Search results

This paper aims to explore how the competence-based vocational education and training (VET) curricula facilitate shaping of work values of VET students. It discusses methodological and ideological orientations of competence-based VET in teaching work values and discloses the typical characteristics of teaching work values in the VET system of Lithuania.

A quantitative research approach leading to a survey method is adopted to investigate how VET students acquire and apply work-related values and attitudes to work.

The survey of the VET students has disclosed that students are open to accepting different values of work, including cognitive values, social prestige and altruist values. However, orientation of the VET curricula to and provision of instrumental values lead to relatively weak internalization of the work values related to societal and spiritual dimensions.

The paper provides empirical evidence regarding the implications of the competence-based curricula for teaching students work values in the school-based VET.

This article focuses on the assessment of entrepreneurship competence by selected vocational teachers in Italy. The exploratory research question addresses the extent to which entrepreneurship assessments are competence based, and the research seeks to identify fully fledged assessment programmes with both a formative and summative component, and the use of assessment rubrics. It also explores the extent to which entrepreneurship competence is referred to in school documentation and later assessed, and the tools and strategies used for such assessment.

This case study is part of a larger European research project promoted by Cedefop; in Italy it focused on six selected vocational IVET and CVET programmes and apprenticeship schemes. It used a wide range of instruments to ensure triangulation and multiple perspectives: analysed policy documents and undertook online interviews with experts and policy makers. At VET providers' premises it deployed: analysis of school documents; observations of learning environments; interviews and focus groups with (in schools) teachers, directors and vice directors, learners and alumni (in companies) instructors, company tutors and employers, apprentices and alumni.

Assessment tasks were rarely embedded within fully fledged assessment programmes involving both formative and summative tasks, and assessment rubric for grading. Most of the time, entrepreneurship programmes lacked self-assessment, peer assessment and structured feedback and did not involve learners in the assessment process. Some instructors coached the students, but undertook no clear formative assessment. These findings suggest institutions have a testing culture with regard to assessment, at the level of both policy and practice. In most cases, entrepreneurship competence was not directly assessed, and learning outcomes were only loosely related to entrepreneurship.

One limitation concerned the selection of the VET providers: these were chosen not on a casual basis, but because they ran programmes that were relevant to the development of entrepreneurship competence.

At the policy level, there is a need for new guidelines on competence development and assessment in VET, guidelines that are more aligned with educational research on competence development. To ensure the development of entrepreneurship competence, educators need in-service training and a community of practice.

So far, the literature has concentrated on entrepreneurship education at the tertiary level. Little is known about how VET instructors assess entrepreneurship competence. This study updates the picture of policy and practice in Italy, illustrating how entrepreneurship competence is developed in selected IVET and CVET programmes and apprenticeships.

The purpose of this study is to examine the moderating effect of the reflective practice of business students on how it helps to develop their employability skills through various university strategies.

The study employed a simple random sample to select undergraduate level 400 students from the Universities under study (the University of Ghana, University of Professional Studies Ghana, Lancaster University Ghana and Webster University Ghana). Only final-year students with an informed judgement on the reflective practice and various institutional practices to acquire graduate employability skills were participated. The independent variables of the study are institutional strategies (curriculum design, extra curriculum, work-integrated learning, career development centre, university collaboration with the industry, student engagement, internship job placement), the moderator is the reflective practice and the dependent variable of the study is graduate employability.

The study found that the moderation role of reflective practice had a significant effect on institutional strategies (extracurriculum, career development centre, university collaboration with the industry, student engagement and internship job placement) and graduate employability.

The study was limited to only undergraduate business students from four universities ignoring other disciplines and postgraduate students.

The practical implication is that reflective practice must be an integral tool for various universities if they want students to use their strategies to sharpen their employability skills.

The social implications of the study emphasise the reflective practice of graduate students in universities. This implies that firms and other institutions must consider reflective practice for the maximum output of their employees.

The concept of employability is a bit complex as it concerns many stakeholders of the educational process; the students, academic staff, employers, policymakers and higher education; the private sector; and the government. Although examining students' employability development skills is of great importance, students' reflective practice tends to be overlooked in most studies. Therefore, the focus of this study examines how the reflective practice of graduate students promotes employability through the various university strategies, which had not been considered.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an example of how universities can develop unique synchronous educational opportunities to engage students in an online environment, especially since study abroad opportunities have slowed or halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

Two affiliated universities, in the United States and Scotland, selected a simulated root cause analysis (RCA) of a medical error for a collaborative activity.

Together the students analyzed the event within assumed roles of healthcare professions in a systematic way using the “Swiss Cheese Model,” identified opportunities for improvement, debriefed using the Promoting Excellence and Reflective Learning in Simulation (PEARLS) method and submitted a reflective assignment. The RCA resulted in several process improvement suggestions and positive feedback from the participants.

The approach was for graduate students from two affiliated universities, in the United States and Scotland, to simulate a RCA of a medical error as a collaborative activity.

This example using simulation of healthcare roles demonstrates the application of international collaboration, problem-solving models and methodologies and recognition of the similarities and differences between the United Kingdom and the United States approaches to patient safety. Especially with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the students' ability to internationally collaborate can be limited without such unique opportunities.

The students were provided with a side-by-side comparison of the patient safety efforts in each country and written and didactic material about an RCA and the Swiss cheese model.

Students come from different perspectives of health services administration, nursing and nursing leadership from Scotland and the United States to solve patient safety problems.

This research investigates the critical role of data governance (DG) in shaping a data-driven culture (DDC) within organizations, recognizing the transformative potential of data utilization for efficiency, opportunities, and productivity. The study delves into the influence of DG on DDC, emphasizing the mediating effect of data literacy (DL).

The study empirically assesses 125 experienced managers in Indonesian public service sector organizations using a quantitative approach. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis was chosen to examine the impact of DG on DDC and the mediating effects of DL on this relationship.

The findings highlight that both DG and DL serve as antecedents to DDC, with DL identified as a crucial mediator, explaining a significant portion of the effects between DG and DDC.

Beyond unveiling these relationships, the study discusses practical implications for organizational leaders and managers, emphasizing the need for effective policies and strategies in data-driven decision-making.

This research fills an important research gap by introducing an original model and providing empirical evidence on the dynamic interplay between DG, DL, and DDC, contributing to the evolving landscape of data-driven organizational cultures.

This paper aims to depart from the premise that human capital investments and human capital outcomes are often tacit – an aspect, which is often neglected in the current literature on entrepreneurial human capital. The idea of this conceptual paper is to shed light on the social process of how human capital investments and human capital outcomes can be valued and made visible through the validation of prior learning. Thus, this study conceptualises the validation of prior learning as a post hoc, the reflective process through which an aspiring entrepreneur is guided.

This paper is conceptual and introduces a process model.

Findings indicate that the process of the validation of prior learning is well-suitable to inform aspiring entrepreneurs of their investments into human capital and their human capital outcomes. The process results in a (partial) certified qualification that provides entrepreneurial legitimacy.

Thus far, the model is conceptual and should be validated via interviews and further empirical studies in the field.

Literature in the field of entrepreneurial human capital suggests that human capital outcomes are more important for success than inputs. Furthermore, context-specific knowledge, skills and abilities are more important than generalised outcomes. These findings have implications for the design of validation procedures.

Human capital has only been recently conceptualised as consisting of human capital investments and outcomes of human capital investment. However, thus far the literature falls short in acknowledging the tacit nature of human capital investments and human capital outcomes. This paper contributes a structured process of how human capital investments and human capital outcomes are linked and assessed. In so doing, this study extends a recent model of human capital investments and outputs (Marvel et al., 2016, p. 616).

This study aims to explore the alignment between strategic plans of the Portuguese public higher education institutions (HEIs) and their perception of the integration of sustainability in education and curricula.

The strategic plans from 15 institutions were selected for content analysis; data about the integration of sustainability in education and curricula, from these HEI, were collected with an online questionnaire (self-report survey). Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed.

Strategic plans of the Portuguese public HEIs seem to not be sufficiently aligned with self-assessment integration of sustainability in education and curricula.

The classifications used in the content analysis were constructed and revised by the authors to reduce coder interpretation issues and subsequent bias in the results. However, some subjectivity could remain. The analysis of strategic plans and self-report surveys answered by top management, or a technician, does not assess the practices and sustainability implementation in education and curricula.

This study allows the self-report of already-implemented practices to be compared to the planned strategy of HEI governance in Portugal as stated in their strategic plans.

An analysis and respective insights on the lack of connection between strategic planning and self-report practices about sustainability implementation, using Portugal as a case study.

The research aims to discuss technical and vocational students' long-term and complete evaluation of learning effectiveness under school-wide thematic teaching design.

This study adopted a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach to measure the learning effectiveness of thematic teaching in technical vocational schools using the Kirkpatrick model. Qualitative research conducted in-depth interviews with 32 interviewees, including students, parents, teachers, graduate alumni and the supervisors of off-campus internship units. Quantitative research conducted a questionnaire survey on vocational students. A total of 221 valid questionnaires were collected. In addition, this research conducts another quantitative survey on cooperative enterprises to compare the actual effect of the implementation of the school-wide thematic teaching students with the others, and a total of 35 valid questionnaires were collected.

The results of the research found that the effectiveness of thematic teaching method can achieve the expected goals of each level of Kirkpatrick model. The students taking thematic teaching are significantly better and fitting in the industry expects. Therefore, this research suggests the comprehensive introduction of school-wide thematic teaching to other school operators.

This research is the first study used the Kirkpatrick model to evaluate the effectiveness of school-wide thematic teaching design in hospitality education and providing a practical case for schools. This research combined qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate the effectiveness of the teaching method through multiple perspectives. Through the feedback from supervisors of the hospitality industry, the school-wide thematic teaching design provides a good foundation for technical and vocational graduates.

Research reveals that the built environment graduates are not matching the needs of the 21st century construction industry. Evidence shows that the built environment academics (BEA) struggle to reskill and upskill to meet the industry's demand. Studies about Nigeria's BEA's perceived barriers in meeting the 21st-century industry demands are scarce. Thus, the paper investigated the perceived barriers and measures to improve BEA in Nigeria's 21st-century world of teaching. The outcome intends to enhance teaching practices and increase employability in the built environment disciplines.

Data were sourced from elite virtual interviews across Nigeria. The participants were well informed about Nigeria's built environment education and the possible barriers hindering 21st-century teaching from improving employable graduates in the built environment professionals (BEP). The researchers adopted a thematic analysis for the collected data and supplemented the data with secondary sources.

The study shows that BEA needs to improve BEA's teaching mechanism. Improving BEA will enable the built environment graduates to meet the minimum standards expected by the 21st-century industry. Findings categorised the perceived 22 barriers facing BEA into internal stakeholders-related barriers, external stakeholders-related barriers, and common barriers. Also, findings proffered practicable measures to improve BEA in the workplace via improved industry collaboration and technological advancement.

The research is restricted to the perceived barriers and measures to improve BEA in 21st-century teaching in Nigeria via a qualitative research design. Future research should validate the results and test the paper's proposed framework.

The paper confirms that the BEA requires stakeholder collaboration and technological advancement measures to improve teaching in the 21st century, leading to enhanced employability graduates. The paper would stir major stakeholders, especially BEA, and advance the quality of employable graduates in the Nigerian built environment professions.

The thematic network and proposed framework could be employed to stimulate Nigeria's BEA for better service delivery. This intends to create an enabling environment that will enhance stakeholders' collaboration and technological advancement for the BEA to produce better employable graduates in the 21st century.