02. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Poster
Analysis of Cognitively-Activating Tasks in Vocational Education and Training of Nursing Against the Background of Diversity
Miriam Schäfer1, Bärbel Wesselborg1, Ulrike Weyland2, Marc Kleinknecht3, Wilhelm Koschel2, Kristin Klar2
1Fliedner Fachhochschule Düsseldorf, Germany; 2Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany; 3Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Germany
Presenting Author: Schäfer, Miriam
Cognitively-activating tasks, which learners deal with independently during work phases, are indicators of high teaching quality (Klieme, 2019). So far, it is unclear whether cognitively activating tasks are used in vocational education and training of nursing (Wesselborg, Weyland & Kleinknecht, 2019). However, high-quality teaching can prepare students for the increasingly complex supply needs and new tasks in the health care system (Bartels, 2005).
In Europe, one of the most reknown theoretical frameworks for high teaching quality assumes three basic dimensions, which impact students‘ learning: classroom management, supportive climate and cognitive activation (Praetorius et al., 2018). The framework is based on strong empirical clues, which indicate the relevance of the three dimensions in education research (Klieme, 2019). The construct of cognitive activation has in particular been found to predict students‘ achievement (Baumert et al., 2010; Decristan et al., 2015).
The construct of cognitive activation is mostly conceptualized through the use of challenging tasks, which encourage students to engage in deeper learning activities and to develop an elaborate knowledge of the learning subject (Klieme, 2019). Nevertheless, the use of cognitively-activating tasks is tightly linked to the specific subject matter (Praetorius et al., 2014) and needs to be conceptualized for the unique specifics of each domain.
So far, neither the construct of cognitive activation nor cognitively-activating tasks have been researched in nursing education. Challenging tasks can foster students‘ deeper thinking and domain-specific problem-solving skills to meet the increasingly complex care needs of patients (Bartels, 2005; WHO, 2010). This is also important because currently an increasing number of culturally and linguistically diverse students worldwide take part in nursing programs (e.g. Jeong et al., 2011). Accordingly, teaching with adaptive and at the same time challenging tasks that enable each student to gain a conceptual understanding of nursing is an indispensable goal in nursing education.
Against this background, the current study aims to gain insight into the quality of tasks and potentially cognitively-activating subject-specific content.
To reach this aim four research questions were outlined to guide this study:
- Which criteria are described by nurse teachers in the vocational education and training in nursing to design cognitively-activating tasks?
- What potential for cognitive activation do tasks in the vocational education and training in nursing contain?
- Which domain-specific matters are especially cognitively-activating in the vocational education and training in nursing?
- What connection exists between the criteria described by nurse teachers in the vocational education and training in nursing to design cognitively-activating tasks and the actual design of tasks?
The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) (funding code 497938308).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe current study is carried out in a mixed-methods design. Nurse teachers (n = 20) are interviewed about their criteria to create challenging, and thus potentially cognitively-activating tasks. In addition, learning tasks (n = 60) from everyday lessons are assessed in relation to their potential for cognitive activation. To analyze these tasks, preliminary work is used. A subject-didactic category system has been developed to assess the potential for cognitive activation of tasks in the vocational education and training of nurses (Wesselborg et al., 2022). With seven dimensions (which also include, for example, an adapted form of the revised taxonomy of educational goals; Anderson et al., 2001), this first instrument enables a differentiated assessment of the potential for cognitive activation of tasks in the vocational education and training of nursing staff. There is a need for further development, in particular with regard to subject-specific differentiation. Based on the results of the task design criteria of the nurse teachers surveyed and the results of the task analysis, this category system can be further differentiated.
The interviews are analyzed deductively. The dimensions of the category system for surveying the potential for cognitive activation of tasks are used as the central categories. In addition, inductive categories can be formed (Mayring, 2019). The results of the different research methods are then triangulated and compared for similarities and differences (Denzin, 1989).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe first results of the interview analysis show, that nurse teachers often use cases to design tasks. When asked about design criteria to design cognitively-activating tasks the included nurse teachers weren`t aware of specific dimensions that are connected to the concept of cognitive activation. When confronted with relevant dimensions based on the subject-didactic category system to assess the cognitively-activating potential of tasks in the vocational education and training of nurses, however the teachers are quickly able to apprehend the presented dimensions. Furthermore, they can categorize their tasks alongside these dimensions and therefore analyze the cognitively-activating potential.
The first results hint at a gap between explicit and implicit knowledge of nurse teachers in the field of relevant dimensions to foster cognitive activation of nursing students and domain-specific criteria to design cognitively-activating tasks. Nevertheless, the subject-didactic category system to assess the cognitively-activating potential of tasks in the vocational education and training of nurses seems to contain relevant domain-specific dimensions. Prospectively, these dimensions can be utilized by nurse teachers to increase or decrease the potential for cognitive activation in learning tasks in the vocational education and training of nurses. Thus, the results of this study contribute to create an adaptive learning setting in in the vocational education and training of nurses.
ReferencesAnderson, L.W., Krathwohl, D.R. et al. (Eds.) (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives. New York, NY u.a.: Longman.
Baumert, J., Kunter, M., Blum, W., Brunner, M., Voss, T., Jordan, A., Voss, T, Jordan, A. Klusmann, U., Krauss, S., Neubrand, M. & Ysai, Y.-M. (2010). Teachers' mathematical knowledge, cognitive activation in the classroom, and student progress. American Educational Research Journal, 47(1), 133–180.
Bartels, J. E. (2005). Educating nurses for the 21st century. Nursing & health sciences, 7(4), 221-225.
Decristan, J., Hondrich, A., Büttner, G., Hertel, S., Klieme, E., Kunter, M., Lühken, A., AdlAmini, K., Djakovic, S., Mannel, S., Naumann, A., & Hardy, I. (2015). Impact of additional guidance in science education on primary students’ conceptual understanding. The Journal of Educational Research, 108(5), 358–370.
Denzin N. K. (1989). The Research Act. A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods. McGraw Hill, New York.
Jeong, S.Y.-S., Hickey, N., Levett-Jones, T., Pitt, V., Hoffman, K., Norton, C.A., Ohr, S.O. (2011). Understanding and enhancing the learning experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse nursing students in an Australian bachelor of nursing program. Nurse Education Today, 31(3), 238–44.
Klieme, E. (2019). Unterrichtsqualität. In Harring, M. Rohlfs, C., Gläser-Zikuda, M. (Eds.), Handbuch Schulpädagogik (pp. 393-408). Münster, New York: Waxmann.
Mayring, P. (2020). Qualitative Content Analysis: Demarcation, Varieties, Developments. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 20(3). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-20.3.3343.
Praetorius, A.-K., Klieme, E., Herbert, B. & Pinger, P. (2018). Generic dimensions of teaching quality: The German framework of the three basic dimensions. ZDM Mathematics Education, 50(3), 407-426.
Praetorius, A.-K., Pauli, C., Reusser, K., Rakoczy, K. & Klieme, E. (2014). One lesson is all you need? Stability of instructional quality across lessons. Learning and Instruction, 31(1), 2-12.
Wesselborg, B., Kleinknecht, M., Bögemann-Grossheim, E., Hoehnen, M. (2022). Analyse des kognitiven Potenzials von Aufgaben in der beruflichen Fachrichtung Pflege. Entwicklung und Erprobung eines fachdidaktischen Kategoriensystems. In Weyland, U. & Reiber, K. (Eds.), Professionalisierung der Gesundheitsberufe (pp. 321-348). Stuttgart: Steiner.
Wesselborg, B., Weyland, U. & Kleinknecht, M. (2019). Entwicklung eines fachdidaktischen Kategoriensystems zur Analyse des kognitiv-aktivierenden Potenzials von Aufgaben – ein Beitrag zur Unterrichtsqualitätsforschung in der beruflichen Fachrichtung Pflege. In Wittmann, E., Frommberger, D. & Weyland, U. (Eds.), Jahrbuch der berufs- und wirtschaftspädagogischen Forschung 2019 (pp. 75-92). Opladen u.a.: Budrich.
World Health Organization (2011). Patient safety curriculum guide: multi-professional edition. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241501958.
02. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Paper
The Important Role of Emotional Intelligence for Apprentices in Healthcare and Social Care in Vocational Education and Training.
Laure Tremonte-Freydefont, Matilde Wenger, Marina Fiori
SFUVET, Switzerland
Presenting Author: Tremonte-Freydefont, Laure
The training courses for healthcare assistants and social care workers certified by a Federal vocational education and training (VET) Diploma are relatively recent in the Swiss initial VET (IVET) landscape. Despite this, of the approximately 240 training courses on offer in the IVET, the two training courses rank 2nd (healthcare assistants) and 4th (social care workers) respectively in the ten most popular IVET courses undertaken by young people in Switzerland (State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI, 2022). These facts reflect the popularity of training in the social and health professions among Swiss apprentices and justify taking a more detailed interest in this population. More specifically and considering the place that emotions’ management holds in the learning of these professions, it seems to be very relevant to focus on emotional intelligence. Defining emotional intelligence (EI) as the capacities of an individual to identify his/her own emotional reactions, others’ emotional reactions, to express them, to control them and deeply understand and use this understanding as support to the action, the scientific literature reports the important role of EI in the health sector (Vlachou et al., 2016). Indeed, as this type of profession is centered on technical care and compassion, it requires an important emotional commitment, the latter influencing the quality of care. When nurses understand, identify, and manage their own emotions and the patients’ ones, the patient’s satisfaction increases (Dugue et al., 2021). As for the classical education path in health sector, several studies showed the correlation between emotional competences and achievement in nurse school too. Indeed, Nurse students with higher EI experience a higher resilience (Cleary et al., 2018), better chances of success (Singh et al., 2020), and manage stress and anxiety in a more efficient way than students with lower EI (Lewis et al., 2017).
In the field of social work and health, research showed the positive effects of EI on abilities to think, empathy, psychological health and resilience of social workers (Grant & Kinman, 2012; Grant et al., 2014). Despite the large literature covering the positive link between EI and success at school, especially in social and health sector, this subject has not been investigated in the VET context (Sauli et al., 2022).
Our present goal was to demonstrate the impact of EI in the education of professions such as health and social workers. Without trying to answer if EI must be considered as a trait of personality or as a ability (Mayer et al., 2008; Neubauer & Freudenthaler, 2005), we agree that EI as ability and as personality trait are complementary. Thus, we aimed to demonstrate that EI as personality trait and as ability influence positively school achievement in VET context—although in different ways--and will assess both aspects of EI. We predict that students with higher EI will be more successful than student with lower EI, meaning that they will obtain higher grades than students with lower EI. Moreover, we predict that students with higher EI will be more efficient in regulating their emotions and thus manage stress and conflicts in a better way than students with lower IE, leading to increased quality of life and higher engagement at school, both important factors fostering vocational achievement. To our knowledge, this study is the first to show that EI leads to better performance in the VET context.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedAn online survey was completed by 110 dual IVET apprentices in health and social care professions in a Swiss vocational school. The survey was composed by different psychological tests in their French version: the Situational Test of Emotional Understanding (STEU; assessing EI as ability), the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue; assessing EI as personality trait) the Ten Items Personality Inventory (TIPI), the shortened Raven Standard Progressive Matrices (RAPM; measuring general intelligence), and the commitment to school scale. Participants also answered some sociodemographic questions. In addition, a prior agreement with the participants and the vocational school had been reached to obtain the final exam marks. The survey was completed during a class period and lasted approximately 30 minutes. After exclusion of participants that did not fully complete the survey and after obtaining the grades from the final exam, we run the statistical analysis on 92 participants (77 females and 15 males; age: M=21,64, SE=2,63).
The main results showed significant positive correlations between EI as ability and the final grade, r (92) = .24, p = .02. Moreover, we conducted hierarchical regressions analysis to observe the influence of EI as ability and as personality trait on the final grade. Finally, the third block was. The first block composed of the socio-demographic data revealed that gender significantly influence the final grade (β=.22, t(88)=2.13, p=.04). Neither age nor orientation (social or health) significantly influence the final grade. The second block (referring to the scores obtained at the raven and the TIPI) showed no significant influence of the sub-scale of the TIPI personality test. In the third block (composed of the scores obtained at the STEU and the TeiQue-VF), we observed that EI as ability (β=.31, t(85)=2.82, p<.01) and as personality trait (β=.32, t(89)=2.08, p=.04) significantly influence the final grade R2 = .20, F(2, 72)=4.98, p<.01.
To fully investigate the impact of EI on school achievement, we created 2 groups (low EI vs. high EI) based on their STEU scores and 2 groups based on their TEIQue scores. Results from ANOVAS showed that EI as ability plays a role in the cognitive part of the theoretical training whereas EI as personality trait influences the practical part of the education. For example, participants in the ‘High EI as personality trait group’ obtained significant better practical work grade (M=5.37, SD=.10) than participants in the ‘Low EI as personality trait group’ (M=5.08, SD=.09), F(1, 84)=4.12, p=.045.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe present study aimed to demonstrate the role of EI on school achievement in VET context. We posited that EI as trait of personality and as ability will positively influence the final grades of student in health and social care domains. Our results confirmed our hypothesis and highlight the crucial roles of EI as ability and as personality trait on school achievement in the dual vocational education. These new findings showed that EI as ability is more likely to play a role in the cognitive part of the theoretical training whereas EI as personality trait seems to influence the practical part of the education. EI Research on the subject may be extended to understand which specific EI skills are most important for apprentices and for which professional sector. These results speak for taking more seriously the role of emotions and emotional competences in VET, especially regarding professions such as health care and social workers. Moreover, this result allows us to question the link between the choice of training and the tendency to have particularly high EI levels. In other words, it would be very interesting to study in more detail whether emotional competences have been acquired through apprenticeship in occupations where these skills are central, or whether having some kind of 'predisposition' or acute emotional sensitivity leads people to choose occupations in care and social work.
ReferencesCleary, M., Visentin, D., West, S., Lopez, V., & Kornhaber, R. (2018). Promoting emotional intelligence and resilience in undergraduate nursing students: An integrative review. Nurse Educ Today, 68, 112-120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2018.05.018
Dugue, M., Sirost, O., & Dosseville, F. (2021). A literature review of emotional intelligence and nursing education. Nurse Educ Pract, 54, 103124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2021.103124
Grant, L., & Kinman, G. (2012). Enhancing Wellbeing in Social Work Students: Building Resilience in the Next Generation. Social Work Education, 31(5), 605-621. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2011.590931
Grant, L., Kinman, G., & Alexander, K. (2014). What's All this Talk About Emotion? Developing Emotional Intelligence in Social Work Students. Social Work Education, 33(7), 874-889. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2014.891012
Lewis, G. M., Neville, C., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2017). Emotional intelligence and affective events in nurse education: A narrative review. Nurse Educ Today, 53, 34-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2017.04.001
Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2008). Emotional intelligence: new ability or eclectic traits? The American psychologist, 63 6, 503-517.
Neubauer, A. C., & Freudenthaler, H. H. (2005). Models of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence: An international handbook, 2005, 31-50.
Sauli, F., Wenger, M., & Fiori, M. (2022). Emotional competences in vocational education and training: state of the art and guidelines for interventions. Empirical Research in Vocational Education and Training, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40461-022-00132-8
Singh, N., Kulkarni, S., & Gupta, R. (2020). Is emotional intelligence related to objective parameters of academic performance in medical, dental, and nursing students: A systematic review. Educ Health (Abingdon), 33(1), 8-12. https://doi.org/10.4103/efh.EfH_208_17
Vlachou, E. M., Damigos, D., Lyrakos, G., Chanopoulos, K., Kosmidis, G., & Miltiades, K. (2016). the Relationship between Burnout Syndrome and Emotional Intelligence in Healthcare Professionals. Health Science Journal, 10(5.2). https://doi.org/10.4172/1791-809X.1000100502
02. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Paper
Vocational Didactics in Sweden: Mapping of the Terrain
Martina Wyszynska Johansson1, Ingela Andersson2
1Högskolan Väst, Sweden; 2Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden
Presenting Author: Wyszynska Johansson, Martina
This paper deals with vocational didactics in vocational education and training (VET) in the context of Upper Secondary Vocational Education and Training (USVET) in Sweden. The aim of this paper is to stimulate and contribute to an ongoing discussion on the growth and diversification of vocational didactics as a strand in research on VET. By mapping Swedish research, the question of what contemporary characteristics of vocational didactics in USVET can be outlined is explored. The theoretical framework applied is continental didaktik (hereafter didactics) in dialogue with vocational pedagogy, foregrounding broader issues of vocational becoming. Vocational becoming encompasses two dimensions, that is both knowledge building and identity formation as regards young people. Internationally, VET is embedded in national contexts with various models in co-existence. Bearing in mind the diversity of VET models from a European perspective, vocational didactics represent therefore a variety of approaches. In general, empirical research on dual VET models and school-based models contributes to the growth of vocational didactics as a scientific field. The integrity of such field must account for novel initiatives such as new training models that are introduced at a national curriculum level. In the case of Sweden representing mainly school-based VET models, the work-based education component is gaining importance, possibly producing effects in vocational didactics as one research strand in research on VET. Such expansion of research on VET raises questions of borders and boundaries of what distinct features characterize vocational didactics as an evolving scientific field.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedDidactic concepts are applied to acknowledge and account for learning occupations captured by and theoretically framed as vocational becoming. Based on these frameworks, an analytic tool is proposed as a means to access Swedish research on vocational didactics in the context of USVET. This model acknowledges the basic premise for didactics as the interplay between the content, the method and actors involved in teaching and learning as we differentiated three possible foci: 1) The content as meaning and matter, that is, vocational knowledge and identity and its legitimation by work tasks and school assignments, 2) Methods, that is, work tasks and school assignments that underpin the content, 3) A minimum of two parties (teacher and student) involved. The foci are subsequently interconnected forming three distinct relationships or as we call them the three aspects A-B-C. To map features of research on vocational didactics we compiled a sample of Swedish studies, applying certain inclusion criteria. Our reading of abstracts and subsequent analysis was guided by a set of questions that aim at tracing the presence of the three aspects A-B-C. Using the interplay of the three aspects above as a unit of analysis, a sample was identified for further analysis. The analysis enabled us to thematize the sample into three strands: 1) vocational didactics in the school-based education, 2) collaborative vocational didactics, and 3) vocational didactics in work-based education.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsMapping the contours of contemporary vocational didactics in Sweden enables us to put some tentative suggestions regarding the development of the field. The integrity of vocational didactics in Sweden as a distinct field relies on how the issue of diversification and specialization is dealt with, for instance in relation to vocational subject didactics. By applying our analytic model to empirical research on USVET we can tentatively outline four distinct features as contemporary characteristics of vocational didactics in USVET. The features encompass the use of simulation, broadening of instruction, the use of work tasks and focus on interaction. The features also implicitly point in the direction of gaps and a need to further investigate issues of e.g., the use of work tasks by different stakeholders in various contexts of service and production sectors. In conclusion, to strengthen the integrity of vocational didactics as a scientific field, we propose that Swedish research into vocational didactics can be enriched by coming into dialogue with research that has a stronger epistemological base in competence discourses, especially with its strong emphasis on quality, foregrounding the issues of both identity and knowledge.
ReferencesAarkrog, V. (2011). A Taxonomy for Teaching Transfer Skills in the Danish VET System. Nordic Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 1(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3384/njvet.2242-458X.11v1i1a5
Andersson, I. (2018). Workplace Learning for School-Based Apprenticeships: Tripartite Conversations as a Boundary-Crossing Tool. I R. Maclean, S. Choy, G-B. Wärvik, & V. Lindberg, Integration of Vocational Education and Training Experiences: Purposes, Practices and Principles (s. 259-278). Vol. 29, Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects. Singapore: Springer Singapore.
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Brockmann, M., Clarke, L., & Winch, C. (2008). Knowledge, skills, competence: European divergences in vocational education and training (VET)—the English, German and Dutch cases. Oxford review of education, 34(5), 547-567.
Fejes, A., Lindberg, V. & Wärvik, G.-B. (2017). Yrkesdidaktisk forskning in i framtiden. I A. Fejes, V. Lindberg & G.-B. Wärvik, G. (red.) (2017). Yrkesdidaktikens mångfald, s. 269–275. Stockholm: Lärarförlaget.
Gessler, M. (2017). The Lack of Collaboration Between Companies and Schools in the German Dual Apprenticeship System: Historical Background and Recent Data. International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training, 4(2), 164–195. https://doi.org/10.13152/IJRVET.4.2.4
Gessler, M., & Herrera, L. M. (2015). Vocational didactics: core assumptions and approaches from Denmark, Germany, Norway, Spain and Sweden. International journal for research in vocational education and training, 2(3), 152-160. (387 ord)
Krogh, E., & Qvortrup, A. (2021). Towards laboratories for meta-reflective didactics: On dialogues between general and disciplinary didactics. In Didaktik and Curriculum in Ongoing Dialogue (pp. 119-136). Routledge.
Mulder, M.(2016). Competence and the alignment of education and work. In M. Mulder (ed.). Competence-Based Vocational and Professional Education: Bridging the worlds of work and education (pp. 229-251). Springer International Publishing AG.
Nore, H. (2015). Re-contextualizing vocational didactics in Norwegian vocational education and training. International journal for research in vocational education and training, 2(3), 182-194.
Pahl, JP. (2014). Vocational Education Research: Research on Vocational Pedagogy, Vocational Discipline and Vocational Didactics. In: Zhao, Z., Rauner, F. (eds) Areas of Vocational Education Research. New Frontiers of Educational Research. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54224-4_2
Virtanen, A., Tynjälä, P., & Eteläpelto, A. (2014). Factors promoting vocational students’ learning at work: study on student experiences. Journal of Education and Work, 27(1), 43-70.
Wyszynska Johansson, M. (2018). Student experience of vocational becoming in upper secondary vocational education and training: Navigating by feedback. [Doctoral thesis]. Göteborgs universitet. http://hdl.handle.net/2077/56755
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