Search

This study aimed to test the impact of augmented reality (AR) use on student achievement and self-efficacy in vocational education and training. For this purpose, a marker-based AR application, called HardwareAR, was developed. HardwareAR provides information about characteristics of hardware components, ports and assembly. The research design was quasi experimental with pre-test post-test that included a control group. The study was conducted with 46 undergraduate students in the Computer Hardware Course. Computer hardware course achievement test, motherboard assembly self-efficacy questionnaire and unstructured observation form were used in the study for data collection purposes. The control group learned the theoretical and applied information about motherboard assembly by using their textbooks (print material) while students in the experimental group used HardwareAR application for the same purpose. It was found that the use of AR had a positive impact on student achievement in motherboard assembly whereas it had no impact on students self-efficacy related to theoretical knowledge and assembly skills. On the other hand, use of AR helped learners to complete the assembly process in a shorter time with less support. It is concluded that compared to control group students, experimental group students were more successful in computer hardware courses. This result shows that AR application can be effective in increasing achievement. It was concluded that AR application had no effect on students motherboard assembly theoretical knowledge self-efficacy and motherboard assembly skills self-efficacy. This result may have been affected from the fact that students had high levels of theoretical knowledge and assembly skills before the implementation. Observations showed that AR application enabled students to assemble motherboard in a shorter time with less support. It is thought that simultaneous interaction between virtual objects and real world provided by the AR application is effective in reducing assembly time. The students who were able to see the process steps and instructions directly with the help of HardwareAR application could complete the assembly by getting less help. Considering these results, it can be argued that, thanks to simultaneous interaction it provides, AR offers an important alternative for topics that need learner application and practice. © 2018 European Research Network Vocational Education and Training. All rights reserved.

Context: The train of thoughts in this contribution is situated in the VET teacher training on an academic level, as it is usual in Germany. Key issue is the pedagogical qualification of the VET teachers and the question of how to give them possibilities to reflect their own biography, their interdependences to the actual cultural and economic environment and their way to choose the pathway to become a VET teacher. How to enable them to argue with their values, fears, strength and weaknesses in their life and especially in leading groups, as they will have to do in classroom management. And at least how to give them an idea of an emancipative, critical and participative way of forming learning situations in which they feel sure and lively to encourage the apprentices and learners in schools to act autonomic and critical in work and besides. This is necessary because of the changes in work and VET in the recent centuries with consequences for workers, learners and curricula as well as the contradictions in that process.Approach: The transformation and the liberalisation of markets and changes of work organisation, the enlargement of tasks in the occupations adds greater meaning to social knowledge and competences, the ability for teamwork and personal development in vocational education. To develop this ability Theme-Centered Interaction (TCI), as a humanistic-psychological approach is used and combined with Critical-Subject-Oriented Vocational Education Theory, inspired by the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. VET-teacher students learn in theory and practice to shape their own way to lead themselves and the pupils in the class and to reflect their activities in a critical way of thinking. The paper ends with brief description of seminar lectures with VET teacher students at the University of Rostock where TCI is practiced as one example how we can reach the objectives described before. Findings: The TCI-concept is helpful to set up better teamwork and self-reflection in the group of the learners. It’s a useful way to prepare them for their practical school phase in which TCI is used as reflection model as well.Key message: Universities as learning places in the tradition of enlightenment have to open up spaces in VET teacher development for domination-free communication and participatory learning within the framework of university studies, which can create a distance to a given social reality, enables students to dissociate from collectively developed goals to become critical formers of their working life and teaching.

International journal for research in vocational education and training 2 (2015) 1, S. 59-84, Demands related to the frequency of and time required for interactional tasks in everyday occupational routines are continuously growing. When it comes to qualifying a person’s ability to interact with others, two prototypical concepts are often used: social competences and emotional intelligence. In connection to discussions about curriculum standards in Germany, these are viewed as important attributes that should be taught, supported and if possible assessed in educational pathways toward an occupation (KMK, 2007). However, in looking for a generally approved and widely used definition, many problems arise on the inter-conceptual and intra-conceptual level, triggering implementation difficulties in educational curricula. This article highlights these difficulties by selecting five well-established key theories and comparing their communalities and differences. Analyzing definitions of intelligence, competences and skills, taking an action regulation perspective and highlighting the interdependence of social and emotional aspects, a structural system to facilitate the transfer into the educational context is proposed. (DIPF/Orig.)

International journal for research in vocational education and training 1 (2014) 2, S. 125-142, This paper depicts a study carried out in Rwanda concerning university students who participated in a contest to produce short documentary films. The purpose of this research is to conceptualize these kinds of technology-based learning projects (TBLPs) through a sociocultural perspective. The methodology included focus-group discussions and field notes to collect empirical data. The findings reveal that the more educational technologies capture objects of learning positioned in the students’ sociocultural proximity, the more focused the learners’ attention is on these objects. The study shows also that a change in learning projects may depend to a large extent on whether the technology relates to the students’ sociocultural proximity, that is, taking into consideration students’ physical, cultural, and contextual real world. The study recommends a community of learning/inquiry embedded in a collaborative, problem-solving dynamic involving cognitive support from peers, teachers, external specialists, and the wider community. (DIPF/orig.)

International journal for research in vocational education and training 2 (2015) 3, S. 182-194, This article explores teachers and trainers didactical practices in different contexts in Norwegian VET: schools and workplaces. With the introduction of e-resources and e-portfolios in VET, learners as well as teachers and trainers experience a more hybrid learning-arena, which claims for a recontextualization of vocational didactics as well as re-defining roles and responsibilities of the actors. The article discuss new forms of boundary crossing, dealing with e-portfolios as boundary objects, increasing learner autonomy, transformative learning outcomes, interaction between actors and designing learning processes in hybrid learning-arenas. Vocational didactics as understood in a teacher-training context are challenged by more actors and new forms of interactivity with technological tools crossing sites. The study is based on a longitudinal study in a national project on quality assessment, interviews with teachers and trainers as well as apprenticeship training offices supported by documentary evidence from three trades: sales, plumbing and industrial mechanics. (DIPF/Orig.)

International journal for research in vocational education and training 2 (2015) 3, S. 170-181, Our contribution attempts to review the development of the field of didactics in Spain in the past 35 years and its contribution to the development and improvement of vocational education and training. We intend to show that the concern of didactics is an issue of great concern (and dispute) in Southern Europe, for which we will use Spain as an example. We will particularly analyse from a didactical approach (taking didactics as a normative applied discipline well established in academia) the possibilities that a traditionally school-based discipline has to improve the development of vocational education practice in and out of schools, for young and adult people, in terms of pedagogical innovation. (DIPF/Orig.)