Berwyn Clayton is the Director of the Work-based Education Research Centre (WERC) at Victoria University and the 2011 Researcher of the Year. This paper presents her keynote speech from the 2011 National VET Research (‘No Frills’) Conference and provides an insight into Berwyn’s journey from teacher to VET researcher. It highlights her interest in assessment and the capability of the VET workforce, and her dedication to supporting and mentoring new researchers.
Mental illness can be particularly disruptive to education and training outcomes. This report explores the factors that contribute to successful course completion for students with a mental illness, with a particular focus on the role of disclosure.
This paper aims to 'lift the lid' on completion rates, explaining how they are defined and how they are calculated.
This paper investigates the role of lead vocational teachers in TAFE Queensland and their personal and career development needs. Focus group discussions with these teachers ascertained that they wanted to feel valued by their institutes and have more opportunities to contribute to business development. It was revealed that their values did not match those of the institutes and this led to a sense of anxiety about professional opportunites. This paper is funded through NCVER's Building Researcher Capacity program.
This report provides a stocktake of vocational education and training (VET)-related surveys. I
This highly-popular annual publication provides a collection of summaries of research projects published by NCVER in 2011.
Encouraging older workers to stay in the workforce has become a policy priority. At the same time, the life expectancy of Australians has increased dramatically over the past several decades, effectively inserting a new stage in the life course, often called the 'third age'. This report explores the possibility of using that third age to embark on an encore career, a concept originating in the United States. The author then focuses on the role the VET sector might play in developing encore careers in Australia.
This research suggests that while mixed-sector and dual-sector providers are still only small in number, they likely to become more important but they face specific challenges in the quality of their provision.
This research overview provides the key messages arising from two related projects investigating tertiary education institutions that have recently begun to offer tertiary programs outside the sector of their initial establishment and the sector of the majority of their enrolments. These are TAFE institutes offering higher education programs, universities offering vocational education programs and private providers offering both.
In this 13 minute interview, Steve Davis talks with Leesa Wheelahan about the report 'Shaken not stirred? The development of one tertiary education sector in Australia'. This report examines universities that offer a small amount of VET and private providers that offer both VET and higher education, building on previous research examining TAFEs that offer higher education. This research suggests that mixed-sector and dual-sector providers are likely to become more important but they face specific challenges in the quality of their provision. While the sharp distinctions between VET and higher education are giving way to a more differentiated single tertiary education sector this is resulting in a more stratified and hierarchical structure as university providers become the 'comparator'.
Using interviews with adult migrants over a period of two years, the authors look at how undertaking an English as a second language (ESL) class helps to facilitate integration into Australian society.
In this report the authors examine how skills development in domestic plumbing occupations has responded to an increased emphasis on environmental sustainability and 'greening'. They find that rather than sustainability and greening requiring major changes in thinking, plumbing skills need to be responsive to changing technology and more generic skills such as dealing with customers are required. How and at what stage to best impart these skills is a challenge for plumbing and the vocational education and training sector.
This research used a survey to investigate the attitudes of people with a disability towards undertaking training. The findings show very positive attitudes towards training by participants and, although the ability to generalise to the wider population is limited, one thing is clear: generally, people with a disability are willing to undertake VET and consider it a good option in helping them find employment. Some factors affected attitudes more than others, including level of school-based education; highest qualification level completed; whether people had single or multiple disabilities; and, to some extent, gender.
This overview describes research conducted by the University of Canberra which looked at the characteristics of people with vocational qualifications who are self-employed and the differences between the self-employed and employees.
Two features of the labour market for vocationally qualified workers are explored in this technical paper: the likelihood of self-employment versus wage employment and the determinants of income.
The author explores the prospect of improving pathways and opportunities for tradespeople in Australia through the introduction of a masters-level qualification. The study investigates the views and opinions of senior industry representatives and professional educators to determine whether the introduction of a master trade or master artisan qualification will lead to greater prospects for tradespeople and an increased esteem for trade vocations within the community.
This research examines the 'psychological contract' or the unwritten expectations of employers and employees in an employment relationship. The particular aim of this study was to discover whether mismatched expectations have any effect on retention in apprenticeships and traineeships. Overall, there was a very high level of agreement on the obligations of the two major parties and so mismatched expectations turn out not to be the explanation for high attrition rates. But paying greater attention to the areas perceived as deficient, such as employers providing specific time for training, fair treatment and resources to do the job, may be a means of improving retention.
Undertaking research in the vocational education and training (VET) and disability area is not easy. The challenges include the limitations of the available data, accessing people with a disability and the diversity of disability type and severity. This discusses these issues and also presents a snapshot of recent data and a summary of recent research in this area.
This report investigates attrition in the trades by comparing the rate at which tradespeople leave their occupation with that of professionals. It also determines whether attrition is influenced by economic conditions, and if a trade can provide a good start to a career in the professions. The report concludes that attrition in the trades is no higher than in the professions; the rate of leaving particular occupations may vary, but overall the results between the two are very similar. The economic climate also makes little difference to the attrition rate.
Pre-vocational programs, including VET in Schools, are increasingly providing a pathway into traineeships in the same way that pre-apprenticeships are an established route into apprenticeships in the traditional trades. This report uses data from the 2010 Apprentice and Trainee Destination Survey and finds that the benefits of pre-vocational programs are mostly apparent for early school leavers (especially those who leave school after Year 11) and trainees in sales, clerical and administrative, and labouring occupations.