series of vignettes constructed from the…

Purpose: The aim of this study is to analyse young adults' positive experiences of learning when entering the labour market. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on 13 individual in-depth interviews with young adults (aged 18-28) working within the retail sector in Sweden. The interviews explored the interviewees' experiences when…

Technological, social, and economic changes challenge workers' resilience at many levels. Innovative learning cultures have the potential to accommodate industry's skills expectations with workers need for new forms of workplace learning. This study explores the role of learning cultures as (1) moderators between stability and change, (2)…

In vocational education and training, coaching can be used to support apprentices' ability to manage their own (further) competence development 'on the job'. This is largely requested among employees at workplaces in internationally competitive sectors of the economy which require of their workforce a great deal of flexibility and learning…

This study explores the experiences of leaders who have led organisations and teams through an extended period of crisis management whilst completing a UK work-based master's programme. This paper examines contemporary approaches to work-based learning and explores the effect of organisational and workforce demands in a volatile era of global…

This article explores the involvement of industry professionals and barriers to their involvement in Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) in three Vietnamese public universities that implement the Profession-Oriented Higher Education (POHE) framework. Thematic analysis of 15 in-depth interviews and three focus groups revealed that only WIL activities…

Motivated students have been shown to persist longer in post-secondary education. As a multidimensional psychological construct, motivation is shaped by within- and between-person perceptions of context. Empirical measures of distinct workplace and trade school subjective task values (STVs) were examined, and their predictions of apprentices'…

Students in vocational education may experience situations during on-the-job training in which power relations are strongly manifested, with considerable potential for learning about democracy that have been far from fully explored. Thus, here we analyse how Swedish vocational education and training (VET) students perceived and experienced power…

The automation of job tasks due to technological change increases the pressure on workers whose jobs consist largely of such activities. In this context, politics and science attach great importance to further training, although the benefits for affected workers have hardly been investigated. Drawing on human capital theory and the task-based…

Recent employer and employee surveys in the UK highlight a decline in training participation, a reduction in training expenditure per employee and an increase in online training/e-learning. The COVID-19 pandemic adds impetus to considering training trends given the importance of skills for economic recovery. Many workers are adapting to work and…

In vocational education, students learn in different school-based and workplace-based learning environments and engage with different types of knowledge in these environments. Students are expected to integrate these experiences and make meaning of them in relation to their own professional knowledge base. This study focuses both on…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of education for employees on learning outcomes and educational quality characteristics on organisational performance through analysis of the relationship between education quality characteristics, learning satisfaction, learning outcomes, and organisational performance. In this study, a…

Incorporation into the labour market is a key endeavour, of heightened importance in recent years due to high migration flows, for both immigrants and their recipient countries. Hence, activation and employability are major themes in both transnational and national policy discussions, which have generated various programmes and policy measures.…

We examine the challenges and emergent nature of learning during undergraduate internships. Much scholarly inquiry on the latter focuses on internship experiences within traditional professional domains such as medicine, teacher education, and other fields. There is less knowledge about undergraduate interns entering more fluid and recent work…

Vocational education aims at preparing students for their future as professionals; thus, students are often required to undergo a form of on-the-job learning. Assessment of professional performance during on-the-job learning is not based on single observations, but on prolonged participation at the workplace culminating in judgement by a workplace…