This report is the result of a study commissioned by UNESCO-UNEVOC to fill the gap both on mapping the landscape of the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and open practices in the field of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and to provide Member States and UNESCO, in particular UNESCO-UNEVOC, with recommendations to support the creation and the use of OER in TVET.
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Purpose - This paper provides an overview on the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) program components/mechanisms and their overall effect on learning outcomes in a developing country context. Design/methodology/approach - Using secondary data, this descriptive case study integrates the realistic evaluation framework of Pawson and Tilley (1997) with Total Quality Management (TQM) frameworks. Findings - Ethiopia's TVET system adopts/adapts international best practices. Following the implementation of the 2008 TVET strategy, the proportion of formal TVET graduates who were recognized as competent by the assessment and certification system increased from 17.42 percent in 2009/2010 to 40.23 percent in 2011/2012. Nevertheless, there is regional variation. Research limitations/implications - Outcome-based TVET reforms that are based on TQM frameworks could improve learning outcome achievements in developing countries by enhancing awareness, coordination, integration, flexibility, participation, empowerment, accountability and a quality culture. Nevertheless, this research is limited by lack of longitudinal data on competency test results. There is also a need for further investigation into the practice of TQM and the sources of differences in internal effectiveness across TVET institutions. Practical implications - Our description of the Ethiopian reform experience, which is based on international best experience, could better inform policy makers and practitioners in TVETelsewhere in Africa. Originality/value - A realistic evaluation of TVET programs, the articulation of the mechanisms, especially based on TQM, that affect TVET effectiveness would add some insight into the literature. The evidence we have provided from the Ethiopian case is also fresh. Keywords TVET reform, TVET quality, Total quality management, Internal effectiveness, Realistic evaluation, Developing countries, Ethiopia
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One of the most important issues in vocational education is the interaction between learning at school and at different workplaces. Students need to transfer what they have learned in and between these different learning arenas. However, little agreement exists among researchers on how to conceptualise and empirically study transfer of learning. This article aims to enhance our understanding of this process in technical vocational education by adding a new perspective on transfer: the phenomenological lifeworld approach. Eleven interviews with students enrolled in the Energy and Industry programmes at a Swedish upper-secondary school were conducted. Three transfer themes emerged from the data: learning for new situations, variation and integration of theory and practice. The student perspective, based on the lifeworld approach shows that the different learning arenas – the school and workplaces – can complement each other. The learning arenas offer different opportunities for learning, and learning in both arenas is necessary in order to prepare for an unknown future, according to the students in this study.
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Purpose Non-technical skills have gained attention, since enhancement of these skills is presumed to improve the process of trauma resuscitation. However, the reliability of assessing non-technical skills is underexposed, especially when using video analysis. Therefore, our primary aim was to assess the reliability of the Trauma Non-Technical Skills (T-NOTECHS) tool by video analysis. Secondarily, we investigated to what extent reliability increased when the T-NOTECHS was assessed by three assessors [average intra-class correlation (ICC)] instead of one (individual ICC). Methods As calculated by a pre-study power analysis, 18 videos were reviewed by three research assistants using the T-NOTECHS tool. Average and individual degree of agreement of the assessors was calculated using a two-way mixed model ICC. Results Average ICC was ‘excellent’ for the overall score and all five domains. Individual ICC was classified as ‘excellent’ for the overall score. Of the five domains, only one was classified as ‘excellent’, two as ‘good’ and two were even only ‘fair’. Conclusions Assessment of non-technical skills using the T-NOTECHS is reliable using video analysis and has an excellent reliability for the overall T-NOTECHS score. Assessment by three raters further improve the reliability, resulting in an excellent reliability for all individual domains.
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Over the past decade, more and more studies have been published about OER adoptionby educators and educational institutions. The largest part of these studies is about OER in Higher Education and a growing amount is about OER and open textbooks in K-12 education. In addition, according to De Olivereira Netoet al (2017), most studies are focused on the Global North where education instructors “enjoy comparatively higher levels of economic development, educational provision, policy elaboration, and technological access than those in the Global South. This means that less is known about educators’ OER-related practices in the regionwhere OER is touted as having its potentially greatest impact”(De Olivereira Netoet al,2017:2-3).Despite the steadily growing number of studies on the use of OER by educators, there is part of the realm of education that still is ‘a dark continent’ for OER and OER studies, namely Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET). As an indicator, we have analyzed the database from the OER Knowledgecloud1, considered representative for the current state of international OER research, being available as Open Access. With a total of 1638 items in the database (27 October, 9:35 CEST), searching on “technical AND vocational” only gave 2 results (dating from 2011 and 2012).The research presented in this paperprovides the results of a systematic international literature review with the aim of localizing relevant studies on the potentialities and use of OER in TVET. The information from this literature review has been complemented by data from an international quantitative survey taken by members of an UNESCO TVET forum, and from semi-structured interviews with international TVET experts.
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The Technical Manual for the digital evaluation tool QualiTePE supports users of the QualiTePE tool in creating, conducting and analysing evaluations to record the quality of teaching in physical education. The information on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) instructs users on how to anonymise the data collection of evaluations and which legal bases apply with regard to the collection of personal data. The technical manual for the digital evaluation tool QualiTePE and the information on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are available in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Slovenian, Czech and Greek.
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This study investigates the mediating role of organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) on the leader-member exchange (LMX) and employee performance relation and the degree to which work experience moderates the relation between leader-member exchange and OCBs. Lecturers from six technical universities in Ghana, making up three hundred and thirty-six lecturers, were selected using convenience sampling. The participants completed self-administered surveys. OCBs fully mediated the association between LMX and employee performance. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the interplay between LMX and work experience on OCBs is compensatory in nature such that as work experience increases, the positive association between LMX and OCBs decrease. Managers of higher education institutions should create enabling work environments that encourage high-quality LMX and citizenship behaviours. Moreover, as work experience tends to attenuate the positive influence of LMX on OCBs, managers in higher education should focus their attention on employees with low rather than high work experience. This research adds to the employee performance literature through examining a novel link among leader-member exchange, organizational citizenship behaviours and performance.
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Innovation is crucial for higher education to ensure high-quality curricula that address the changing needs of students, labor markets, and society as a whole. Substantial amounts of resources and enthusiasm are devoted to innovations, but often they do not yield the desired changes. This may be due to unworkable goals, too much complexity, and a lack of resources to institutionalize the innovation. In many cases, innovations end up being less sustainable than expected or hoped for. In the long term, the disappointing revenues of innovations hamper the ability of higher education to remain future proof. Against the background of this need to increase the success of educational innovations, our colleague Klaartje van Genugten has explored the literature on innovations to reveal mechanisms that contribute to the sustainability of innovations. Her findings are synthesized in this report. They are particularly meaningful for directors of education programs, curriculum committees, educational consultants, and policy makers, who are generally in charge of defining the scope and set up of innovations. Her report offers a comprehensive view and provides food for thought on how we can strive for future-proof and sustainable innovations. I therefore recommend reading this report.
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The importance of teaching engineering students innovation development is commonly clearly understood. It is essential to achieve products which are attractive and profitable in the market. To achieve this, an institute of engineering education has to provide students with needed knowledge, skills and attitudes including both technical and business orientation. This is important especially for SME’s. Traditionally, education of engineering provides students with basic understanding how to solve common technical problems. However companies need wider view to achieve new products. Universities of applied Sciences in Oulu and Eindhoven want to research what is the today’s educational situation for this aim, to find criteria to improve the content of the educational system, and to improve the educational system. Important stakeholders are teachers and students within the institute but also key-persons in companies. The research is realized by questionnaires and interviews from which a current situation can be found. The research will also include the opinion of management who give possibilities to change the curriculum. By this research more insight will be presented about how to re-design a current curriculum. The research will act as basis for this discussion in SEFI-conference about formulating a curriculum that includes elements for wide-ranging knowledge and skills to achieve innovations especially in SME’s.
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The importance of teaching engineering students innovation development is commonly clearly understood. It is essential to achieve products which are attractive and profitable in the market. To achieve this, an institute of engineering education has to provide students with needed knowledge, skills and attitudes including both technical and business orientation. This is important especially for SME’s. Traditionally, education of engineering provides students with basic understanding how to solve common technical problems. However companies need wider view to achieve new products. Universities of applied Sciences in Oulu and Eindhoven want to research what is the today’s educational situation for this aim, to find criteria to improve the content of the educational system, and to improve the educational system. Important stakeholders are teachers and students within the institute but also key-persons in companies. The research is realized by questionnaires and interviews from which a current situation can be found. The research will also include the opinion of management who give possibilities to change the curriculum. By this research more insight will be presented about how to re-design a current curriculum. The research will act as basis for this discussion in SEFI-conference about formulating a curriculum that includes elements for wide-ranging knowledge and skills to achieve innovations especially in SME’s.
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