Search Results for
"Vocational education"

Employability skills are increasingly recognized as essential for empowering young people particularly in developing countries where youth unemployment poses a significant challenge. This study explored the experiences of youth engaged in community-based skills acquisition programs, specifically focusing on their development of employability skills, perceived relevance, and the factors influencing their successful acquisition. 15 youths who finished their program participated in focus groups and interviews. To ascertain important issues pertaining to communitybased skills acquisition as it relates to employability skills, a thematic analysis was performed. The analysis identified three central themes, 12 sub-themes and two subsubthemes based on the research questions. This paper provides a comprehensive examination of the program as it related to the development of employability skills. offering insights for vocational skill training, training institutions, instructors and master craftsmen, educational institutions, and youths students seeking to acquire practical skills. © 2025 by IGI Global Scientific Publishing. All rights reserved.

Purpose: This study aims to comprehend vocational preservice teachers' recalled experiences with the Cooperative Problem-based Learning (CPBL) pedagogical approach in an entrepreneurship course and to reveal how these experiences will impact their future teaching practice. The course under study intends to improve preservice teachers' entrepreneurial attitudes while equipping them with the skills necessary to create a comparable teaching strategy at school after graduation. Design/methodology/approach: This study used the semi-structured interview data to triangulate the qualitative data collected from the students' reflection journals. The data were thematically analyzed whereas the codes with comparable elements were combined, resulting in themes that describe the relevance of scaffolding used with each component of the MUSIC motivational model. Findings: The results revealed that the student teachers who took part in the research stated in their comments how the scaffolds used in the CPBL sessions impacted their learning. Additionally, they could articulate the experiences that strengthened their perceptions regarding entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship education. Practical implications: By implementing scaffolded CPBL in entrepreneurship course during the teacher preparation program, the preservice teachers would be able to put a similar approach into the practice of their future teaching profession in guiding students to accomplish instructional outcomes. Originality/value: This study highlights the importance of providing more innovative practices for entrepreneurship education across teacher preparation curricula to help develop the skills necessary for entering the future profession. The findings also emphasize the value of scaffolding in PBL, including expert, peer and activity design scaffolding. It also completes the body of research indicating that PBL-based entrepreneur education instruction can help students develop their entrepreneurial skills and attitudes while also providing a great chance to improve their teaching abilities. © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited.

By determining the elements that impact VR technology adoption, teachers can create plans to raise student engagement and improve learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is to determine the elements that contribute to the effective use of virtual reality (VR) technology by vocational education students, allowing them to acquire information and skills relevant to the sector and become workforce ready. The research data was collected utilizing a quantitative surveybased methodology with a questionnaire. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is used in this study from the perspective of students pursuing vocational higher education. Data for this study was gathered in June 2023 using an online questionnaire involving 100 vocational students from the Faculty of Engineering from reputable universities in the Province of West Sumatra, Indonesia. The research data was analyzed using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). This study found that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived enjoyment had a significant and positive indirect effect (through intervening variables) on the vocational students' behavior and intention to use VR in learning process. These factors can be considered when determining the appropriate virtual reality to be implemented in the learning process and ensuring its use at the appropriate time and environment. © 2025 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.

The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China made a significant and far-reaching strategic plan for rural revitalization and clarified the core position and key role of rural revitalization in building a well-off society in an all-round way and building a strong socialist modern country. As the country’s reserve talent training base and the source of technological innovation, higher vocational colleges bear the historical responsibility of national progress and social development and shoulder the important mission of promoting rural revitalization and helping the country prosper. How to cultivate college students’ sense of responsibility and social mission and stimulate their innovative and entrepreneurial thinking is a key issue for higher vocational colleges to think about. Drawing upon the present landscape of innovation and entrepreneurship education within higher vocational institutions, this article delves into the strategic positioning of such education within the broader context of rural revitalization endeavors, explores the interplay between innovative entrepreneurship education within higher vocational institutions and the revitalization strategy of rural areas, grounded in theoretical foundations. It establishes a conceptual framework for analyzing this connection, aimed at bolstering the cultivation of rural revitalization talents through innovative and entrepreneurial education in vocational colleges. Furthermore, this investigation proposes practical approaches for implementing such education, with the ultimate aim of fostering the premium development of vocational education, thereby enhancing the overall quality of higher vocational educational institutions. © 2025 The Authors.

As vocational undergraduate students in China face increasing challenges in the job market, understanding the factors that shape their employment expectations is crucial. Psychological capital is considered a key factor influencing students’ career outlooks. This study aims to examine the relationship between psychological capital (PC) and employment expectations (EE), while exploring the mediating roles of educational flow experience (EFE) and active coping style (ACS) in this relationship. Based on positive psychology and career development theories, a theoretical model was constructed to understand how psychological capital affects employment expectations through the chain mediation of educational flow experience and active coping style. A sample of 693 vocational undergraduate students (316 males and 377 females) from a university in Guangdong Province participated in the study. Participants completed the Psychological Capital Scale (PCS), the Career Expectation Scale (CES), the Educational Flow Experience Scale (EduFlow-2), and the Coping Style Scale (CSS). Results indicate that higher levels of psychological capital significantly predict stronger employment expectations. Moreover, educational flow experience and active coping style both serve as significant mediators in the relationship between psychological capital and employment expectations, with a chain mediation effect also observed. These findings provide valuable insights into the psychological processes that influence career expectations among vocational undergraduates, highlighting the importance of fostering psychological capital and creating supportive learning environments to improve students’ employability. The results offer practical implications for educators and policymakers, suggesting that vocational institutions should integrate strategies to enhance psychological capital, promote educational flow experiences, and support active coping styles to better prepare students for the labor market. © 2025 Huang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Germany’s dual vocational education and Training (VET) system has been criticized for insufficient cooperation among vocational schools, companies, and inter-company training centers, limiting its potential to effectively relate theory with practice. Despite the issue’s ongoing relevance, recent research on Learning Location Cooperation (LLC) remains scarce. This study addresses the existing research gap by examining contemporary LLC dynamics through the lens of key stakeholders. A total of 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted across interconnected learning locations, with each of the five targeted occupations represented by an apprentice, vocational teacher, trainer, and inter-company trainer. The study design enabled participants, connected through the apprentices’ learning journeys, to discuss LLC phenomena from their unique viewpoints, facilitating an in-depth exploration of cooperation strategies, relationships, conditions for success or failure, and desired improvements. Findings reveal both similarities and differences in perceptions, highlight diverse barriers, and provide actionable recommendations to strengthen LLC. These insights are crucial for refining Germany’s VET system and offer valuable lessons for international contexts, where integrating theory and practice is essential for developing a skilled and adaptable workforce. Overall, the study underscores the importance of fostering deeper cooperation among learning locations to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of (vocational) education globally. © 2025 by the authors.

The paper raises important questions about the relationship between vocational education and Training (VET), work-based learning (WBL) and social justice. It adopts an analysis that moves beyond conceptualisations that validate WBL as an acknowledgement of the dignity of labour. It seeks to go beyond analyses that mobilise a conventional understanding of expansive learning. How then can we develop a broader understanding of WBL and VET? Such an understanding needs to acknowledge socio-economic contexts are marked by a fluidity and surplus labour and for many worklessness – what some have described as désoeuvrement. Labor can be an expression of our species being and can be found in unwaged work and the activities we engage in to express our humanity. Such labour is external to the oppressions and exploitation that are features of much waged labour. Is it then possible to conceive of an expansive notion of VET that goes beyond wage-based cultures of expansive learning towards a position that has embedded within it a commitment towards collective well-being, social justice and an understanding of the vocational that moves beyond a focus on waged labour and the interests of capital. © The Author(s) 2024.

vocational education in India has been gaining recognition and quality to bridge the wage gap between skills and employability. The relationship between vocational education and the wages in the Indian economy is complex and multifaceted. Skills mismatch, sectoral nuances, gender imbalances, and geographical factors contribute to the wage gap. This paper seeks to measure and quantify skills in the Indian economy by taking vocational education as a loose proxy of skills. The article tries to explain the current status of technical and vocational education in India critically analysing current skilling policy ecosystem. The paper also deals with wage gap analysis and locating wage inequality across sectors and occupations trying to find the extent of wage inequality in the Indian economy. Mincer regression analysis is conducted in the paper with two model analyses, that is Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Heckman Sample Selection Model, to check whether vocational education positively and significantly affects the wages of individuals in India. This paper reveals three conclusions, that is the duration of courses taught through vocational education is decreasing, the extent of wage inequality across occupations and across sectors over time is increasing in the Indian economy. Positive relationship between vocational education and wages existed in Indian economy from 2011–12 to 2017–18 and now relation shows insignificant results in 2023–24 which plausibly maybe due to influx of short-term courses. Skill development policies path taken by policymakers may prove problematic in the long run as the duration of skill development courses is decreasing, relationship with wages has become insignificant which would have a detrimental effect on the quality of the training offered in the case of India. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Indian Society of Labour Economics 2025.

The literature on vocational education and Training is more than six decades old. The current review provides a bibliometric analysis of the literature employing 447 Scopus-indexed documents from 1965 to 2023 in the subject area of “Economics, Econometrics and Finance”. This is the first attempt to analyze VET-related literature published in ABS-listed journals in Economics. We reveal the current trends and show that publications grew substantially after 2014. Four clusters were identified and the most important themes were found to be: “vocational education and skill formation”, “vocational training and labor market outcomes”, “human capital and economic growth” and “apprenticeship contracts and training costs”. Based on the current knowledge structure, we discuss future directions of research. © 2025, Oviedo University Press. All rights reserved.

This study develops and tests a questioning model aimed at enhancing interactive engagement in financial mathematics instruction within a single NC(V) Level 2 classroom. Grounded in formative assessment principles, the model incorporates structured and open-ended questions to foster procedural and conceptual understanding. The intervention used real-world financial scenarios like budgeting and loan repayments to make abstract concepts more relatable. Data were collected through classroom observations and a preparatory examination to evaluate student engagement and understanding. The findings indicate that consistent questioning fosters active participation, while higher-order questions promote critical thinking and real-world application. While performance improvements were noted, the primary focus was on engagement quality rather than academic outcomes. This study offers insights into how questioning strategies can enhance interactive learning in vocational education. Future research should expand the model to other subjects, gather student feedback, and integrate advanced digital tools for deeper interactivity. © 2025, City University of New York. All rights reserved.