Issues arising from an ageing society, a low fertility rate and growing need for a skilled work force have seen increased government commitment to improving the participation rate of mature-aged workers. Education and training are seen as a principal strategy to increase the employability of these workers, yet participation in training is low and…

This article describes a blueprint for an online learning environment that is based on prominent instructional design and assessment theories for supporting learning in complex domains. The core of this environment consists of formative assessment tasks (i.e., assessment "for" learning) that center on professional situations. For each professional…

Young, minority, and poorly educated fathers in fragile families have little capacity to support their children financially and are hard-pressed to maintain stability in raising those children. In this article, Robert Lerman examines the capabilities and contributions of unwed fathers, how their capabilities and contributions fall short of those…

One of the great concerns of the business community involves the workforce pipeline: employers want to be sure that new entries into the labor pool, whether from the K-12 or postsecondary systems, are prepared for the jobs that await them. In Philadelphia, business and community leaders have joined forces to give students workplace learning…

Noting that it is what we do with what we know which creates both efficiency and effectiveness, the author emphasizes that it is not just the trainees but employees at all levels who have to subscribe to the philosophy that the professionalism which derives from correct training is the only acceptable life style for their organization. (WL)

Anderson (1980) and Harris's (2000) examinations of the history of workplace learning and training in the United States highlight issues of power and control in the determination of what training is provided to workers. This paper reviews these two texts and considers the implications of a constructivist paradigm in addressing the dilemmas of…

Slippery Rock University (SRU), located in western Pennsylvania, is one of 14 state-owned institutions of higher education in Pennsylvania. The university has a rich tradition of providing professional preparation programs in special education, therapeutic recreation, physical education, and physical therapy for individuals with disabilities.…

Data were gathered from a sample of training professionals of an American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) chapter in the southern United States regarding best practices for supporting training transfer. Content analysis techniques, based on a rigorous methodology proposed by Insch, Moore, & Murphy (1997), were used to analyze the…

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins IV) is the principal source of federal funding to states for the improvement of secondary and postsecondary career and technical education programs. States are provided with funds for distribution to local educational agencies (LEAs) and postsecondary institutions for…

The Genesis Center is a community-based adult education center located in Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1982 to assist immigrants and refugees from Southeast Asia in their transition to life in the United States, the Genesis Center now provides adult education, job training, and child care services to people who have immigrated from all…

The purpose of this paper looks at the fundamental issue of whether VET does improve the employment prospects of the groups in question. It exploits data from the Student Outcome Survey to construct samples that proxy three welfare groups and models the post-training employment outcomes. Appendices include: (1) Characteristics of the proxy groups;…

Purpose: The overall aim of this research is to investigate how aspects of organizational culture enable or constrain the facilitation of learning in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative design was used involving 100 semi-structured interviews conducted with air traffic controllers operating in three centers in Australia. The…

The paper explores the incidence of over and under education and the effect on earnings for immigrants and natives who hold UK qualifications, drawn from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey 1993-2003. The paper also compares earnings penalties associated with over and under education across immigrant and minority ethnic groups for men and women. The…

Provides answers to queries about why custodial training courses flop, how better training programs can be set up, and what kind of training is appropriate. (MF)

Interviews with 32 apprentices, 21 employers, and 6 teachers in technical and further education and on-the-job learning environments showed that groups had different perceptions of the complementarity of on- and off-job learning. Learning was complicated by movement among different communities of practice with sometimes contradictory messages.…