Abstracts - Earli

Transitions in VET; the switch between pre- and secondary vocational educationEllen Klatter, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, NetherlandsVocational education in The Netherlands aims at several general goals. The improvement of thequality of future employees’ competencies (life long learning) and a decrease of the number ofdropouts. To facilitate students’ life long learning, they not only have to acquire vocationalcompetencies, but also learning competencies and develop professional attitudes. However, aimingat students’ life long learning, educational institutes for pre- and secondary vocational educationshould stream the curriculum content of their educational programmes, and adapt the didactical enpedagogical methods used, in order to facilitate the students continuing development ofcompetences during the transfer from pre- to secondary vocational education. In the Netherlands, aproject has started aiming at the development of a continuing learning arrangement in vocationaleducation in the branch of Metal/Metalektro. Therefore, 13 schools for primary and secondaryvocational education and their related companies participate in the project. Preceding the actualdevelopment of the learning materials, a preliminary research is organised among participants ofthe project to investigate their opinion about the status quo of the connection between primary andsecondary vocational education. For this purpose, a questionnaire was developed concerning fourdomains of learning: A) coaching for career planning, B) content of the curriculum, C) evaluationand judgement of the learning process, D) didactical/pedagogical methods. Additionally,secondary school students are asked about their experiences with respect to the transition from pretosecondary vocational education. Preliminary results of the questionnaire will be presented byfocussing on three research questions: How do students experience the actual learningenvironment with respect to the four domains mentioned? How do their teachers value the learningenvironment with respect to the four domains mentioned? What kind of improvements do theseparticipants mention on the four domains?Conceptions of teaching excellence held by reviewers of teaching awardsGraham Gibbs, University of Oxford, United KingdomKeith Trigwell, University of Sydney, AustraliaReviews of the operation of teaching award schemes in higher education suggest that they havemany operational flaws, especially in terms of the kinds of evidence that are made available byteachers to be judged by teaching award panels (MacDonald, 1998). However these are not simplypractical problems. To specify appropriate kinds of evidence to be reviewed, and to have alignedcriteria for making decisions about such evidence, requires that there is a coherent and alignednotion of what teaching excellence consists of. This paper reports part of a study in which theespoused model of teaching excellence of a wide variety of teaching award schemes in severalcountries, as evident in scheme documentation, was compared with the conceptions of teachingexcellence underpinning decisions about applications for awards made by award panel judges, andrelated to alternative conceptual models of teaching excellence (e.g. Trigwell, 2001). Interviewswere conducted with three panel judges from each of 10 university teaching award schemes in fourcountries. Judges’ conceptions of excellent teaching were elicited by discussion of individualapplications for awards that were successful or unsuccessful. Phenomenographic analysis wasundertaken on the interview transcripts. The paper will report the categories of conception ofteaching excellence held by the judges and highlight the degree of alignment of these conceptionswith the model of teaching excellence of the award schemes and the adequacy of the forms ofevidence submitted to be judged. The findings contribute to the literature on teachers’ conceptionsof teaching (Prosser et al 1994), teachers’ conceptions of excellent teaching (Parpala, 2005) andaward winning teachers’ conceptions of teaching (Dunkin and Precians, 1992) by describing– 241 –