Michaela Brockmann, Linda Clarke and Christopher Winch
Though the notion of competence is common terminology in European VET policy at national and supra‐national level, understandings vary widely, both across countries and within…
Abstract
Purpose
Though the notion of competence is common terminology in European VET policy at national and supra‐national level, understandings vary widely, both across countries and within. The particular conceptions of competence adopted in the EQF are themselves problematic and the framework allows for a variety of interpretations. The purpose of this paper is to clarify those applied in the EQF and the vocational education and qualifications systems of particular European countries and to contribute to the development of a transnational understanding of the term, one which is compatible with a rapidly changing labour market.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on evidence from work funded by the Nuffield Foundation entitled “Cross‐national Equivalence of Vocational Skills and Qualifications”, the paper explores the various conceptions of competence in the EQF and the national systems – in particular in the sectors of construction, ICT and health – of England, Germany, France and The Netherlands.
Findings
Interpretations are located on a continuum from the comprehensive occupational model traditionally found in many European countries to the task‐focused model of the English NVQ system.
Research limitations/implications
Much developmental work involving all stakeholders is necessary to arrive at a commonly agreed conception. A broad understanding of competence would relate to the potential of labour, itself determined through the occupational capacity embodied in the qualification.
Practical implications
Zones of Mutual Trust need to be based on transnational categories of VET.
Originality/value
The value of the paper is in seeking to go beyond identifying differences by developing transnational categories and suggesting the nature of Zones of Mutual Trust for implementing the EQF.
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Michaela Brockmann, Linda Clarke and Christopher Winch
This paper aims to explain the distinction between educational standards and learning outcomes and to indicate the problems that potentially arise when a learning outcomes…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explain the distinction between educational standards and learning outcomes and to indicate the problems that potentially arise when a learning outcomes approach is applied to a qualification meta‐framework like the European Qualification Framework, or indeed to national qualification frameworks.
Design/methodology/approach
The methods used are documentary, political and conceptual analysis, with some reference to empirical work carried out in relation to other projects.
Findings
It is found that there are substantial differences between learning outcomes and standards with large educational and political implications. Furthermore, the “pure” form of learning outcomes approach contains a design flaw, which makes its coherent implementation problematic.
Research limitations/implications
The stimulation of further research on learning outcomes based approaches to qualifications and the problems that arise in their implementation.
Practical implications
The EU needs to think carefully about the fitness for purpose of the current descriptors for EQF and whether or not it is desirable to move away from a pure outcome‐based approach to qualification frameworks and meta‐frameworks.
Originality/value
As far as the authors are aware, this is the first paper to draw attention to this distinction.
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Interviewing minority ethnic older people can seem daunting. It is easy for stereotypical views of minority ethnic groups and of older people to lead to pathologising approaches…
Abstract
Interviewing minority ethnic older people can seem daunting. It is easy for stereotypical views of minority ethnic groups and of older people to lead to pathologising approaches being adopted unwittingly. This article attempts to illuminate several key aspects of conducting interviews with such population groups by drawing partially on the experience of working on a Growing Older project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council of Britain. This project looked at the social network and social support of older people from different ethnic groups in Britain and the relationship between these and their quality of life. The research instrument comprised both structured and unstructured components. Interviews were conducted by a multi‐ethnic team of interviewers speaking a range of community languages. By focussing attention on the interactional nature of interviewing, this article explicates the process of conducting research. Issues pertaining to the choice of language, the use of interpreters, ethnic matching of interviewers and interviewees, the use of standardised instruments and the interview itself as a tool for data‐generation are examined. This article contends that a reflexive approach to methodology can lead to a more robust approach to data by confronting the practical, methodological and ethical issues encountered in doing research with such population groups. The issues raised are not merely in terms of ‘white’ researchers working with ‘non‐white’ respondents, but relate to the improvement of research practice in general regardless of the ethnic background of researcher and respondent.
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Sabrina Edeling and Matthias Pilz
The purpose of this paper is to use teaching and learning units specially devised for development of self-competencies and social competencies in the retail sector to explore how…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to use teaching and learning units specially devised for development of self-competencies and social competencies in the retail sector to explore how learners assess these units in relation to acceptance, quality and self-assessment of improvement in their own performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The study focuses on Poland, Italy and Germany, with a total of 1,020 learners undergoing initial vocational training in the retail sector taking part.
Findings
The findings point to high levels of acceptance by participants and to significant appreciation of the quality of the teaching and learning units. Learners also perceived a marked improvement in their performance after completing the units. Differences in outcomes between individual countries can be explained at least in part by the differing training framework in each country.
Research limitations/implications
The approach did not enable the authors adequately to evaluate the increase in learners’ competencies: participants’ self-assessment is of only limited value for this purpose. Moreover, only three countries were involved in the study. This area in particular will require substantial further research if reliable methods for evaluating competencies are to be developed that improve on the current instruments.
Originality/value
The pedagogical objective of the project was to develop teaching and learning materials that would accelerate the development of self- and social competencies in the retail sector. The aim was that the material should be capable of use right across a range of European countries and be evaluated in a proper way. The findings are based on a very high number of involved students. Also the results are positive and enable teachers in VET-courses to use well tested teaching materials.
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Mogens Frank Mikkelsen and Kirsi Aaltonen
Project complexity has been researched much. The majority of publication is searching for law-like relations or development of descriptive frameworks. More prescriptive knowledge…
Abstract
Purpose
Project complexity has been researched much. The majority of publication is searching for law-like relations or development of descriptive frameworks. More prescriptive knowledge is needed to guide the project managers in navigating the project complexity in project managers' pursuit of success. Identifying the complexities of a given project is a real-world problem for project managers (Mikkelsen et al., 2021). The purpose of the paper is to investigate the research of prescriptive knowledge on the management of project complexity.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a longitudinally case study, this paper uses Action Design Research (Sein et al., 2011) (ADR) to research the management of project stakeholder complexity. ADR is a variation of action research (AR) with inspiration from design science (Hevner et al., 2004) where an artifact is designed to solve a real-world problem. In this case study, an information system was configured in collaboration with the project managers of the recipient organization.
Findings
The findings from the research project are presented using the affordance theory (Gibson, 1977) as a framing concept and give special attention the affordance perception (Pozzi et al., 2014). Among the project managers, who were very engaged in the co-design, the majority refrained from activating the information system and got the outside view from the stakeholders. Interviews afterward identified “fear of bad project ratings from the stakeholder” as the main course of resistance to deploy the surveying information system.
Originality/value
The paper contributes on two levels. The paper presents a novel approach to researching project complexity based on engaging the stakeholder in generating a common perception of the ongoing state of the projects. The paper also contributes insights into reasons for reluctance on the part of the participants (the project managers) of the recipient organization and hereby adds to the understanding of the organizational change aspect of AR in the research of project management. The paper concludes with the identified benefits of using ADR in research on project complexity management and gives recommendations for future research.