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1 – 10 of over 1000
Article
Publication date: 18 July 2019

Hooman Doosti, Kourosh Fathi Vajargah, Abasalt Khorasani and Saied Safaee Movahed

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyze the dominant discourses of the workplace curriculum in Iranian organizations.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyze the dominant discourses of the workplace curriculum in Iranian organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

The research data were collected through in-depth interviews with 30 professionals working in the field of workplace curriculum in three groups of consultants, managers and experts who were selected purposefully and with a theoretical sampling strategy. To analyze the data, thematic analysis method was used. The themes are extracted and categorized into three phases, namely, descriptive coding, interpretive coding and determination of overarching theme. To validate the data, collaborative research technique, member checking and researcher review and, to make sure of findings’ reliability, reliability index between two coders were used.

Findings

Based on the findings, the kind of planner’s look at the workplace curriculum commonplaces will shape the nature of the curriculum and in terms of this look define and redefine the workplace curriculum discourses. Therefore, based on perceptions and attitudes in these areas, 11 different discourses are recognizable from the workplace curriculum. These include suppression discourse, justification discourse, ceremonial/ formality discourse, administrative discourse, engineering discourse, economical discourse, psychological discourse, partnership discourse, research discourse, developmental discourse and, finally, multi-cultural discourse.

Practical implications

The common goal of all learning professionals in the workplace is to play the role of a strategic partner, or at least be a good partner for the organization. One of the main challenges of learning and development professionals in the workplace is increase in integration and alignment between learning programs and developmental opportunities with business organization strategies. Achieving this important goal is possible when we have a proper understanding of the current situation and condition. Various situations and conditions are identified and described in the form of 11 discourses. If the authors do not look at the context and proper understanding of the main concepts – The main concepts of each discourse are put into a quill – in which any discourse that was created, the authors will not be able to make the appropriate strategies. A good doctor will hear and understand well before the first thing.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the few studies that offer a variety of discourses for the workplace curriculum.

Details

Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 31 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-5626

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2003

Michelle Wallace

The National Training Reform Agenda (NTRA) (1989‐1996) was the first iteration of a series of reforms designed to make the Australian workforce more skilled, efficient and…

Abstract

The National Training Reform Agenda (NTRA) (1989‐1996) was the first iteration of a series of reforms designed to make the Australian workforce more skilled, efficient and productive. This paper critically examines how women became “(un)known” in these policy texts in relation to work and training. It also examines contemporaneous practices in some workplaces that assigned certain work identities to women and examines how the women resisted or acquiesced to these assigned identities within the discursive field of the workplace. Comparisons of the positioning effects of policy and workplace practices are made and an argument is presented regarding the marginalisation of women within seemingly benign policy discourses and organisational practices.

Details

Equal Opportunities International, vol. 22 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0261-0159

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 December 2018

Marcelle Harran and Howard William Theunissen

In 2004, the Council for Higher Education (CHE) required a curriculum responsiveness to the teaching and learning of literacies at the programme level, which needed to be…

300

Abstract

Purpose

In 2004, the Council for Higher Education (CHE) required a curriculum responsiveness to the teaching and learning of literacies at the programme level, which needed to be addressed across all disciplines. This study aims to describe a situated higher education (HE) collaboration project between mechanical engineering and the Department of Applied Language Studies (DALS) at Nelson Mandela University from 2010 to 2014. The collaboration project aimed to develop the literacies levels of engineering students, reduce the first-year attrition rate and prepare engineering students to meet the high graduate attribute expectations of a competitive workplace amid employer concerns that engineering graduate communication competencies were lacking and insufficient.

Design/methodology/approach

The collaboration study used a mixed-method approach, which included student and lecturer questionnaires, as well as an interview with one engineering lecturer to determine his perceptions of the collaboration practices instituted. As the sample was purposeful, two mechanical engineer lecturers and 32 second-year mechanical engineering students from 2012 to 2013 were selected as the study’s participants, as they met the study’s specific needs. From the questionnaire responses and transcribed interview data, codes were identified to describe the themes that emerged, namely, rating the collaboration practices, attitudes to the course, report feedback provided and report template use.

Findings

Most of the student participants viewed the collaboration practices positively and identified their attitude as “positive” and “enthusiastic” to the language/engineering report collaboration initiative. The report feedback practices were viewed as improving writing skills and enabling the students to relate report writing practices to workplace needs. The engineering lecturers also found that the collaboration practices were enabling and improved literacy levels, although time was identified as a constraint. During the four-year collaboration period, the language practitioner increasingly gained report content knowledge, as well as unpacking the specific rhetorical structures required to produce the report text by co-constructing knowledge with the mechanical engineering lecturers.

Research limitations/implications

Studies have shown that language practitioners and discipline lecturers need to change their conceptualisation of academic discourses as generic transferable skills and autonomous bodies of knowledge. Little benefit is derived from this model, least of all for the students who grapple with disciplinary forms of writing and the highly technical language of engineering. Discipline experts often tend to conflate understandings of language, literacy and discourse, which lead to simplistic understandings of how students may be inducted into engineering discourses. Therefore, spaces to nurture and extend language practitioner and discipline-expert collaborations are needed to embed the teaching and learning of discipline-specific literacies within disciplines.

Practical implications

For the collaboration project, the language practitioner and mechanical engineering lecturers focused their collaboration on discussing and negotiating the rhetorical and content requirements of the Design 3 report as a genre. To achieve the goal of making tacit knowledge and discourse explicit, takes time and effort, so without the investment of time and buy-in, interaction would not be sustained, and the collaboration would have been unproductive. As a result, the collaboration project required regular meetings, class visits and negotiations, as well as a language of description so that the often tacit report discourse conventions and requirements could be mutually understood and pedagogically overt to produce “legitimate texts” (Luckett, 2012 p. 19).

Social implications

In practice, peer collaboration is often a messy, complex and lengthy process, which requires systematic and sustained spaces to provide discourse scaffolding so that the criteria for producing legitimate design reports are not opaque, but transparent and explicit pedagogically. The study also describes the organisational circumstances that generated the collaboration, as establishing and sustaining a collaborative culture over time requires planning, on-going dialogic spaces, as well as support and buy-in at various institutional levels to maintain the feasibility of the collaboration practice.

Originality/value

Literacy and discourse collaboration tends to reduce role differentiation amongst language teachers and specialists, which results in shared expertise for problem-solving that could provide multiple solutions to literacy and discourse learning issues. This finding is important, especially as most studies focus on collaboration practices in isolation, whilst fewer studies have focused on the process of collaboration between language practitioners and disciplinary specialists as has been described in this study.

Details

Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, vol. 17 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1726-0531

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 October 2020

Tessa Withorn, Joanna Messer Kimmitt, Carolyn Caffrey, Anthony Andora, Cristina Springfield, Dana Ospina, Maggie Clarke, George Martinez, Amalia Castañeda, Aric Haas and Wendolyn Vermeer

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography…

8479

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2019.

Findings

The paper provides a brief description of all 370 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

Originality/value

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

Details

Reference Services Review, vol. 48 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 April 2018

Alexandra Kendall and Amanda French

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the outcomes of an Higher Education Academy funded project, Literacies for Employability (L4E) to contribute to discussion of the interface…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the outcomes of an Higher Education Academy funded project, Literacies for Employability (L4E) to contribute to discussion of the interface between university learning and workplace settings and the focus on employability that dominates the English context. The paper will be of interest to colleagues from any discipline who have an interest in critical (re)readings of employability and practical ways of engaging student in ethnographic approaches to understanding workplace practices, particularly those with an interest in professional, work-based, or placement learning.

Design/methodology/approach

L4E is grounded in social theories of communication from Sociology and Education that understands literacy as a complex social activity embedded in domains of practice. These ideas recognise workplaces as domains that are highly distinctive and diverse contexts for literacy (rather than generic or standard) and that to be successful in particular workplace settings students must be attuned to, and adaptive and fluent in, the nuanced literacy practices of that workplace. However, evidence suggests (Lea and Stierer, 2000) that HE students (and teachers) rarely experience overt teaching about literacy in general or workplace literacies in particular.

Findings

This project developed a framework to scaffold and support this process across the disciplines so that students can develop the attitudes and behaviours they will need to be successful in the workplace.

Originality/value

The approach chimes with recommendations from Pegg et al. (2012) that employability is most effectively developed through a focus on more expansive, reflexive approaches to learning and through “raising confidence […] self-esteem and aspirations” (Pegg et al., 2012, p. 9).

Details

Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, vol. 8 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-3896

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 2000

Gail E. FitzSimons

Seeks to address issues associated with lifelong learning from the perspective of teaching and curriculum practice in the areas of mathematics and technology in an Australian…

1190

Abstract

Seeks to address issues associated with lifelong learning from the perspective of teaching and curriculum practice in the areas of mathematics and technology in an Australian pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprise. Its aim is to reflect on research‐based innovative course delivery in the field specified to indicate possibilities in education for lifelong learning. Following discussion of lifelong learning, issues important to the industry will be outlined. A brief description is given of some nationally accredited curricular modules for operators in this industry. In particular, the mathematics modules were perceived by operators as discouraging and even threatening. However, it was, and is, possible to work around atomised modules such as these to operate more holistically to integrate workers’ breadth and depth of prior experience across a broadened view of curriculum in a manner that enhances rather than hinders lifelong learning.

Details

Education + Training, vol. 42 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0040-0912

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 February 2013

Peter Bryant, Adesola Akinleye and Alan Durrant

Using data drawn from two cohorts of learners studying the Bachelor of Arts (Professional Practice) programme at Middlesex University, the purpose of this paper is to critically…

429

Abstract

Purpose

Using data drawn from two cohorts of learners studying the Bachelor of Arts (Professional Practice) programme at Middlesex University, the purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the effectiveness of work based learning in improving the skills bases of early career arts professionals in the twenty‐first century and to explore the changing place and role of “traditional” concepts of knowledge and teaching.

Design/methodology/approach

This study utilised a collaborative action research approach in order to categorise and theorise the themes that have emerged from the practice of delivering the programme, and to provide data that informed the on‐going curriculum development.

Findings

The study identified three emerging themes in terms of the role of knowledge attainment for the early career arts professional undertaking work based learning. First, knowledge attainment processes shift from a push model to a pull model, second the authors noted a change in the inequalities in knowledge attainment facilitated by the use of the web 2.0 platforms and third it is argued that there are recognisable differences in the value and use of experientially gain knowledge in the establishing and in the established practitioner. The study then suggests changes that may occur in terms of curriculum design, delivery and pedagogy to support establishing arts professionals through a work based learning programme.

Originality/value

There is a limited research discourse on the authenticity of the use of work based learning with early career professionals. Further, the study of this emerging cohort for work based learning programmes at Middlesex University points to a wider discourse in terms of positioning work based learning in volunteer environments, third sector and other creative industries contexts where the notion of work is challenged and the connection of learning to practice less firmly set in the established identity of a workplace.

Details

Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, vol. 3 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-3896

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 May 2007

Diego Machado Ardenghi, Wolff‐Michael Roth and Lilian Pozzer‐Ardenghi

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the transitions practitioners undergo as they move from dental school to their first job in a dental clinic and their learning in the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the transitions practitioners undergo as they move from dental school to their first job in a dental clinic and their learning in the workplace. The paper aims to investigate their use of ethical principles as they engage in practice, providing a theoretical explanation for the gap practitioners experience when moving from the school to the workplace, and also suggesting some viable alternatives for dental education.

Design/methodology/approach

The database for this study consists of videotaped interviews with dentists. To analyze our data we followed the principles of interaction analysis, analyzing the data both individually and collectively, until some hypotheses were generated. Then, discourse analysis was used to analyze the interviews.

Findings

From an activity theoretical perspective, the results show that dentists can and do learn ethical principles when working in their dental clinics, interacting with patients, and the findings and suggestions are of especial interest for curriculum planning and development in educational institutions.

Practical implications

This study suggests that theoretical discussions about ethics are not enough to provide practitioners with the skills necessary to work ethically when interacting with patients. From the findings a complementary approach to teach ethics in dental schools is suggested.

Originality/value

Workplace learning has become a preferred topic within many disciplines, such as, for example, sociology, education, and anthropology. However, although there is an established field of medical sociology, little if any attention on workplace learning has been paid to the health sciences in general and dentistry in particular.

Details

Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 19 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-5626

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 June 2017

Jacqueline Manuel and Don Carter

This paper provides a critical interpretative analysis of the first secondary English syllabus for schools in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, contained within the Courses for

Abstract

Purpose

This paper provides a critical interpretative analysis of the first secondary English syllabus for schools in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, contained within the Courses for Study for High Schools (New South Wales Department of Public Instruction, 1911). The purpose of the paper is to examine the “continuities that link English curriculum discourses and practices with previous discourses and practices” in the rhetorical curriculum. The analysis identifies those aspects of the 1911 English syllabus that have since become normative and challenges the appropriateness of certain enduring orthodoxies in a twenty-first century context.

Design/methodology/approach

Focussing on a landmark historical curriculum document from 1911, this paper draws on methods of historical comparative and documentary analysis. It sits within the tradition of historical curriculum research that critiques curriculum documents as a primary source for understanding continuities of discourses and practices. A social constructionist approach informs the analysis.

Findings

The conceptualisation of subject English evident in the structure, content and emphases of the 1911 English syllabus encodes a range of “discourses and practices” that have in some form endured or been “reconstituted and remade” (Cormack, 2008, p. 275) over the course of a century. The analysis draws attention to those aspects of the subject that have remained unproblematised and taken-for-granted, and the implications of this for universal student participation and attainment.

Originality/value

This paper reorients critical attention to a significant historical curriculum document that has not, to date, been explored against the backdrop twenty-first century senior secondary English curriculum. In doing so, it presents extended insights into a range of now normative structures, beliefs, ideas, assumptions and practices and questions the potential impact of these on student learning, access and achievement in senior secondary English in NSW in the twenty-first century.

Details

History of Education Review, vol. 46 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0819-8691

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 1 June 2016

Andrew Thomas, Casey Piquette and David McMaster

Whilst English remains the language of global commerce, the role and outcomes of English language provision in English-medium higher education institutions in the Arab Gulf…

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Abstract

Whilst English remains the language of global commerce, the role and outcomes of English language provision in English-medium higher education institutions in the Arab Gulf countries remains central to any discussion on graduate profile and the employability of graduates in the global marketplace. This paper describes the findings of research into English workplace communication skills amongst a sample of Bahrain employers and students at Bahrain Polytechnic. Using a mixed methods approach, data was gathered through telephone interviews, student workplace simulations and employer focus groups. Findings show that generic employability skills, channelled through English as a second or additional language, are highly valued by Bahrain’s employers. In particular, students need to market themselves as confident, knowledgeable individuals during the recruitment process and after recruitment, continuing to operate successfully in the sociolinguistic culture of their company. Consequently, it is concluded that English language training in higher education programmes needs to move from purely linguistic and degree-related content areas to a broader remit of English for communication purposes that covers both specialised discourse fields and broader generic employability skills and competencies.

Details

Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives, vol. 13 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2077-5504

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