Choosing VET as a post-school activity: What are some influences on non-metropolitan students?
- Smith, Erica, Foley, Annette
- Authors: Smith, Erica , Foley, Annette
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: AVETRA 21 Virtual conference: recover, rethink, rebuild: all eyes on VET, 19-23 April 2021
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper draws on data from recently-completed research funded by the Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) and undertaken in the State of Victoria, in six non-metropolitan communities: three in rural/regional areas and three in peri-urban areas. The rationale for the research was that, despite decades of effort, education outcomes for rural and regional areas in Australia remain well under the Australian average (Napthine et al, 2019), partly because so many young people need to leave home to attend tertiary education (McKenzie, 2014). There is almost no specific research on peri-urban areas. For this paper we have extracted data, from selected phases of the project, specifically to find out why young people may or may not make VET choices. The method for this paper comprised analysis of data from each site, consisting of: • Interviews with VET-sector organisations; • ‘Snapshot surveys’, completed, prior to interviews and focus groups, by 80 young people in schools and 32 in their second-year out; • Publicly-available government ‘On-Track’ data (DET, 2018), of young people in their first year out of school. Recent related literature looks at VET choices in terms of the perceived and actual financial rewards of VET choices (e.g. Norton & Charastidtham, 2019); or in terms of the perceived status of VET choices (e.g. Billett, Choy & Hodge, 2019). Our research showed a complex picture with a number of factors (personal, environmental, cultural background and geographic) influencing choices; and also a perception that VET means apprenticeships, almost to the exclusion of traineeships or full-time VET. The agency of individual schools and of VET providers or apprenticeship organisations was also found to be important. The findings have clear implications for both policy and practice.
- Authors: Smith, Erica , Foley, Annette
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: AVETRA 21 Virtual conference: recover, rethink, rebuild: all eyes on VET, 19-23 April 2021
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: This paper draws on data from recently-completed research funded by the Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) and undertaken in the State of Victoria, in six non-metropolitan communities: three in rural/regional areas and three in peri-urban areas. The rationale for the research was that, despite decades of effort, education outcomes for rural and regional areas in Australia remain well under the Australian average (Napthine et al, 2019), partly because so many young people need to leave home to attend tertiary education (McKenzie, 2014). There is almost no specific research on peri-urban areas. For this paper we have extracted data, from selected phases of the project, specifically to find out why young people may or may not make VET choices. The method for this paper comprised analysis of data from each site, consisting of: • Interviews with VET-sector organisations; • ‘Snapshot surveys’, completed, prior to interviews and focus groups, by 80 young people in schools and 32 in their second-year out; • Publicly-available government ‘On-Track’ data (DET, 2018), of young people in their first year out of school. Recent related literature looks at VET choices in terms of the perceived and actual financial rewards of VET choices (e.g. Norton & Charastidtham, 2019); or in terms of the perceived status of VET choices (e.g. Billett, Choy & Hodge, 2019). Our research showed a complex picture with a number of factors (personal, environmental, cultural background and geographic) influencing choices; and also a perception that VET means apprenticeships, almost to the exclusion of traineeships or full-time VET. The agency of individual schools and of VET providers or apprenticeship organisations was also found to be important. The findings have clear implications for both policy and practice.
Young people’s decision-making as they leave school in non-metropolitan areas in Australia : insights from those working with young people
- Smith, Erica, Foley, Annette
- Authors: Smith, Erica , Foley, Annette
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: SCUTREA (Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults) Adult Education 100: Reflections & Reconstructions, University of Nottingham, U.K., 2-4 July 2019 p. 107-114
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- Reviewed:
- Authors: Smith, Erica , Foley, Annette
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: SCUTREA (Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults) Adult Education 100: Reflections & Reconstructions, University of Nottingham, U.K., 2-4 July 2019 p. 107-114
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
Wicked learning : Reflecting on Learning to be drier
- Golding, Barry, Brown, Michael, Foley, Annette, Smith, Erica, Campbell, Coral, Schulz, Christine, Angwin, Jennifer, Grace, Lauri
- Authors: Golding, Barry , Brown, Michael , Foley, Annette , Smith, Erica , Campbell, Coral , Schulz, Christine , Angwin, Jennifer , Grace, Lauri
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 49, no. 3 (2009), p. 544-566
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- Description: In this final, collaborative paper in the Learning to be drier edition, we reflect on and draw together some of the key threads from the diverse narratives in our four site papers from across the southern Murray-Darling Basin. Our paper title, Wicked learning, draws on a recent body literature (Rittel & Webber 1973) about messy or 'wicked problems' as characterised by Dietz and Stern (1998). It picks up on our identification of the difficulty and enormity of the learning challenges being faced by communities, associated, at best, with a decade of record dry years (drought) and severely over-committed rivers. At worst, drought is occurring in combination with and as a precursor to recent, progressive drying of the Basin associated with climate change. Our research is suggestive of a need for much more learning across all segments of the adult community about '... the big picture, including the interrelationships among the full range of causal factors ...' (Australian Public Service Commission, APSC 2007: 1) underlying the presenting problem of drying. We conclude that solutions to the messy or wicked problem of drying in an interconnected Basin will lie in the social domain. This will include building a wider knowledge and acceptance of the problems and likely future risks across the Basin including all parts of communities. The problem of drying as well as its causes and solutions are multidimensional, and will involve comprehensive learning about all five key characteristics of other 'wicked' policy problems identified in previous research in the environmental arena. The narratives that we have heard identify the extreme difficulty in all four sites of rational and learned responses to being drier as the problem has unfolded. All narratives about being drier that we have heard involve a recognition of a combination of the five characteristics common to wicked problems: multidimensionality, scientific uncertainty, value conflict and uncertainty, mistrust as well as urgency. All narratives identify the importance of social learning: to be productive, to be efficient, to survive, to live with uncertainty, to be sustainable and to share. Combating the extent and effects of drying, causality aside, will require new forms of learning through new community, social and learning spaces, apart from and in addition to new technological and scientific learning.
- Description: 2003007975
- Authors: Golding, Barry , Brown, Michael , Foley, Annette , Smith, Erica , Campbell, Coral , Schulz, Christine , Angwin, Jennifer , Grace, Lauri
- Date: 2009
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Australian Journal of Adult Learning Vol. 49, no. 3 (2009), p. 544-566
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: In this final, collaborative paper in the Learning to be drier edition, we reflect on and draw together some of the key threads from the diverse narratives in our four site papers from across the southern Murray-Darling Basin. Our paper title, Wicked learning, draws on a recent body literature (Rittel & Webber 1973) about messy or 'wicked problems' as characterised by Dietz and Stern (1998). It picks up on our identification of the difficulty and enormity of the learning challenges being faced by communities, associated, at best, with a decade of record dry years (drought) and severely over-committed rivers. At worst, drought is occurring in combination with and as a precursor to recent, progressive drying of the Basin associated with climate change. Our research is suggestive of a need for much more learning across all segments of the adult community about '... the big picture, including the interrelationships among the full range of causal factors ...' (Australian Public Service Commission, APSC 2007: 1) underlying the presenting problem of drying. We conclude that solutions to the messy or wicked problem of drying in an interconnected Basin will lie in the social domain. This will include building a wider knowledge and acceptance of the problems and likely future risks across the Basin including all parts of communities. The problem of drying as well as its causes and solutions are multidimensional, and will involve comprehensive learning about all five key characteristics of other 'wicked' policy problems identified in previous research in the environmental arena. The narratives that we have heard identify the extreme difficulty in all four sites of rational and learned responses to being drier as the problem has unfolded. All narratives about being drier that we have heard involve a recognition of a combination of the five characteristics common to wicked problems: multidimensionality, scientific uncertainty, value conflict and uncertainty, mistrust as well as urgency. All narratives identify the importance of social learning: to be productive, to be efficient, to survive, to live with uncertainty, to be sustainable and to share. Combating the extent and effects of drying, causality aside, will require new forms of learning through new community, social and learning spaces, apart from and in addition to new technological and scientific learning.
- Description: 2003007975
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