VET students’ integration of knowledge engaged with in school-based and workplace-based learning environments in the Netherlands

Abstract

In vocational education, students learn in different school-based and workplace-based learning environments and engage with different types of knowledge in these environments. Students are expected to integrate these experiences and make meaning of them in relation to their own professional knowledge base. This study focuses both on what types of knowledge students learn in these environments and how they integrate these different types of knowledge. Individual and group interviews were conducted with students, teachers and workplace supervisors in a vocational programme in the Netherlands. Results show that students recognise the importance of vocational knowledge learned in school-based learning environments while they are in the workplace and vice versa, and continuously contextualise knowledge to make it applicable for new circumstances. Also, students learn differently at school due to their experiences in the workplace. © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Vocational education workplace learning school-based learning contextualisation

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations

Research Group Vocational Education, Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, Netherlands

Department of Educational Studies, Karlstads Universitet, Karlstad, Värmland, Sweden

Funding & Acknowledgements

No funding information

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VET students’ integration of knowledge engaged with in school-based and workplace-based learning environments in the Netherlands

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